juggling teaching and dissertating

I’m hoping to finish revising the review of lit by Saturday morning, and then go back to chapter 5. I think I’ll have more clarity about chapter 5 after working on the review. So then I’m hoping to have

• chapter 5 drafted by September 30


• chapter 6 drafted by October 4


• chapter 1 revised by October 9


• the whole thing sent to my advisor by October 16

And then the real revision hell will begin.

Chris asked a while back for pointers on how to manage teaching and dissertating. For the entire time that I’ve been working on my Ph.D., I’ve been teaching a 5/5 load, and I’ve managed to maintain a fairly active social life, train for and run a marathon, indulge in hobbies, give birth to and mother a daughter, maintain a healthy marriage. . . . and not lose my sanity (or not lose it permanently, anyway), so I have actually developed some pretty good strategies for managing it all.

I think the most important strategy is to keep a regular schedule with times blocked out for studying for comps or working on the dissertation. Don’t be silly and schedule yourself to work on your dissertation on Friday nights—you know you won’t do it. Whenever you have a dissertation time scheduled, honor it like you would any other appointment. If you can’t honor it, reschedule it, but don’t just skip it.

When possible, find ways to link what you’re doing in your classes or on committees with your dissertation. Even when things don’t actually overlap, finding even tangential connections helps me feel less scattered. For example, my dissertation deals in large part with how instructor and peer comments impact student revisions. When I coordinated the Writing Center, I talked to tutors informally about how their sessions with students might lead to particular revisions. These conversations helped me stay focused on my dissertation and provide some feedback to tutors.

Become really organized. Read Getting Things Done and implement all the systems described. They work.

Stick to a regular work out schedule. Working out is a great way to stay healthy (if you get sick, you can’t be productive on your diss), stay sane, and stay focused.

Eat well. Drink well. Sleep well. Socialize well. Don’t become a hermit or malnourished or sleep-deprived. None of these things will help you get your diss done. It doesn’t make sense to let yourself get so run down that you get sick and then can’t work on your diss for a week. Cutting back on sleep isn’t a viable option, either. Drafts written on little to no sleep are shitty.

Accept that there will be times when you feel overwhelmed.

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