#SocAF – A Movement in Self and Communal Love.

 by Korey Tillman

Five years ago, I was in an airport resting my feet on my guitar case when a man walked by and asked, “Oh so you play?” I responded, “Yeah, I’m just a novice.” Without hesitation the man sternly replied, “No you are a novice.” From this brief exchange, I learned the impact of “just,” a simple four-letter word.

Higher education revealed to me how harmful that impact could be during the first year of my PhD program in sociology. In a closed door meeting with prospective graduate students, a member of my cohort pointed to me and said, “he’s just a master’s student,” before continuing to tell the group that the reason I was able to contribute to seminars at my level of sophistication was due to me reading a sociology 101 textbook the summer before entering the program. The word “just” relegated me to a less-than status because of my matriculation as a bachelor’s to PhD student, while simultaneously attributing my intellectual abilities in graduate-level seminars to a single undergraduate textbook.

Impostor syndrome is a product of how we understand ourselves within spaces that continually encourage self-doubt, and cultivate interactions that deny our self-worth. To challenge impostor syndrome and reshape how scholars come to understand themselves and support each other, colleagues and I are employing another simple four-letter word: love.

My greatest accomplishment was having a community who loved me before I knew what love was—impostor syndrome disrupts your connection from such a community. #SocAF, a double entendre meaning “Sociology Affirmations” or “Sociology as Fuck,” is a Twitter-based movement to change how scholars come to understand themselves in the field of sociology and academia broadly. Our aim is to problematize and eliminate the idea of impostor syndrome, moving from a deficit model of understanding ourselves and our scholarship, to a model of self-love and communal affirmation.

There is no ideal sociologist or definition of success, yet the culture of academia causes scholars to compare themselves to fictitious standards, prompting feelings of inadequacy. The inimical wave of impostor syndrome has washed over our discipline, only to recede and leave scholars soaked with self-doubt and adverse mental-health effects. Faculty and graduate students of color, who already wade through the marginalizing waters of structural oppression and microaggressions, stand at the shoreline of their careers with an incessant hesitation to set sail. Below, I outline the objectives that guide our group as we navigate this movement to reconceptualize our self-worth outside of an ivory tower buttressed by American Individualism and painted with faded notions of meritocracy.

Deconstruct the myth of the ideal type. If I was to ask scholars to entertain the question: who is the greatest sociologist of all time? The debate would be longer than the itemized budgets our departments request before conference travel. By emphasizing success as amorphous, personal, and achievable, we begin to set realistic expectations that assert our agency within the context of a publish or perish paradigm.

Uplift non-traditional “wins.” In our view, if a student gives you a compliment on your teaching, that is equally as important as receiving an NSF or Ford fellowship. Prestigious awards and accomplishments rest upon a zero-sum logic, promoting winners and losers. Yes, receiving support for your research is great, yet in order to combat the hierarchical logic of achievements, we must laud the everyday progress. Especially during these precarious and daunting times of COVID-19, to clear your inbox or to move that blinking cursor of Microsoft Word forward with conviction is no small feat—let’s not treat it as such.

Reclaim our positionality. We all have a story and sometimes those stories connect and guide us to engage in fascinating research. I use my lived experience as a Black man raised in a community flattened by mass incarceration to build abolitionist research projects within the sub-field of radical criminology. Instead of shying away from our embodied experiences, we can learn a lesson from women of color feminists, and leverage those experiences while committing rigorous and meaningful research.

The possible impact of #SocAF is immense. We envision the ivory tower rebuilt with the “love ethic” expressed by bell hooks. We anticipate the release of marginalized scholars from the shorelines of hesitation, to navigate the uncharted waters of intellectual innovation and healthy productivity. We foresee transformation. 

Every Wednesday on Twitter from 1pm – 3pm EDT, our base of scholars convene to post about their accomplishments from the previous week and to uplift the accomplishments of others using the hashtag #SocAF. Below we have placed our Twitter handles in hopes that you will join us in changing the discipline, and academia at large, by demonstrating to someone else the impact of a simple four-letter word.

The #SocAF Collective
@koreytillman_	@SocScholarCR	@BlkSocWithQTNA	@SocForbes	@Aya__Marie
@Staying_Sasha	@1solbro	@thememoryworker	@snojans	@mylesmoody

Advice to students: Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Repost from the Harvard Gazette

Focal Point

Anthony Jack

QUESTION: If you were to write a letter to your students, what would you want them to know?

Never, ever be afraid to ask for help. This is not something that I say just to say it. Life has a way of making you practice what you preach. It is not always easy, but, for me, it is always necessary.

At 11:43 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2015, I sent an email. And it changed my life.

I had been sitting at my desk in Mather House, where I was a resident tutor, for about two hours drafting and redrafting a letter. It was a note to William Julius Wilson, my adviser. By my last year in graduate school, we had had plenty of meetings, both serious and fun, and worked on different projects, but this email felt different. I needed his help to realize a dream I dared to have: becoming a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Three years to work on “The Privileged Poor” and to be immersed in an interdisciplinary community of really smart people, what could be better?

The hurdle: You have to be nominated before you can apply. In an overly wordy email, I asked Bill if he would nominate me. Verbalizing this dream made it really real. I finally hit send. In what felt like an age, even though it was only a couple of hours later, I got a reply. “I would be happy to write a letter for you.”

I was invited to apply; I interviewed; and I was ultimately invited to join the society.

We need to recast what it means to ask for help. It is not just about assistance on an assignment or an extension on a paper. It is an invaluable tool in one’s toolkit. Too many people are taught to see asking for help as a sign of weakness, of unpreparedness, or worse, that one does not belong because he or she cannot hack it alone. It inspires imposter syndrome in some, mistaking the need to ask for any kind of help as indication that a mistake was made and that you should not be here. Many liken it to something remedial. They have it wrong.

“Enlisting the support or guidance of others is also a skill that must be honed. You will often need to knock on 20 doors before the first will open. But when it does, it can be transformative"

Help-seeking is a mark of strength. I see it as a sign that you are wise enough to know that you are approaching the edge of your own understanding about something or about to embark upon a path that is better (and more effectively) charted with company than alone. Seeking out such support is how you secure the bag.

No one does anything all on their own. Writers have editors. Scientists have collaborators. Artists have workshops. Athletes have coaches. And we all had, have, and will continue to have teachers who guide us along the way. Let’s face it, the story of the “self-made, solo star” is as big a myth as meritocracy and the boogey man.

But seriously, enlisting the support or guidance of others is also a skill that must be honed. You will often need to knock on 20 doors before the first will open. But when it does, it can be transformative. Unfortunately, not all of us hear this message. Many of us, especially those of us who are the first in our families to go to college and/or are from lower-income backgrounds, are often taught “not to bother people” when we get to school. “Just keep your head down and do good work if you want to be noticed,” we hear from dedicated family members who want the best for us. We’ve heard this so often that sometimes there is a tension we feel between heeding the advice of those who worked and sacrificed to get us to College and working with the new folks who want us to come to office hours soon after we walk through the College gates. Loved ones are not wrong, per se; after all, it is how they keep their jobs and sometimes get promoted: by not being the person who raises a fuss.

But the rules are different in college and graduate school. Making oneself — and one’s needs — known is part of the hidden curriculum, that system of unwritten rules and unspoken expectations. Yes, there is more work to be done in demystifying the hidden curriculum. And I for one am committed to pushing universities to question what they take for granted about what students know and what they can afford. But in the interim, understand that this is the reality. Share this revelation with your family or support network rather than omit it from those phone calls that bridge home and Harvard, even if only for a minute. It will help you align what is expected of you at School with the advice you get from outside the gates.

I know that growth can be painful, so I’ll end with this: Therapy is affirming. It is not just to help you through the bad times, for too often believing the good is just as hard. It is about investing in oneself and being ready for what life has in store for us.

Never, ever be afraid to ask for help.

— ANTHONY JACK
Assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education
Junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows

Planning Your Way to a PhD

By Shaquilla Harrigan 

Example of Graduate School  Program Tracker

Last year, I stepped into my graduate department’s building with both excitement and trepidation at the prospect of starting my PhD. The amount of requirements, professionalization opportunities, and various paths I could pursue while in graduate school were incredibly daunting. After seeking advice from faculty and advanced graduate students and listening to my gut about what works for me, I’ve found various techniques to help me organize the work I need to do in both the short and long term to help me keep on track and plan out my tasks.

1. Create an Overview of Your Graduate School Career

The big picture of your graduate career is made up of many small puzzle pieces. Some of these pieces can get lost if you don’t have a place to store it. To help me craft my big picture, I created a “Grad Career Tracker” in Excel to organize my departmental requirements, professional goals, grant application deadlines, and teaching responsibilities. In another sheet within the same document, I created a check-list of all my assignment deadlines, exams, writing goals, and application deadlines for a particular semester. This way, I can easily switch focus between my entire five-year plan and also the things I need to accomplish in the present.

With the example that is linked, you can customize the rows and columns to meet your specific needs. This is also a great tool to help guide your conversations about your career and professionalization with your faculty mentors.  The most important thing to remember as you make your own tracker, is to remember that it is YOUR tracker. Everyone’s path will be slightly different. This tracker is also a good way for you to start conversations about your goals with your advisor.

2. Manage Specific Tasks

Now that you have a tool to help you manage the big picture, it’s time to look at those individual puzzle pieces. Throughout your graduate school career (especially as you are taking classes, TAing, or RAing), you will have smaller assignments due in-between longer-term projects. One of the first things I did was add my class schedule and all of my deadlines to my iCalendar. I initially saw all of the unscheduled white space as opportunities to work. However, that was not the case. To help you manage these smaller tasks, you still need to put that work time on your calendar. This will help you protect your time and keep track of the things you have going on week to week. You should also take into account the time you spend on email, in-transit, or the other pre-tasks that you need to complete before starting your main work. Don’t be alarmed if for the first few weeks of the semester you find that it’s taking you longer to complete an assignment than the time you initially allotted on your calendar. Lastly, give yourself a realistic set of goals for each day. Not only will it feel nice to visually see your accomplishments, but you will get better at knowing what’s doable in a day.

3. Active versus Passive Brain Time

Active versus passive brain time refers to the idea that some of your tasks will require different amounts of attentiveness and engagement for completion. Tasks such as writing, researching, and teaching are more active brain activities. Tasks like reading for class or checking email require less deep engagement.

Your active versus passive brain time will vary depending on when you feel most productive. If you’re someone who has a lot more energy in the mornings, then you should schedule your most intensive work for those hours. You don’t want to spend your most alert hours on tasks that don’t do the most to advance your research agenda. For example, I always hit an afternoon slump so I dedicate that time to tasks like reading or checking my email.

4. Self-Care and Pacing Yourself

First and foremost, remember that the process of obtaining your PhD is a marathon and not a sprint. You need to take care of yourself in the short-term to facilitate your success in the long-term. This means regularly scheduling self-care into your routine (self-care does not equal getting enough sleep or food; those things are the foundations upon which other activities are built!).

Also, remember to be flexible. Each semester will bring about unexpected setbacks and opportunities. While most of this blog post is about planning ahead, you should also remember that things will happen that are beyond your control. Be gentle with yourself and know that in the long-run, things will work out. Remember, that your needs and goals may change over time.

Related to flexibility, know that each stage of your PhD will create different demands of your time. As you are completing coursework or teaching, you will have classes to help structure your time. When you are in the dissertation-writing phase, your time may feel more unstructured. In that case, remember the earlier tips on active versus passive brain time. Don’t forget that there are many tasks associated with dissertation writing that don’t include the actual process of putting words to a page. Breaking down your work plan to include those tasks will also help give you structure.

5.     Finally, celebrate your successes, whether they are big or small!

Shaquilla Harrigan is a second-year sociology PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on international development and governance in East Africa.

How to Start Writing for the Public

I Victor Ray provides some concrete tips for how to reach a broader audience. I

By Victor Ray 

Repost from Conditionally Accepted Career Advice from Insidehighered

A few weeks ago, I wrote about why I think scholars should occasionally write for public audiences. This week, I am offering some concrete suggestions on how to get started. I understand that much advice may be survivorship bias, so ignore what doesn’t apply to you.

Think of your expertise more broadly than usual. Scholars tend to specialize and are taught not to speculate beyond their expertise. Focusing narrowly on your chosen area is excellent advice for writing a dissertation or journal article -- where you are largely talking to an in-group of the initiated who have also spent years reading specialized research -- but can make writing for a broader audience difficult. I think of writing for the public as similar to good undergraduate pedagogy: you are aiming at folks who are smart and interested in ideas but have not necessarily had the luxury of devoting years of specialized study to a topic. Sociologists can offer a broad perspective to public debate that differs from the individualist bent of related social sciences like psychology and economics. We should not underestimate our ability to provide the larger context on an issue, which can help to reframe a question or reorient someone’s thinking. Historians like the folks at the African American Intellectual History Society do an amazing job of showing the relevance of history to current public debates.

Write everything down. And by everything, I mean every single idea you have about a topic, no matter how irrelevant you think it may be. When I first started attempting to write for the public, I was shocked by how quickly things moved. Scholarly work is slow, and it can take years to move from the idea stage to publication. I’ve had public writing published 30 minutes or so after submission. For example, this piece on Trump and the NFL was based on notes I had written weeks before as I was thinking about white resistance to Colin Kaepernick’s NFL protests.

Rather than chasing the news cycle (something academics aren’t trained for), writing things down lets you anticipate the news cycle, as you will already have the skeleton of an op-ed sketched out. Attempting to anticipate recurring topics also allows academics to draw on our expertise and write things that are weightier than a single news cycle.

Pitch before you write the whole article. Pitching saves both you and the editor time. It allows the editor to express interest and shape the piece before it is written, and it allows you to get the idea out without writing a few thousand words. There are a lot of online guides on how to pitch generally, and many outlets have specific ones. Follow the guidelines just as you would follow the formatting specifications for a journal submission. If the outlet doesn't have pitching guidelines, make sure you read some of their recent articles before submitting. And don't unnecessarily antagonize an editor by sending pieces that are thousands of words too long or incorrectly formatted.

Like journal articles, it is also important to keep submitting and to not be discouraged by rejection (Nobody knows your batting average.) My hard drive is a graveyard of failed pitches -- only some of which may be recycled. When pitching, get to the point right away and explain why you are the person to write the piece. If you are fortunate enough to have a piece accepted, listen to suggestions from your editor. Editorial suggestions can often save you from future embarrassment (or even legal risk).

Avail yourself of the ample resources that teach and help facilitate public writing. Public writing is a genre like any other -- it takes work to learn the conventions. But a number of excellent guides and resources can help you get started. Jessie Daniels and Arlene Stein have written an amazing book on the benefits of public scholarship. Outlets such as the OpEd Project provide resources and workshops with the aim of promoting underrepresented voices in the media. If you are privileged enough to be employed at a well-resourced university, their media office may be able to help you locate suitable outlets and pitch pieces. Beyond these formal outlets, I draw inspiration from brilliant public scholars like Tressie McMillan Cottom, Eve Ewing and Zandria Robinson -- sociologists who consistently publish genre-spanning work that expands disciplinary conventions.

Be aware of the risks, but don’t let the risks define you. As many folks have pointed out, public writing can also have considerable downsides, and many of those downsides are magnified for marginalized scholars. Colleges and universities do not always protect marginalized scholars in the best of times and may not come to our aid when we are targeted for harassment. Learn your institution’s policies regarding public writing (if, indeed, it has any). If you are worried about a piece, have a trusted colleague read it over and flag anything that may get you in trouble or consider publishing anonymously. This is also an area where it is important to defer to a trusted editor, but beware of editors who are looking for clicks and are willing to put you are risk for their own self-interest. There is no way to completely avoid this risk, and even the best-argued article can become a target. Learn your own tolerance for risk and don’t overextend yourself. Ultimately, I think the potential rewards of public writing -- attention to you research and broader field, wide readership and contributing to important debates -- outweigh any real risks.

Why I Write for the Public

I Victor Ray explains why such writing is important for political, personal and practical reasons. I

By Victor Ray

Repost from Conditionally Accepted Career Advice from InsideHighered

Since taking over the editorship of “Conditionally Accepted,” I’ve sometimes been asked by colleagues and graduate students why I write for the public and how to get started. This column discusses why I started writing for the public, and I’ll be back next week with some concrete suggestions on how to get started.

I’ve begun to respond to the question “Why do you write for the public?” by asking, “Why wouldn’t I write for the public?” I understand why people are concerned about the potential costs of public writing, as some still think engaging with the public shows a lack of seriousness. In graduate school, I was told my desire to write for the public was evidence that I didn’t understand the job. But sometimes this concern is simply gatekeeping and worries about status, as elite spaces, by definition, depend upon exclusion. And while I know this isn’t a popular idea in some corners of the academy, I think academics -- who are paid to think about hard problems -- have a responsibility to help translate their ideas to the public. Public writing is important: politically, personally and practically.

This may sound hyperbolic, but lately it feels as if we are approaching the end of the world. We are in the middle of a mass extinction; many effects of global warming are locked in and irreversible; international fascism is no longer creeping; and white supremacist violence is on the rise. A well-paid set of propagandists invested in confusing the public about the causes and consequences of the issues furthers each of these problems. Academics with real expertise on such serious problems can help ground debates in empirical fact. Many national outlets want to hear what experts have to say about both the technical aspects of these problems and the potential political solutions.

I understand that many academics adopt a pose of neutrality, and some feel that our legitimacy rests upon this pose. The fear that taking sides will lead to (further) funding cuts is real. But I think many of the attacks on the academy would occur regardless, as simple facts about global warming or rising racial violence, in and of themselves, threaten entrenched power. Put another way, how can one remain neutral when our very conditions for intellectual work are threatened? As Audre Lorde said, “Your silence will not protect you.”

I also write for the public because I see my work as part of a long tradition of black activist scholarship that was never fooled by the idea that intellectual, practical and political work should be kept separate. As an educator with expertise on racial inequality, I see my responsibility extending beyond the classroom, even if I don’t yet have tenure. W. E. B. Du Bois, perhaps the prototypical public sociologist, neatly encapsulated this view of the necessity of public engagement when he said, “One could not be a calm, cool and detached scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered and starved.” The racial problems Du Bois identified are still with us, and we can help eradicate them by engaging in the type of committed public writing that Du Bois modeled.

Claiming this intellectual tradition means it is my responsibility to attempt to contribute, however I can, to making life easier for folks that come after me. One aspect of being part of an underrepresented group at a university is that you have fewer people whom you can compare your experiences with. As a venue for scholars on the margins, editing and writing for “Conditionally Accepted” helps to serves as a kind of collective political resource for marginalized folks who are geographically dispersed but probably experiencing similar types of exclusion. I’ve had more than one person contact me following a “Conditionally Accepted” post to say that they used the post to help push for material changes on their campus.

Practically, when folks ask me about public writing, they are often worried about how the work will count toward tenure. This is a serious concern, especially as universities have pushed for more public engagement from scholars without concomitant protections for those of us who are marginalized or state risky opinions. In many places, only peer-reviewed work formally counts for the tenure dossier, so peer-reviewed work should obviously be prioritized.

But public writing can count in other, less tangible ways. It can help develop a regular writing practice that feeds into our academic work. For me, it helped me move from the assumption that my work wouldn’t be published to the assumption that if I revised enough, it probably would. Because writing for the public is typically a much faster enterprise (pieces are often submitted and in print during the same week), it can help to keep your work on people’s minds between the release of peer-reviewed publications.

Graduate school trains us not to speak until we are certain, and that can lead to anxiety about our work and writing. Publishing in popular outlets can also help us get used to seeing our work and knowing that people are reading it, discussing it and using it. Finally, public writing can help create invitations for work that does count toward tenure, such as invitations to submit to journals or public speaking engagements.

Ultimately, I see public writing as a natural extension of my academic work. I am committed to public debate about ideas and hope to engage across multiple platforms. Given this commitment, I don’t believe in limiting those debates to the formal gatekeeping of academic disciplines.

The Nondual Academic: 5 Keys to Stress Relief

by Crystal Fleming

[Author's note: This post is written from a theistic perspective but feel free to substitute the word "God" for "Life", "The Universe", "Stephen Colbert" . . . whatever works for you.]

I regularly experienced high levels of hair-pulling, wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night, heart-beat-racing stress and anxiety before I discovered nondual spirituality. When I was in graduate school, panic attacks and emotional breakdowns were the norm not only for me but also almost everyone I knew. Part of this had to do with the fact that I was in a competitive department in an ivy-league university known for attracting type-A egomaniacs. But this wasn’t just the norm in my immediate circle: the more I talked to friends and mentors at a variety of academic institutions, the more I ascertained that extreme stress was considered routine not only on the tenure track but also well beyond it – especially for women of color. (For more on this theme, check out the Feminist Wire’s recent forum on Black Female Academics’ Health).

Nondual spirituality has, among many other things, radically lowered my level of work-related stress. Below, I outline five principles that have allowed me to approach teaching, research and mentoring with greater peace of mind and lower anxiety.

1. Most, if not all, work related stress stems from egoic identification.

We worry about work because we feel pressure to meet certain goals, put food on the table, improve our reputation and otherwise fulfill the expectations we have for who we think we are in relation to our work-related roles. Nonduality teaches that we are not the thoughts we have about ourselves. Stress increases to the extent that we identify with our role expectations. As often as I can, I remind myself that I amnot my professional identity. I execute work – I am not defined by it. Taking this insight seriously has had a variety of consequences. On the one hand, dis-identifying with with work reduces stress because it put things in perspective. But it goes both ways: it also means that I don’t passively derive egoic “goodies” like self-esteem and pride from my work either. I find myself far less interested in getting “props” for my accomplishments than I used to be in the past. And when I do see my ego getting a little kick out of someone calling me “Dr.” – I remain aware that it’s happening and this witnessing allows me to know that I am not this silly aspect of my professional identity either.

2. The key to reducing work-related stress is to consciously pay attention to it.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but the best way to deal with stress is to face it directly rather than surpressing/denying/ignoring/dissmissing it. Much of nondual/Buddhist/Hindu (Advaita Vedanta) spirituality is about mindfulness: paying attention to one’s thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Mindfulness is also a component of (good) psychotherapy. Nonduality made me more aware of my work-related stress. When I realized the extent of its depth and breadth in my life, I decided to take it on with a two-pronged attack of meditation and therapy. I found a therapist who was both an academic and familiar with mindfulness practices. Sessions with the Doc allowed me to talk through some of the limiting thoughts I’d developed about my work – and to confirm, with a rational person who understood the profession, that many of these ideas were simply untrue.

With regard to work, I began to monitor and unpack the precise thoughts that caused me to worry. Usually they were perfectionist crazy-talk like: “I’ll never meet this goal.” ”No one will take my work seriously.” “My ideas are not good enough.” “I have to out-do/compete-with person X.” Some of the thoughts were about practical issues I could actually address, like: “I need to get more organized.” ”I feel overwhelmed with this pile of reading I must complete.” “I am behind schedule with this project.” And so on and so forth.

By paying attention to the actual stressful thoughts that were bumping around my mind – rather than just feeling the diffuse sense of panic and dread that often accompanied my work – I began to slowly differentiate between those thoughts which were helpful and those that were not.  As a type-A perfectionist, I had always used my mind to terrorize me into high-performance. Even as I won awards and developed a strong record of publishing, I still punished and motivated myself with a very harsh inner critic. Therapy – and meditation – allowed me to unveil that critic for what it was: an unnecessary figment of my imagination. In so doing, I learned that I can be productive without berating myself into submission.  Along these same lines, Kerry Ann Rockquemore has an excellent piece on taming one's "inner critic".

As I faced my stressful thoughts directly, I took action where I could and realized the crazy-talk was just my ego. But I could not realize it was “just” my ego until I began to consciously identify with the presence within which those thoughts were arising. In other words, it was not enough for me to just think “Oh, those silly thoughts are my ego.” Instead, I had to begin to actually experience that sense of separation between my Consciousness – my Being – and the thoughts that arise within that space.  That experiential knowing — really getting on a deep level that I am *not* my thoughts, and certainly not my stressful ones — reduced my stress enormously.

3. Trade aspiration for inspiration.

In French, the word inspire (inspirer) still means to breathe – and more precisely, to inhale. I learned this years ago while taking yoga classes in Paris. “Inspirez . . . expirez . . .” our instructor would tell us and she modeled breathing in and breathing out.

Inspiration is about being in the flow of life. It is about being receptive to energy, invigoration, breath, light, ideas – and sending that energy out into the world. Nondual spirituality has taught me to trade aspiration for inspiration.

The ego not only generates identities for us, but it also creates an endless list of goals, ambitions and tasks that we feel we must fulfill in order to be good/happy. As you loosen your identification with ego, you automatically become less ambitious. This may sound odd, given that I am a tenure track professor with the ostensible goal of gaining tenure, producing high-quality research and being an excellent teacher and mentor. So what could I possibly mean when I say that I am no longer “ambitious”?

Ambition is what a particular person does in order to reach certain goals. It is an effort to fulfill the ego’s demands, wishes, hopes and dreams. Ambition is about you. But when you no longer identify with your own self-image as a “person”, you can no longer pretend that there is a solid entity in the driver’s seat running your life. Instead of being ambitious, I’ve found myself surrendering to my higher purpose. It is not my responsibility to generate my own ideas, to assure my own success or to manage my reputation. Rather, I allow God / the Universe / Presence to provide and produce whatever is necessary. It isn’t about me anymore – at least, not like it used to be.

This was a very scary transition from me. I despaired – wondering how I could ever be productive if I did not identify with my small-ego. Yet, slowly but surely, I found myself becoming a vessel for creative intellectual activity, sans the stress I was so accustomed to experiencing. Projects progressed as God provided new, sometimes surprising insights and ideas. I made important decisions about my research agenda — but it no longer felt like I was making the decisions, so much as I felt compelled and inspired to do certain things — even things that I never had the courage to do before. I began to set professional boundaries, pursue opportunities that appealed to me and say no to requests/situations/demands that no longer felt appropriate. The more I surrender to this Universal flow, the more I grow in faith and assurance that everything is happening as it should.

The other component of inspiration — that is, breath itself – is my go-to strategy in my arsenal of happiness. Conscious breathing is one of my favorite spiritual practices. Whenever I feel the physical sensations of stress (muscular tension in my shoulders or a tightening in my chest) I intentionally remind myself to pay attention to my breath. I could be having a difficult conversation with a student or colleague, or dealing with a stressful situation in the midst of teaching – and instantly tap into my inner-zen with mindful breathing. The point is to use conscious awareness — either of my breath or of any kind of sense perception — to bring myself back to the present moment. Check out Eckhart Tolle on this topic.

4. Wait – attentively.

Robert Boice, author of the incredible primer “Advice for New Faculty Members” has a rarely heard kernel of wisdom for academics: get comfortable with actively waiting. Boice distinguishes between passive waiting (wasting time, procrastination) and active waiting (setting aside time to play with ideas creatively and reflect before a project’s dimensions are clear). For me, one of the most frustrating things is dealing with a lack of clarity at the beginning of a project — a new book, a new grant proposal or a new syllabus. I also typically experience stress (like most academics) due to not making the kind of progress I would like on a project (or several). Rather than berating myself, nondual spiritual practices like mindfulness and meditation have allowed me to cultivate moments of quietude and stillness. These moments, in turn, create space for new ideas and solutions to emerge.

I’ve also learned to surrender my expectations about productivity and to patiently and attentively “wait” through periods of lowered productivity. Like everyone else, I go through cycles where I am more or less efficient with my writing and research. As nondual spirituality requires attention to living in the present moment and accepting whatever presents itself in that moment, I’ve come to realize the wisdom of surrendering to the “Now”. If right now I lack motivation or clarity with a project, I don’t beat myself up about it — I fully accept my feelings. If the Now presents me with a fear about completing a certain task, I don’t allow my mind to terrorize me anymore. Instead, I observe the fear, inquire into its source, and figure out if there is any practical action I can take to move forward.

5. Pay attention to your physical, mental and spiritual well-being.

I am a happier, more focused and effective professor, writer, teacher and mentor when I make time for regular, quiet meditation, eat healthy delicious meals, exercise and pamper my body, listen to music I love, spend time with friends and loved ones, give back to the community, nab a $200 suit for $1 (yes, $1) at my favorite thrift store, enjoy the beauty of nature, engage in creative activities like singing and songwriting, and so on and so forth. All of these happy-activities began to emerge for me spontaneously as I paid more attention to my heart in the present moment. Nondual practices (like meditation, conscious breathing and self inquiry) naturally encourage me to notice what feels right in the present moment and to become increasingly aware of those things, people, places and activities that bring me joy.

I hope these tips resonate with those of you seeking to experience greater happiness – both in and outside of the office. Feel free to add to this list and share your strategies for transcending stress.

_________________________________

Guest post by:

Crystal M. Fleming, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Sociology

SUNY at Stony Brook

Email: crystal.fleming@stonybrook.edu

Blog: http://www.awareofawareness.wordpress.com

Twitter: @FlemingPhD 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four Tips for Academics to Help Reduce Stress and Regain Life Balance

Note from moderator: This post is by Brooke Neely of Whitman College

Academic life can be overwhelming. Here are four tips I find helpful for managing stress and finding balance.

Tip #1: Be mindful of your boundaries

Strike a balance between your personal and professional spheres, and carve out time for yourself when needed. I’ve found boundary negotiation to be key to my sanity (and I’m certainly not always successful). As a sociable introvert (yes, that exists!), I love engaging with people and asking lots of questions, which is why I’m drawn to qualitative research and interactive teaching. But I find this academic enterprise quite draining. I’ve figured out I operate at my best when I set clear boundaries on my time and space to allow myself to recharge—e.g. little to no work email during evenings and weekends, closing my office door when I need to regroup between classes, declining or postponing social engagements during particularly stressful times. And, when I’m really busy, I remind myself how much better I feel when I exercise, cook, read, spend time with family and friends, snuggle my cat, breath deep, stare at the wall, write morning pages (see The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron), and so on. The key is to figure out your own needs and develop boundaries appropriate to you.

Tip #2: Make time for collaboration and supportive networking

Academic work is often very solitary. I find it crucial to connect with people in a variety of arenas professionally and personally. Early on in graduate school I hit it off with a woman in another department with similar academic interests and a compatible temperament. She has become one of my closest friends as well as a professional collaborator. Her outside perspective opened up intellectual possibilities for me and kept me sane when I became too immersed in sociology. On a related note, we hear so much about the need to network for professional advancement. I find it most useful to network with people who inspire and support me. Within my academic institutions and especially at conferences, I have worked to cultivate a collection of people who I can reach out to for intellectual motivation and general encouragement. If I frame these relationships in terms of inspiration and support, they feel less daunting. And they have paid off professionally as well.

Tip #3: Trust your instincts, develop a flexible work plan, and don’t reinvent the wheel

Over the years, I’ve read many articles and books on writing strategies and work plans, hoping to discover the magic formula for smooth and effective productivity. While no magic formula emerged, I did get clearer on my own work habits. I’ve learned to trust my process of meandering ideas, lots of to-do lists, and productivity under firm deadlines. It helps tremendously to figure out your own work tendencies. It’s often difficult to trust your instincts (with plenty of conflicting voices and expectations swirling in your head), but I find when I’m successful at listening to myself, I feel most empowered and usually chart the best path.

As I trust my process, I try to remind myself to make an adaptable work plan. Whether it’s an article or teaching commitments, I find my stress levels usually decrease when I allow for flexibility along the way. I often think I have to do way more than necessary when initially crafting a plan, and as I proceed, I feel much better when I prioritize and whittle down the tasks.

And whatever project or task I’m tackling, I find it’s helpful to remember someone else has likely tackled it before—e.g. course syllabi, research proposals, articles, etc. Reaching out to people about their work helps to demystify the process and, if they’re willing to share examples, provides a clearer roadmap for a project.

Tip #4: Be gentle on yourself

It’s simple, but probably the most important tip. Academic pursuits do not always lend themselves to emotional well-being. I feel best when I take good care of my needs and am kind to myself even when I feel I’m not meeting expectations or don’t accomplish exactly what I set out to. Perhaps surprisingly, being gentle on yourself translates to more inspired and committed work as well.

As you probably know, there’s no easy fix for the stress associated with academic life. When your work begins to feel daunting, try to remember: set boundaries, collaborate with supportive people, trust your instincts, and be gentle on yourself. Best of luck finding your own life balance.

How to choose a dissertation topic: Four pieces of advice (and a bonus tidbit)

Note from the blog moderator: This guest post is by Vilna Bashi Treitler.

Are you struggling with choosing a dissertation topic?

Choosing a topic can be one of the most important choices you will make in your professional career because it determines the first major piece of research for which you’ll be known, provides a focus for the group of professors you wish to solicit for your dissertation committee, and it is the first thing (along with the text of your letters of recommendation) that future colleagues will scrutinize when considering you for a job in their department.

The bad news is that all this can make choosing a dissertation topic pretty overwhelming. The good news is that I try to make the process somewhat easier by explaining to you how you might get started and avoid certain pitfalls. I have four pieces of advice to offer that I hope you follow, plus a tidbit that is not mandatory.

First, “push the envelope.”

You’ve probably heard a gazillion times that new research should “push the envelope,” but I’d bet that the likelihood that you had a clear explanation of what that means has not been given to you. Well, I’m going to explain it, right here, right now.

It is a phrase with a mathematical reference. An envelope is a term for the curve that encloses all other curves in a family of curves. When the term was used in aeronautics, it referred to the outer curve describing the limit of an aircraft’s performance. Test pilots were encouraged to push the envelope in order to test the aircraft, and the phrase made it to the common lexicon in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book about test pilots, The Right Stuff. (Thanks, for the info, Michael Quinion, at http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pus1.htm!)

Envision the whole of sociological knowledge as contained in one big dataset, complete with keywords and subject headings. Surely, you would contribute something to the dataset that would ostensibly fit under a subject heading, and possibly a set of existing keywords, but to push the envelope your topic should meet three criteria.

• It doesn’t repeat something that’s already in that dataset.
• It is something that sociologists interested in the topic will want to read when searching on information on the topic. That is, your research is not just different from the other work on the issue, but also has an interesting take.
• It is research that actually teaches researchers in your area of interest new information and will be useful to them when they are framing their own research projects. That is, not only is your research interesting, it shouldn’t be ignored if other sociologists want to do research in the same areas.

Honestly, you need only come up with a question that, when answered, would shed new light on what others have done before – but the idea is for that new light to truly have us look at things in a whole new way.

Second, ensure that your methods are matched to the theory you employ and vice versa.

I will give you an example from my own work that also illuminates the “pushing the envelope” idea. In graduate school, I studied international migration from both demographic and sociological perspectives. Most of the time, these were done with quantitative methods. That means that people used formulas to speculate about the ways migrants and potential migrants behaved, and they considered themselves to be right when their measures of statistical significance said that the research was onto something. But having lived with immigrants my whole life, I knew that there was more to their behavior that was not captured by the existing quantitative models. I also believed that to truly know what people are actually doing, one could and should just ask them! So I set about asking people about their migration history and experiences, and did this in several countries, in the hopes of tracing out how they actually formed their networks, and what these networks did to help the people included. So, my keywords were “migration,” and “networks,” but since my goal was to find out what migrants actually did, I had to use interviews. Since the networks crossed national borders, I had to do transnational interviewing. Since I had developed my theory from my own experience with immigrants, there was a bit of participant observation thrown in. And since I was asking about the migration experience – which could cover a whole lifetime of movement, job seeking, sending remittances, etc. – I really was also doing oral history. I had to do the methods it took to make the story complete and coherent. It didn’t matter (or shouldn’t) that (at that time) people didn’t normally do qualitative work in demography. That was my task because that my research question required it. But it also pushed the envelope, because it “unlocked the black box” that was the migration network, something that people had written a lot about, but never had explained neither what it was nor how it worked.

Perhaps you decide that (for example) you lack too much skill to try a certain type of method (either quantitative or qualitative) – if so, then ensure that you ask a question that can be answered by the method you choose. You can’t do ethnography and expect to answer a question like “With what frequency do the people with characteristic X take on behavior Y?” because ethnographies are not the best method for counting people’s activities and making predictions about behavior. Similarly, quantitative methods might not be the best to answer questions about how a particular group process evolves over time or why feelings about something changed between one generation and the next.

Develop your theory and methods together and you’ll have a much easier time of it! Choose a theoretical frame for what you wish to interrogate, and your methods will have to correspond. And know that particular methods answer only certain kinds of questions, and frame your question according to the method you choose.

As a side note: know that quantitative methods are nearly always required of graduate students, but not so with qualitative methods. Do yourself a favor and take a qualitative methods class anyway – then you have in your research toolkit the facility to answer perhaps any question you might think of, for the rest of your career!

Third, one's question should never be a question that can be answered with a "yes" or "no."

Let me give an example that might resonate with you. Say your interest is in the whole idea of the “post-racial” U.S. Say, too, that you think that post-racial is a stand-in for racial openness (as opposed to a kind of “colorblindness” that professes to ignore race altogether). So you pose this question: “Do people who have friends of various races (e.g., neither are their friends as a group all white nor all black) call themselves post-racial?” And let’s say the answer is yes. Okay, is that answer surprising? Maybe you have a dissertation that speaks to how some people define “post-racial” but it doesn’t sound like a terribly exciting one, and that answer surely doesn’t push the envelope. But worse, let’s say the answer is no. Um, then you have no dissertation at all. You have a hypothesis that you spent a whole lot of time researching, but then you have nothing to show for it.

The solution is to never pose a yes/no dissertation question. Instead, how about these dissertations?

• Twenty-First Century Streetwise: The Post-Racial Redux. An empirical analysis of the way people on the street understand us to be currently living in a post-racial moment, and an understanding of what dissenters (those who think post-racialism is bunk) have to say about the state of racial affairs in 21st Century USA.
• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and Sleeping Over Too? A comparative ethnography of contemporary urban cross-racial friendships in three US cities.
• Post-racialism: A view from the Mid-West. How relevant is post-racialism to North Americans far from urban centers? How do post-racial moments occur in rural America?
• New Views on How the Young Live Diversity. A quantitative network analysis of cross-racial and ethnic friendship networks among young people in the middle school years. (This is significant because racial differentiation, and the cliques that develop with that consciousness, tend to begin in the middle school years. If we’re really in a post-racial moment, should it not be the young people who will best demonstrate that through their own behavior?)

I’m sure you see the differences here. There’s no “yes” or “no” that can answer these questions. Best of all, no matter what the research working on these latter three questions finds he or she will still have a real dissertation once the research is complete.

Fourth, and last, some research questions are just bad ones.

You’ve thought through all the theory and studied the work of those who toiled before you. Now it’s time to write your dissertation proposal and your justification for undertaking your research. Here’s a big hint that you’ve not got a good question: your ONLY justification for taking on this project is that “no one has looked at this before.” You’ve got to have a better reason than that (and it should be one that “pushes the envelope, remember?). There are plenty of questions that haven’t been answered before now. Some of them just should not be answered! The question of whether black and Latino people who drink coffee from Starbucks are better parents than those parents who drink Dunkin’ Donuts coffee might be useful for the Starbucks Corporation to know, but that doesn’t make it a great dissertation. “But it hasn’t been done!” Um, no, and let’s hope it stays that way.

After you’ve done the work of envelope-pushing, theory/methods matching and yes/no vetting to find a dissertation topic, you’ll be in good stead. But then make sure you know the existing literature well enough and are engaged with it well enough that you have more to say than “…but these scholars have never addressed the question of [insert your dissertation topic here].”

Fifth (and this is the tidbit), make it “sexy.”

Sexy research projects well carried out tend to merit a better academic job. But what’s a sexy topic? Aaah, that’s the million dollar question.

Sexy topics are those that make people say, “Wow, now that’s interesting! I hadn’t thought of it that way before!” Sexy topics are new twists on old issues that make people sit up and take interest. Think of many of your academic idols, or those at the top of the business, and what idea put them on the map, and chances are it was a sexy topic. (I’m not saying we’re in a meritocratic system – not all good projects are rewarded, and surely some bad ones are – but you get the idea.)

Sexy is more than pushing the envelope. Pushing the envelope is required, but sexiness is not. Many a PhD is earned without having met the condition of sexy dissertation. PhDs go to people who have done their work, whether the work was sexy or not! But sexy is a great thing to have in your pocket, and sexy topics look especially good in job application cover letters!

Ten Steps to Publishing Your Article

If you are looking for how to write and publish a journal article, my first suggestion is that you check out Wendy Belcher’s book: Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing. In this book, Professor Belcher provides valuable step-by-step instructions on writing and publishing.



Otherwise, here are ten steps from beginning to end for publishing an academic article.

Step One: Choose a journal.

The first step is to choose a journal – so that you know what you are aiming for. This post explains how to choose a journal.

Step Two: Find a model article.

Once you have selected a journal, choose a model article. You can learn how to do this here.

Step Three: Write an awesome introduction.

Now that you are ready to write, it is important to put your first step forward and write a stellar introduction.

Step Four: Write up your literature review.

Writing your literature review can be daunting. Here are six easy steps from beginning to end.

Step Five: Check your literature review to make sure it is effective.

Make sure your lit review distinguishes between conceptual and background literature.

Step Six: Write up your data analysis.

Here, you want to be sure that your data answers the questions raised in your literature review and introduction. This part will vary depending on what data you are using, but Destination Dissertation: A Traveler's Guide to a Done Dissertation by Sonja K. Foss has some good tips on how to code qualitative data.

Step Seven: Write your Conclusion

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Patricia Goodson’s book, Becoming an Academic Writer: 50 Exercises for Paced, Productive & Powerful Writing has some great advice on writing conclusions, as well as lots of other advice.

Step Eight: Revise.

Your first draft should be just that – a draft. It is important to learn to write first and revise later. The concept of a "shitty" first draft is explained here. Another awesome technique is to use an after-the-fact outline to revise. It sounds like a lot of work, but it totally works!

Step Nine: Get feedback.

Don't even think of sending an article off for review without asking someone to review it first! Get feedback from your friends, colleagues, and mentors. Also, consider using a professional editor to make sure your article is as good as it can be.

Step Ten: Submit your article.

Then, submit, submit, submit until successful.

If you get stuck along the way, try the two week method of writing an article.

The Twelve Steps from Dissertation to Academic Book

When I finished my dissertation, I knew I wanted to transform it into a book. I did not, however, know anything about the publishing process. As I am now finished with this long process, this is an ideal time for me to outline the steps so that others can know how to publish a book from the dissertation.

In this blog post, I will explain the book publishing process. However, keep two things in mind: 1) there is a lot of variation beyond what I describe here and 2) this is generally the process for the first book, not necessarily for the second or third.

My first book, based on my dissertation

Step One: Write the Book Prospectus

Although it seems daunting, a book prospectus is not a complex document. I describe the book proposal in detail here. Briefly, it contains: 1) a summary of your book that outlines the main argument; 2) a one-paragraph summary of each chapter; 3) a timeline for completion of the book manuscript; 4) a brief description of the target audience and potential classes for course adoption; and 5) the competing literature. Usually these are short documents. Mine have ranged from four to seven single-spaced pages.

Step Two: Submit the Book Prospectus

The second step is to find a press that might be interested in your book manuscript and to send them a book prospectus. I explain how to find a press here and how to contact the aquisitions editor here. Once you have selected the press and found out the name of the acquisitions editor, you can send them the prospectus.  Often, the press also will want one or two sample chapters. You can send your prospectus to as many publishers as you like. Most publishers list submission guidelines on their websites. These guidelines often indicate exactly what materials they would like to see: usually a prospectus, one or two sample chapters, and a two page CV.

Step Three: Submit the Book Manuscript

When acquisitions editors receive your prospectus, they make a decision as to whether or not they will send your book manuscript out for review. If they do not, they will send you a letter with their regrets. However, if they are interested, they often will call or email you with a request to see more materials. Some presses want to wait for the whole book manuscript to be completed. Others will send out just the prospectus for review. Others will send out 1-4 finished chapters. That depends on the book and the press. They will let you know.

Step Four: The Press Sends Your Manuscript out for Review

You wait between one and twelve months for the reviews to come back. If just the prospectus is under review, this will not take very long. If it is the whole manuscript, usually you will wait several months.

Step Five: You Get a Contract

The press makes a decision based on the reviews. They can decide to a) offer a contract based on the reviews; b) ask you to do more revisions and send it out for review again or c) decline to offer a contract based on the reviews. If it is c), you go back to Step Two.

Step Six: You Sign a Contract

If the reviews are favorable, the press will offer you a contract, which you first negotiate and then sign. Here are some items often up for negotiation: 1) who will pay for the index; 2) who pays for the cover and inside pictures; 3) who pays for the copy-editing; 4) the royalties rate; and 5) when and whether the book will be released in paperback. You may or may not be able to negotiate these items, but it does not hurt to ask.

Step Seven: You Revise the Manuscript

You revise the manuscript based on the reviews. Some presses will send it out for review again once you revise it. Others will review it internally and ask you to make further revisions. Still others will send it as is to the copy-editor after you make your revisions.

Step Eight: Copy-Editing

Once the book manuscript is revised, it goes to the copy-editor and they proofread the text. This usually takes 1 to 3 months.

Step Nine: Revision

You revise it again, based on the suggestions made by the copy-editor. You then send it back to the copy-editor who sends it to the press after your final approval. You usually have one month to respond to the copy edits.

Step Ten: Page Proofs

Your book is put into page proofs that you get to read and revise again. At this stage, however, you can only make very minor changes. You correct any mistakes and then it goes to the printer.

Step Eleven: In Press

The page proofs are sent to the printer, and you wait for your book to be printed. Printing usually takes a couple of months.

Step Twelve: On the Shelf

Your book is available for sale! Now that your book is for sale, be sure to include a link to the publisher's website or to Amazon.com in your email signature to advertise your book.

As made clear in these twelve steps, publishing an academic book is often a very long process. It is important to keep in mind that it can take years to publish a book, even after you have completed the manuscript.

For example, I completed the manuscript for my first book in May 2009 and sent it to a publisher who had agreed to review it. I received the reviews in November 2009, and the publisher offered me a contract on the basis of the reviewers’ evaluations at that time. I signed the contract and then revised the book according to the suggested revisions and returned it to the publisher in March 2010. In June 2010, I received and reviewed the copy-edits. In October 2010, I received and reviewed the page proofs. The book was released in February 2011 – nearly two years after I had originally “finished” the book manuscript! Keeping this timetable in mind is particularly important if your university prefers you to have a bound book when you go up for tenure.

What Is Your Vision? Beyond Time Management for Academics

There are a wide variety of books and blogs that will help you with time management as an academic. Kerry Ann Rockquemore's book: The Black Academic's Guide to Winning Tenure--Without Losing Your Soul has excellent tips for time management as does Advice for New Faculty Members by Robert Boice.

After reading these books and others (especially Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen), I came to realize that effective time management is a matter of aligning your every move with your long-term vision.

Before worrying too much about time management, give some thought to your long-term vision for your career. Many people, if pressed, can figure out a five-year plan for their career. However, it is much more difficult to imagine the long-term future. Despite the difficulty of doing so, it can be a great exercise.

To get an idea as to what your vision is, you must ask yourself:

• Who am I? 
• What do I want? 
• Where do I want to be in twenty years?

If you are currently in graduate school, it is often hard to think beyond the immediate goals of finishing coursework, passing comprehensive exams, and defending a dissertation. If you are on the tenure-track, it can be difficult to even imagine anything beyond the goal of getting tenure. I don't expect anyone to provide an immediate answer to the question of what your vision is. However, I do think that it is important to reflect on this question and to realize that there is more than one career path, even for academics.

For example, some people may have the goal of becoming University President. Others may wish to become the President of their disciplinary association. Still others may wish to lead an institute, a social justice center, or a teaching institute. Some academics may want to be head of the department. Others might want to get tenure and start a business on the side, or spend most of their time gardening. The point is that there are many potential goals an academic could have. And, there are distinct paths to each.

If your long-term goal is to be the President of your disciplinary association, your everyday decisions should be distinct from a person whose long-term goal is to be the head of a teaching institute on campus. Ideally, your vision, your five-year plan, your semester plan, your weekly plan, and what you do each day should all be aligned.

In my blog: Get a Life, PhD, I have discussed the five year plan, the semester plan, the weekly plan, and daily writing. In this post, I am suggesting that these five levels of planning need to be in harmony.

Imagine going through life knowing that each action you take is aligned with your long term vision. That would be fundamentally different from making decisions on the basis of your immediate needs, and saying yes or no to requests primarily based on feeling external or internal pressure to commit to others.

I believe academics have the power to take control of their lives. I also believe that it is remarkably empowering to take control. Taking control does not mean shunning every request for service or refusing to attend meetings. Instead, it means seeking out opportunities for service, research, and teaching that will get you closer to your long-term goals and declining opportunities that do not move you in the direction you have decided you are going.

To take control of your career, follow these five steps:

1. Develop your vision for your career. 
2. Develop a five-year plan based on your vision. Check out Karen Kelsky's post on this as well as one here.
3. Make a semester plan that will get you to your five-year plan. Check out this post as well on semester planning.
4. Plan out your weeks so that you meet your semester goals. Here is another a great post on this.
5. Execute your plan on a daily basis. For most of us, that means writing every day.