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Archive for the ‘creativity’ Category

She is in the last big push toward her defense, but she has had to climb mountains to get here. She has persevered in spite of incredible obstacles. Now she is demanding a great deal of herself by working until far in the night. As a scientist, she often is trying to make sense of numbers on a page or screen. When the numbers start to blur for her, she looks for a moment of fun, a change.

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By now, you’ve probably heard that Randy Pausch died Friday at the age of 47. 
Though known in the field of computer science, he had gained world-wide fame from his wise, clever “last lecture” at Carnegie Mellon in the fall of 2007.  At that time he had been told that because of aggressive pancreatic cancer, he had [...]

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Over the past week two different people, both of whom are approximately 32, seemed surprised that I had heard of the singing group Coldplay. 
The frenetic marketing of Coldplay’s new record would make it hard not to have heard of them.  To dig up a little more on Coldplay, I turned to YouTube. I found several [...]

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How would you like to make 20 percent more progress on your dissertation than you’re now making?
Bob Emmons, professor at the University of California, Davis, has found that having a grateful attitude can make that possible. 
The author of Thanks!  How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier, Prof. Emmons has made amazing research findings [...]

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1. What is the key to perseverance?
 Getting started is the key.
 The first step is the hardest.  Sit down and then stay there.
2. What is sending you right over the edge? 
 You are– Catastrophizing only raises your blood pressure.
 Who needs the drama?
 Remember: Catastrophizing is just another form of procrastination. 
3. Who could work at a desk stacked so [...]

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Getting some writing done this week will happen only if you let people know that you’re using every spare minute to write.
You need to go public and let others know that you aren’t kidding.  Then throw yourself into your writing.
One person I know says that for her status on Facebook this week, she has written [...]

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It’s a given that Thanksgiving and being grateful go together. 
But in Thanks!  How the new science of gratitude can make you happier, Robert A. Emmons goes beyond the commonplace notions on gratitude. 
•   Gratitude is acknowledging the help someone else has given us.
•   In spite of the difficulty and frustration we may experience in our writing [...]

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Most of us in the U.S. turned back our clocks this morning, giving us one extra hour.
Now you may think I’ll say that everyone writing a dissertation had one extra hour today to write.  Not me.  Not this time.
As I read the Washington Post this morning, a little earlier than I usually do on Sunday [...]

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I often ask my dissertation clients, when they commit to a goal, if this is a no- kidding, no-fooling goal.
Since it is often said that the key to finishing a dissertation is perseverance, I’m asking them if they will be unstoppable, and, in effect, to commit to perseverance.
But perseverance does not necessarily mean an all-out, urgent lock-down. 
One [...]

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I don’t watch NBA basketball because it’s NBA basketball.  But I will watch Steve Nash, the point guard from Canada who plays for Phoenix and is the winner of the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award.
Nash is bright and personable. I first saw him on David Letterman.  Last night Charlie  Rose interviewed Nash in a show [...]

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