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Archive for the ‘housecleaning’ Category

The cost of keeping score in a relationship

Posted in academic, boundaries, cleaning, decluttering, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, distractions, family, finishing the dissertation, happiness, housecleaning, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

A Saturday alone is a gift.

My husband is gone for the weekend, and I am writing.

As a reward to writing first, I promised myself a bit of email-inbox decluttering.

To see if I should read it or delete it, I clicked on Gretchen Rubin’s “5 Mistakes I Continue To Make in My Marriage.”

Of course, since I make mistakes in my marriage, I can’t help being curious.  While the title sounds like something that would be in a magazine at the grocery check-out, the author—Gretchen Rubin— writes engagingly about the application of positive psychology studies and theories to her own life.

If you feel that the demands of writing and working or teaching coupled with your tightly scheduled life create problems for your relationships and family life, you’ll appreciate hearing which mistakes Rubin addresses and some changes she has resolved to make.  I’m particularly struck by her #4 mistake that she continues to make in her marriage.

That mistake is Score-keeping.

She says that she keeps score—herself vs. her husband.

And she always believes that she is overly generous in her contributions to the house and family, while, of course, she finds her husband lacking.

Her score-keeping doesn’t account for overestimating her own contribution.

Rubin quotes University of Virginia psychology professor, Jonathan Haidt, who writes in The Happiness Hypothesis  that “when husbands and wives estimate the percentage of housework each does, their estimates total more than 120 percent.”

How about you?  Do you engage in score-keeping and start to get that testy, cranky feeling about all that you’re doing?

As you engage in score-keeping and struggle with the feelings that arise, you’re using energy and willpower that could go toward your writing.  And you’re doing damage to your relationships. Score-keeping is costly.

Keeping your relationship on an even keel is difficult when you’re engaged in an intense and time-consuming writing project.  It’s easy to fall into unconscious over-claiming (that is, unconsciously overestimating what you have done versus another person’s contribution) when you feel yourself sucked into yet another time-consuming task.

If you want to be productive during a scheduled writing session, decide ahead of time what you will do if score-keeping raises its ugly head.  Planning can help you avoid that emotional drain.

What costly mistakes do you find yourself making in your relationships?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take care of your relationships, and conserve your willpower.

Keep writing,

Nancy

Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.nancywhichard.com
nancy @ nancywhichard.com

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The Writer’s Downfall: Time-Sucks and Lack of Courage

Posted in children, decluttering, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, family, fears, finishing the dissertation, getting started, housecleaning, planning, reasons for not writing, relationships, self-care, self-deception, self-discipline, self-sabotage, time theft, Uncategorized, writing schedule, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »

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Many times writers hire me to coach them because they’re stuck.  They haven’t made substantial progress on their dissertation for months. 

What stuck often means is that the writers are having trouble claiming a chunk of time for the writing because of time-sucks.  Time-sucks come in all sizes and shapes. 

Facebook and email will be your undoing.  
Friend—give them up!  

In the interest of full disclosure, I do go on Facebook, but only because my nieces talked me into doing it.  I joined in order to see pictures of the little ones who live far and away.  No matter how many subscriptions I give to Your Big Backyard, Ranger Rick, National Geographic for Kids and Cricket, I get fewer and fewer pictures in the mail.  Thank-you notes, yes.  Pictures of the kids, not so many.  Thus, Facebook, but it’s just for the pictures. 

Babies are notorious time-sucks.
 Being a parent is high on the list for time-sucks, especially if your kids are young.   The youngest addition to my extended family showed up in a picture on Facebook with the words “Mommy’s attention hog” on his t-shirt. 

Because of a singular moment, I remember what I was thinking or not thinking around the time my youngest started kindergarten.  I was standing in line at the grocery and for the first time in ages I was startled to catch myself lost in thought. 

When one has kids, the state of being lost in thought takes planning and distance.  

Mindless activities get few gold stars.
 How much cleaning and straightening and folding do you need to do in order to feel good?  I think the more mindless activities you do, the worse you feel, kind of like eating Snickers bars, but I may be wrong. 

I am bothered by the stacks of files and papers in my house. I’ve delegated those decluttering tasks to 2 hours on Sunday while I watch TV.  Today was the second Sunday for using my new plan, and I’ve cleaned up a few stacks.  Two hours seem about right for me.  Any more than that and I’m suspicious that I’m procrastinating on something more important. 

Feel guilty asking for help from your spouse?
 Moms, especially, think they can multi-task, even if it’s writing a dissertation at the same time as they’re refereeing a tug-of-war the boys are having over a toy. 

A favorite story from a client was that she felt guilty asking her husband to take care of the kids on a Sunday afternoon when he worked so hard all week, and she, ostensibly, only had to take care of the kids.  The husband didn’t really mind taking care of the kids,  She would go to the library, and he would add seats for the kids in front of the TV—and not to watch cartoons, but to watch golf!  Not the worst thing, right?  The story goes that the kids learned to love golf. 

What I hear from my clients suggests that time skitters around corners, never to be seen, never to be caught, much as if it were a two-year-old.  Sometimes it sounds as if time makes itself available only to the lucky or to those with nannies or to the childless. 

It’s true that there are inequities.  Too often women have waited their turn to finish a degree.  The spouse finishes first, and then if there are kids, moms can sometimes put their writing further and further down on their priority lists. 

But the person who takes responsibility for negotiating relationships and asking for what she needs will see time emerging.  

Time is both elusive and valuable. Be bold and brave— ask your spouse for what you need.  Carve time out of the day, and claim that precious commodity for your important, but sadly neglected job of writing.   Plan and use time as if it were made of gold. Because it is. 

I’d love to hear from you—what challenges are you having around time? 

All good wishes, 

Nancy 

Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation and Academic Career Coach
[email protected]
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.usingyourstrengths.com
www.smarttipsforwriters.com 

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Assess Your Dissertation Writing Habits and Make Some Changes: Time for Spring Cleaning

Posted in academic, accountability, choice, cleaning, coaching, courage, determination, discipline, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, distractions, finishing the dissertation, following through, getting started, habit, housecleaning, mental toughness, perseverance, practice writing, productivity, re-group, re-start, regrouping, restart writing, restarting, self-deception, self-sabotage, showing up, start writing, take charge, take stock, time, time management, time theft, write more easily, writing, writing schedule, tagged , , , , , , , , , on March 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Change is happening in the Washington DC area, not just in Congress, but here in my backyard.  Spring is here.  Tulips are pushing their way above ground.   The trees are dropping all sorts of little colored pellets on my deck and front walk. 

The first days of Spring are a great time to assess your writing habits and consider how they are working for you or against you.  It’s an opportune time for you to consider where change in your writing process might help you. 

Time to clean house.

You’ve probably been down this road before, deciding to make a change but not putting any muscle into that decision.  However, there are positive strategies that can achieve lasting results.

Most of these involve capitalizing on the power of habit. 

In December 2008, I wrote a post in this space called “Make Getting Started on Your Writing Easier: Top 5 Reasons to Develop a No-Kidding, No-Fooling Daily Writing Habit.”

If you were fighting the dissertation battle then, 15 months ago, you may have read my “top 5 reasons for developing a solid, robust, no-kidding daily writing habit.”  And perhaps you would have made changes at that time.  Then these last 15 months might have been different.  Maybe you wouldn’t have continued to sabotage yourself and expend energy resisting writing rather than putting your energy into writing.  

What if you stopped making excuses now?  How about committing to  writing every day, even if only fifteen minutes a day?  Before you back away and begin again with the excuses, consider how writing every day, preferably at a scheduled time and maybe first thing in your day, would increase your productivity and, most importantly, would have you writing. 

Where do you need to exert control and spend your energy? What can you do to help yourself be mentally tough?  I’d love to hear from you. 

Enjoy the season.  How about a change?

Best to you,

Nancy

Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach

www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.usingyourstrengths.com

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What Can You Put Off so that Your Dissertation Comes First?

Posted in academic, choice, cleaning, deadline, discipline, dissertation boot camp, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, distractions, email, getting started, housecleaning, time management, writing, tagged , , on February 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Is writing your dissertation a top priority for you?  You may think that you are putting your writing project or dissertation first.  At least you think about it or worry about it more time than you’d like.

But what are you doing during your prime time, when you’re at your best?

If there’s a deadline looming, you put your dissertation first, push aside other tasks, clean off your desk, and settle in to grind that paper out.

Instead of waiting for a deadline to call you to action, what could you put in place now  that would let you write straightaway, no dillydallying?

Here’s a thought—why not put off the less critical things?
That would allow you to put your writing first and to put your best self into your writing.

To put your writing first, what else can be put off?

1.  Reading the newspaper.
 Reading the newspaper can take a lot of time.  It’s even more dangerous to read a paper online.  Not only will you read the main articles, but you’ll also be pulled to read the articles that are most frequently emailed.  And the opinions and then the YouTube interview attached to the article.

2. Reading even one email.
 If you made the mistake of reading online headlines from your favorite newspaper, then you’re already too close for comfort to your email.  But it’s not too late to turn and run.
Put off all email until your writing session is over.

3. Straightening up the kitchen.
 Who would think that cleaning up the kitchen in the morning would hold you in its clutches?  Most writers would, that’s who. To put off writing, we can clean the counter and sink as if the mother-in-law were arriving within the hour.  My advice– delegate kitchen duties.  If you can’t delegate, then put off kitchen clean-up until you’re cooking dinner.

4. Staying on campus unnecessarily or doing admin duties during your prime time, if you are teaching.
 Put off anything you can if you’re teaching that will keep you from writing.

a. If you write at home, leave campus right away after class.  Don’t go back to  your office or you’ll undoubtedly be waylaid by a chatty colleague.

b. If you take attendance in your classes by collecting question-of-the-day  responses, put off reading them and recording attendance until late in the evening  when you’re tired.

What have you been putting off?  If it’s your writing, then it’s time that you give more than give lip-service to your dissertation.  Put something else off for the sake of your writing.

All good wishes,

Nancy

P.S.  If you’ve made a habit of putting off writing your dissertation, it’s time to change that habit.   Dissertation boot camp can help you put make a habit of writing your dissertation during your best time.
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC

Your International Dissertation and Academic Career Coach

www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net

 

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During Your Dissertation Daze, Bravely Isolate the Unimportant

Posted in academic, brave, choice, cleaning, coaching, commitment, courage, decluttering, demands, dissertation coach, dissertation writing, family, housecleaning, planning, self-care, teaching writing, time theft, tagged , , , , , , , on December 9, 2007| Leave a Comment »

When I was writing my dissertation, I tried my best to let go of all that was unimportant. 

I always wanted more time to be with my kids and to do that I had to let go of all but the essential aspects of my teaching. I wasn’t perfect. Even though I tried to compartmentalize, class preparation and paper grading bled into dissertation time and dissertation time bled into family time.  But when the choice was to spend more time on each paper or hold the line on grading and spend time with my kids, I did my best to cut corners on the grading.

I knew that my kids needed to eat good food, do their homework, have activities in their lives about which they were passionate, and know that they meant the world to me.  I wrapped my arms around my kids and let go of a lot of other things.

Mainly what I let go of was any notion of a perfectly kept house, or even a well kept house.  I was ecstatic with whatever anyone did that would move us all one inch closer to a clean house.

Long before I heard of FlyLady and her Ultimate Timer (www.flylady.net), I had cleaning blitzes.  I would decide that whatever I could get done in 10 minutes would be all that needed to be done.  Bathrooms—5 minutes should be all that was needed to spray cleaning fluids here and there and wipe them up.  Sweeping the main floor of the house—5 minutes tops.

I also had to protect myself from situations that would drive me over the brink.  I couldn’t open my house to family members who unexpectedly decided our house would be a good place to stay for their spring vacation.  I had to ask for help and understanding. 

Where are you drawing the line so that you can get some writing done and also take care of yourself and others in your life?  I’d love to hear from you.

I have something that will be of help.  Go to www.nwcoaching.com and get a free sign-up bonus when you subscribe to my Smart Tips for Writers e-newsletter.

Until next time,
Nancy
www.nwcoaching.com
 

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