End of Year Check-In … 2013 is nearly over!

There are many ways a writer can stay motivated.

Setting small goals and meeting them is one example. However, setting big goals also can be helpful.

Setting large goals for the year, for example, can help you to think about the big picture. And, once you meet those goals, it can be useful to think about all you have done so that you can develop motivation to move forward.



The trick is to set reasonable goals and reasonable expectations for meeting them.

The end of the year is a great time to go back to your big goals and see all that you have accomplished during the year.

As I was looking over what I did for last month, I was a bit down because most of what I did was to continue to revise works in progress. It can be hard to see the progress I am making when all I have to say for November is that I revised a chapter and an article and they are still unfinished.

To pull myself out of that slump, I decided to look at all I have done over the course of 2013. And, it turns out I have some major accomplishments to report.

I have been working on a fifteen-chapter textbook for just about three years. I wrote the first chapter in early 2011 and have been moving forward slowly ever since. This was the year for the final push and I managed to write the final six chapters this year! That is 48,000 new words. In addition, I returned to the reviews and made final revisions on each of the chapters. The final deadline for the textbook revisions was December 6, so the book is now officially in production. The book will be out in August 2014, and I will certainly celebrate that. (If you are curious, I have details about the book here.)

I also have been working on a book on deportees for a while. I completed the interviews in August 2010. I finished going through the transcriptions, writing memos and doing the preliminary analyses of the interviews in January 2011. I have been writing up the chapters ever since. In 2012, I wrote the Introduction and the first three chapters. In 2013, I wrote chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 – four new chapters or about 40,000 words!

In addition to those two books, I have also been working on articles and book chapters for edited volumes. I wrote and submitted one book chapter and one article based on the interviews with deportees. I also wrote a rough draft of another article. Those three pieces overlap somewhat with the book manuscript, but are not exactly the same.

While writing this, I looked back to see what I did in 2012, and my productivity was similar – five textbook chapters and four chapters of the deportee book in addition to a few shorter pieces. It is good to know that I can maintain a consistent writing pace. It is also remarkable to me that my productivity for 2012 and 2013 were so similar. Perhaps I really have found my writing groove! As I mentioned last year, I have been able to accomplish all of this writing by maintaining a consistent writing habit of two hours a day, five days a week.

I find looking back over my accomplishments to be rewarding. It also gives me energy to move forward and keep up momentum for next year.

Now that I am finished with the race textbook, I can focus all of my energies on revising and submitting the book on deportees. There is no doubt that I can be finished with the revisions by Spring 2014. This is fantastic, as I am ready to be done with it!

Once I finish the deportee manuscript, I can work on the three articles I have drafts of. And, then I can move on to my next project!

What about you? Did you make goals for 2013? Have you met them?

What’s the matter with a forty-hour work week for academics?

I am not sure why, but, many times, when I argue that professors should work 40 hours a week, I get push back. Perhaps this is because some people are happy working over 40 hours a week, and understand their flexible work schedules to mean that they are free to work night and day. That’s fine by me.

What is not fine by me is that young scholars are made to feel as if working 50, 60, and 70 hours a week is how things should be, and never even consider the possibility that an academic's job can be done in 40 hours. In my view, a 40 hour week is plenty. And, I’m not the only one who thinks this way. Just ask the folks who fought for the 8-hour work day.



If you feel as if a 40-hour work week cramps your style, that’s fine. This post is not for you. This post is for those academics who want their life back, who don’t want work to be their life, and who want to believe that it is possible to get their work done in 40 hours a week so that they can use the rest of the time to nourish their soul, feed their bodies, spend with their families, dance tango, or play video games.

Of course, I can’t speak for everyone, but I just want to put it out there that I have been an academic since 1999, and have pretty much always taken evenings and weekends off from work. The exception is my first year of grad school. I began graduate study in August of 1999 and spent the first year reading and writing whenever I got the chance, aside from the five trips abroad I took that first year to Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Brazil. However, I came back to my second year of graduate school pregnant with twins, and, by force, spent a lot less time hitting the books. My husband spent the day taking care of our twin babies, so there was no way I was getting away with studying on the evenings and weekends.

When I got my first tenure-track job in 2005, my schedule stayed pretty much the same: I worked from 8am to 5pm, with a break for lunch. What has changed while on the tenure track is that I had to become much more efficient with my time to get it all done within the 40-hour work-week. And, I have had to stand my ground a few times when colleagues have suggested we have meetings on Saturdays.

So, how do I do it? On Tuesday, I actually kept track, as I do from time to time. The thing to note here is that I actually worked 8 hours, but did not do it neatly between 9am and 5pm. Instead, I worked from 6:30 to 7am, 8am to 11:30am and then from 1:30 to 2:30 and from 3pm to 5pm. Oops. That’s actually 7 hours. Unless you count the last half hour of social media, then it’s 7.5.

6am: woke up. had coffee. checked email.
6:30am: prepped my files to begin working for the day.
7am: got my three kids ready for school. had breakfast.
8am: Wrote for one pomodoro (25 minutes) on my book on deportees.
8:30am: Twitter, FB, planning.
9am: one pomodoro (25 minutes) responding to revisions on textbook.
9:30: social media stuff.
10am: one pomodoro revising textbook.
10:30am: another pomodoro applying for Human Subjects approval.
11:00am: another pomodoro finishing Human Subjects application. (5 pomodoros of writing!)
11:30: shower, get dressed, take a walk
12:30: have lunch with my husband.
1:30: read book for deportee project
2:30: walk to campus and get a new key for my office
3:00: check email, FB, Twitter.
3:30: more email. office cleaning.
4pm: Met with student to go over revisions to paper.
4:15pm: Reviewed book proposal for colleague.
4:30: Wrote a speaking proposal in response to an invitation to give a lecture.
4:50-5:05: some speed grading.
5:05: Social media
5:30: went for a walk
6:30: dinner, kids, more social media (not work-related).
8:30: kids to bed.
9-11pm: Read “Love and Capital” while kids were in bed reading as well.
11pm: Sleep

So, what did I do in that 7 hour work day?
- read a book
- responded to about 20 emails and processed another 50
- graded 15 short student essays
- met with a student
- wrote a speaking proposal
- responded to a colleague’s book proposal
- revised a chapter of a book-in-progress
- wrote and submitted a human subjects application
- pulled together data for a chapter of another book-in-progress.

For me, at the end of a productive day like that, I felt completely wiped out. There was no way I was going to be able to get in another 30 minutes, much less two to three hours of work. Thus, over the years, I have learned to stop working once I feel tired. That is why I stopped at 11:30am, took a long break, and then stopped again at 5pm. Admittedly, instead of reading Love and Capital at 9pm, I could have read something more directly related to my work. And, I do sometimes read for class at night. But, I at least try to stop working at 5pm.

Perhaps those people who work for 50, 60, or 70 hours a week have more stamina than I do. Perhaps I am more efficient and get done in 40 what others might do in 60. I really don’t know. But, I do want to put it out there that this system of working 8 hours a day (more or less) for five days a week works for this productive academic.

Why I Love Doing My Annual Review

As we close in on 2011, it is time for me to do my year-end review. This process provides the space for me to assess my progress and take pride in my accomplishments.

Every year in December, my department chair sends a note around asking faculty to compile their annual reviews. The purpose of these reviews is to assess merit pay. In the past few years, raises have been few and far between. Nevertheless, I actually look forward to doing my annual review.



I find it rewarding to look over the past year and take stock of all I have accomplished. In academia, we often are looking forward to the next deadline or brooding over the latest rejection. There are far too few moments when we permit ourselves to bask in our success. For me, annual review is one of those times.

This year, for example, my annual review permitted me to reflect on the fact that I published two books in 2011 (Yo Soy Negro: Blackness in Peru and Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions, and Deportations in Post-9/11 America), in addition to an article and a book review. My annual review also accounts for works submitted and in progress. Thus, I reported that I submitted two articles, and that one of them was accepted. I also reported my progress on two other books and the fourteen presentations I delivered.

In academia, it is easy to feel as if we are not doing enough. For this reason, it is important to have a clear idea as to what we are and are not accomplishing. My annual review does allow me to report what I have submitted, had accepted, and has come into print. It does not, however, take into account the time I have spent reading and preparing for chapters and articles I have not completed, nor does it allow me to account for the countless hours I have spent analyzing my data. This is fine, though, as it serves as a reminder of the importance of finishing and submitting works for publication.

My annual review also does not allow me to report my political, personal, or advice blogging. Again, this is fine with me because I do not blog for the explicit purpose of advancing my career, much less with the expectation that I will get a merit raise for blogging. I blog because I derive satisfaction from it and because it provides plenty of other rewards. For me, it is crucial to be conscious of the fact that my institution does not explicitly value blogging and publishing in online formats.

Taking stock of the year also permits me to take into consideration what I have not accomplished. I had hoped to have completed my book on deportees in 2011. I have not finished the data analysis, and thus have not finished writing the book. The main reason for this is that I let other projects with firm deadlines take precedence. This was particularly the case during the Fall semester, when I barely worked on my book. Instead, I completed two solicited chapters for edited volumes and two co-authored articles and pulled together and delivered ten presentations.

There is no point in chastising myself for what I have not accomplished. However, it is crystal clear that I need to say “no” to new opportunities, no matter how enticing they look, if I am to finish my book in 2012. I still have to put the final touches on two co-authored articles, although I hope to finish those in January. I also have taken on a new project that is unrelated to my book. So, clearly, yes, I need to say “no” to any additional opportunities, and focus on finishing my book.

I encourage you to take the time as we close out 2011 to reflect on what you have and have not accomplished this year. Reflecting on and celebrating your accomplishments will also make it clearer what you need to accomplish in 2012.

Writing while enjoying life: How to make the most of your day

This blog is about being productive and enjoying life at the same time. I know sometimes the blog posts sound like I am just writing about being productive. But, my hope is that, by implementing some of the strategies you read about here, you will have more time to enjoy the good things in life.



In this post, I will talk about how to structure your day to maximize productivity while also leaving time for other things that are important in your life: your health, your family, exercise, eating well, etc... One strategy that works very well for me is to work in relatively short, concentrated bursts, and to make sure that I complete my most important tasks first thing in the morning.

Slow and Steady: Writing For Two Hours a Day

This summer, for example, my strategy has been to get in two to three hours of writing as early as possible in the morning, and then to dedicate the rest of the day to other tasks. I have had quite a bit of success with this. Using this slow and steady method of writing two to three hours this morning, in six weeks, I have been able to:

1. Complete a Revise and Resubmit
2. Complete the revisions for a short book manuscript (25,000 words) and send it out for review
3. Put the final touches on an article and (almost) send it out for review
4. Finish up a chapter for a textbook and send it out for review
5. Analyze 4 of my 63 remaining interviews.

My system has been working. It has allowed me to make progress on my writing, while also permitting me time to enjoy my summer in Europe, and make some headway into new research projects here in Spain and France. Most of my new research has entailed me getting out of the house and finding out what is going on, so it has been most enjoyable. At this point in the summer, with just over a month left before classes start, I feel completely relaxed and as if I am making the most of my summer.

New Situation = New Strategy

But, things are about to change, meaning I need to implement a new strategy. On July 14, our European work-cation will be over. I will spend a few days in my hometown, Washington, DC, and then will go back to Kansas, where I normally live and work. For my last month of the summer in Kansas, I will need to switch gears and ensure I make progress on four fronts:

1. Writing for my deportation project
2. Analyzing my deportee interviews
3. Preparing my tenure dossier
4. Preparing my syllabi for Fall 2011.

To get these things done, I will use the same principle: Allocate tasks to different times of the day and leave plenty of time for breaks. Here is my new plan.

Each morning, from 8am to 10am, I will go to a coffee shop near my house and write for 90 minutes to two hours on my deportation project. Making progress on my writing is my most important priority, and it is the task that requires the highest level of concentration. So, that goes first.

After my writing and coffee, I will go home and have breakfast with my family. My children will not be in summer camp or any other organized activity. After breakfast, I will help the kids get ready and take them to the public library with me. I will set the kids up in the library with one activity or another and then get to work myself.

From 11am to 1pm, I will analyze at least one deportee interview. I am hoping this part of the plan will work, as it could fall through if my kids don’t want to go to the library or if they begin to argue amongst themselves in the library, making it difficult for me to do my work. But, I know that I can be interrupted while checking an interview transcription and pick up where I left off without a problem. So, we will try this strategy.

After our library trip, we will go home and have lunch and relax for a bit.

From 2:30pm to 4:30pm, I will go up to my office and complete the tasks that require me to be in my office and connected to a good Internet connection. I will check and respond to emails for about 30 minutes. Note that this is the first time I will check email in the day. (I hope I can do this!!) Then, I will spend the remaining 90 minutes working on my tenure dossier and/or preparing my syllabi.

I will be home by 5pm, and can take the kids to the swimming pool or the park and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with them. Depending on the weather, I also will figure out a way to work some exercise into my afternoon. If it isn’t 100 degrees outside, I will go for a long walk. If it is too hot, I can take a short walk to the nearby community gym and get on the elliptical. Alternatively, I can do my 20-minute Jillian Michaels “Making the Cut” video.

The idea behind this plan is to consciously break up the day into times of work and relaxation. I know that I cannot work for six hours straight, but that I can get in five to six hours of work between 8 am and 5pm if I take long breaks between. I also know that this will be a lot less stressful than if I stayed in my office from 8am to 5pm. And, believe it or not, I also know that it will be equally (if not more) productive.

So far, this is just a plan, so I will let you know how it goes.

A Caveat

I also will point out that this plan works for me because of various factors in my favor. 1) I live in a small town and thus getting from one place to another takes about 15 minutes by foot or 5 minutes by car. A person with long commute times would have to come up with a different plan, such as finding ways to take long breaks without veering too far from the office or working at home for at least part of the day. 2) My husband will be at home this summer as well, and thus he can cook while I take the kids to the library or go grocery shopping while I am with the kids at the pool. If you are a parent without childcare during the summer, you would have to be quite a bit more creative to find time to write. 3) My kids are aged 10, 10, and 7, and thus quite independent. At these ages, I can expect them to entertain themselves for an hour or two in the public library. When they were smaller, this plan would have never worked.

How have you been structuring your days this summer? Is it working for you? If so, great! If not, how might you change your structure to be more productive and have a life too?

How to Manage Multiple Projects: Two Strategies that Work

Academic writers often have more than one writing project to attend to. If you are writing a book, that book has several chapters, and people rarely write a book from beginning to end without looking back. If you primarily write articles, you are likely to be working on a new submission when an offer to revise and resubmit comes across your desk. If you co-author articles with other academics, then the chances you are working on several pieces increase.



Because juggling multiple projects is so common, I frequently get requests for how to manage multiple projects. Here are two strategies I have used.

Strategy #1: Work on projects in specific blocks of time each day

This strategy involves working on several projects in a day, one at a time. Schedule time slots during the day for each separate project. The advantage to this strategy is that you can prioritize one project while still making progress on others.

Here is an example of how it works. Last June, I had three things on my plate: 1) the page proofs for my book; 2) a new article on Jamaican deportees and 3) data analysis for my interviews. I wanted to move all three of these projects forward. Thus, I decided that each morning, I would spend the first hour of my writing time looking at my page proofs. From about 8am to 9am each morning, I read over the page proofs for my book, usually getting through a chapter during that time. Once I was done with that, I would leave my office and have breakfast. After breakfast, I would spend another 60 to 90 minutes working on my article on Jamaican deportees. Then, I’d take a break to respond to emails and do some chores. Then, I would have lunch. After lunch, I’d take myself to a seaside café and spend another 60 minutes analyzing the data for my interviews. As it was the summertime, after that, I’d take the rest of the day off to relax.

There are three things that make this strategy effective.

1. You should schedule the time slots according to your energy level. I am most alert and least likely to get bored first thing in the morning, before breakfast. Thus, it made sense to schedule my page proofs first, as those can be a bit tedious. I am least productive after lunch, thus I scheduled my data analysis after lunch, as this requires less focus and attention than the other two tasks.
2. You should schedule between 60 and 90 minutes for each task. Most people cannot concentrate for much longer than that at one time.
3. You should schedule breaks between each task. The longer and less like writing the breaks are, the better. Note: Checking email is not a very good break, while a walk around the block and a lunch away from your desk are good kinds of breaks.

Strategy #2: Work on one project at a time for a fixed number of days

Depending on your personality, the sort of projects you have going on, and the amount of time you can allocate to research and writing it might not make much sense for you to focus on several projects in one day. A perfectly good alternate strategy is to work on one project for a fixed number of days and then to change projects. Here is how that works.

Pick your most pressing project to work on and dedicate a fixed number of days to work on it. I often find that two weeks is the maximum amount of time I can concentrate on any particular writing project. Thus, I usually try to schedule no more than two weeks during which I will work on a project before setting it aside.

This summer, for example, I spent the last two weeks of May working on a chapter on racism in the criminal justice system. Then, I spent the first two weeks of June working on a piece on the lack of due process in the immigration court system. Now, I am spending the second two weeks of June working on a revise and resubmit for the journal Global Networks.

When I focus on one project at a time, I try and work on the project in blocks of time as well. For example, most days I write for an hour before breakfast (but after coffee!), and then get in another 60 to 90 minutes after breakfast.

Putting a two-week time limit on a particular project also works well because it allows you to really get into a project, yet also make sure you stop and attend to other projects that require attention.

Of course, nothing in life is really black and white, and I often combine these two methods. Right now, for example, I am taking a bit of afternoon writing time in addition to my morning sessions when I focused on my revise and resubmit to write and post this blog entry.

How do you manage multiple projects? I welcome your comments in the space allocated below.

Too many balls in the air? Juggling multiple projects as an academic writer

One of the biggest differences between being a graduate student and being on the tenure track is that, as a graduate student, you have that one, big project that is at the forefront of your mind: the dissertation. Since I completed my dissertation, I have never really felt that way again about a project. Instead, I feel as if I am constantly juggling multiple projects. Turning the dissertation into a book was a herculean effort, but, still it became one of many projects.



It is funny, then, that now, six years after finishing the dissertation, I crave having just that one project to work on. I want my work to consume my thoughts. I want to be immersed in one big question, one big project.

The big project that is calling me now is my project on deportees. Last year, I conducted 156 interviews with deportees in Jamaica, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala. I have not made as much progress as I would have liked in terms of analyzing the interviews and writing up the project. One of the main reasons is that I have too many other things going on. I now can see that I need to get these other things out of the way so that I can move on to my deportee project and make sure that it moves forward.

Other Balls in the Air

Another book. I am completely finished with what was my biggest project this past academic year my book: Immigration Nation. I spent the bulk of the Fall semester responding to the editorial suggestions for revision, and a few weeks in the Spring semester responding to copy-edits and then reviewing page proofs. The good news is that project is done, and the book will be out in August.

A textbook. Another fairly big project for this past academic year has been a textbook I am working on. Yes, a textbook. I am writing a critical textbook for Oxford University Press designed for undergraduate courses on race and racism. I have long been frustrated by the state of race texts, and was offered the opportunity to do something about it. I accepted, and things are going well so far. I have written three chapters since I agreed to do this book a year ago. I still have 12 chapters to go, but decided to put this project aside for a while since I sent the third chapter out for review last week.

A short book. I also am writing a very short book for Routledge. This book, which will be no more than 25,000 words, focuses on the lack of due process in immigration proceedings. It has taken me years to get my head around the fact that non-citizens do not have the same Constitutional protections that U.S. citizens do. My goal in this very short book is to explain in clear language exactly how and why people facing detention and deportation do not have the right to due process protections such as access to counsel, full judicial review, or a bond hearing. I just sent the first draft of this book to my editor, and it will be going out for review soon! Of course, eventually, there will be revisions, but I can put the manuscript aside at least for the rest of the summer.

An article. In addition, I am working on an article on the right to mobility, with two coauthors. Fortunately, that is nearly finished, and my coauthors are working on the article at the moment. I will have to return to that this summer. But, I shouldn’t have to dedicate too much more time to it before we submit it in July, as it is nearly finished.

Clearing the Plate

Now that I have gotten the due process manuscript off, I can return to the deportee project. The first thing on the menu for the deportee project is a Revise and Resubmit I got from a journal for my first full-length peer-reviewed article from this project. This piece, which focuses on Jamaican deportees, should help me re-acclimate myself with the project. Once I get that revised journal article back to the journal, I can dig my teeth into the data once again.

Looking ahead to The Big Project

I have completed the initial analyses for about 90 of the interviews, meaning I have about 65 interviews left to listen to, analyze and write up. My plan was to get back into these interviews as soon as the summer began. But, I have not done that. Instead, I have focused on finishing up other writing projects: the textbook chapter, the right to mobility article, and the due process manuscript. But, now that those are nearly finished, it will soon be time to focus on the interviews.

When that time comes, which I reckon will be the first week of July, I will switch gears and move into data analysis and write up. If this is all I focus on, I should be able to do two interviews a day, and finish with the analysis and write up by mid-August! Once I have the interviews written up and analyzed, I can finish the two remaining data chapters in September and October. Then, it will be time to step back from the project and figure out what I really want to say.

It feels good to have an end in sight. At the same time, it is a bit overwhelming to think that I will have to come up with a good line of argument that can carry through all of these data. 156 interviews in 4 countries. That’s a lot of stories and there is a lot going on there.

Good arguments come with time, with thinking and processing. So, once I get back into the data I can begin to try out arguments and stories and see which ones work and which ones don’t.

Juggling multiple projects is essential for moving forward as a productive scholar. However, from time to time, it is necessary to clear the plate and focus (almost) exclusively on one thing. I am looking forward to that time!