On productivity

"I’ve systematically built these principles into the way I write. For my first three books, I sat at my desk for up 10 hours a day. Each of the books took me at least a year to write. For my two most recent books, I wrote in three uninterrupted 90-minute sessions — beginning first thing in the morning, when my energy was highest — and took a break after each one.

Along the way, I learned that it’s not how long, but how well, you renew that matters most in terms of performance. Even renewal requires practice. The more rapidly and deeply I learned to quiet my mind and relax my body, the more restored I felt afterward. For one of the breaks, I ran. This generated mental and emotional renewal, but also turned out to be a time in which some of my best ideas came to me, unbidden. Writing just four and half hours a day, I completed both books in less than six months and spent my afternoons on less demanding work."

Something to ponder, by Tony Schwartz, article located here.

For reference

"Chart of distribution relationships"



From: here

Yearly goals: Before 30!

Some of these might not fully happen by 30, but 30 will be the benchmark to make sure I am making progress. :)

1. Successfully defend proposal by February March.
2. Write the two papers - have one on the way to being published. (Prepare to leave this place!)
3. Do everything you can to make 3B a reality: funding applications!
4. Publish two articles. 
5. Get more sophisticated understanding of development literature. (100 total references in EndNote)
6. Review quantitative material.
7. Teach PLCY 220 well; without regrets!
8. Read 12 5 books - 2 must be hefty classics.
1. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
2. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern - Stephen Greenblatt  
3. Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel  
4. The Dialogue of the Dogs - Miguel de Cervantes 
5. The House in Paris - Elizabeth Bowen 
6. Black Boy - Richard Wright 
7. Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor
9. Attend book club 6 4 times.
1. Classic Lit: 1/8
2. Classic Lit: 3/8 
10. Watch 12 9 AFI Top 100 movies. 
1. Tootsie
2. Raging Bull
3. Annie Hall
11. Run a sub-4 hour marathon. AND run 2 marathons this year.
12. Meet the 60% attendance goal for training program.  training on your schedule
1.  Missed: 5 - 2/6, 2/16, 2/20, 2/23, 3/6
2. Because it's not fair that you got a shoe injury and had to miss all that running!
13. Advance to Intermediate level in ballet.
14. Attend yoga every 2 weeks. 
1. 1/17 - CarrYoga - Alignment Yoga
2. 2/10 - CarrYoga - Flow Yoga 
15. Become more proficient in KiSwahili.
16. Become more proficient in Chinese.
17. Open a retirement account.
• Established a life insurance plan to protect the fam.
• In March and April, you were *really* bad about this goal.  You need to be better about this!
18. Wipe off all balance on credit card.
1. Never carry balance over again - you spent $400 on credit card fees last year! F.U.!
19. Commit.
20. Go on an international vacation with the yummy bean.
21. Be more efficient with your time: 4.5 hours work (3x1.5 hour blocks) + 2-3 hours RA work, maintain social and running life
22. Go to Asheville!
23. Hike Blue Ridge Mountains.
24. Run Al Buehler Trail, Tobacco Road
25. Write 1 letter to: Jen, Nicole, Crystal, Greg, the Bum, Anne, Javier.
26. Keep in better contact with Freddie.
27. Visit the dentist.
28. Maintain better sleep schedule.
29. Drink more water.
30. Be diligent about skincare.

Shuffling on my dissertation proposal

I don't know why it's been so hard for me to get my feet together and move forward on this thing, but it has.  Maybe I'm motivated by fear, laziness, some deeply rooted anxiety, discontent with my life... But it's the first step to getting out of here.

Usually am not a fan of Hemingway, but this is exactly what is going on with me right now.  From http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2008/06/13/ernest-hemingways-top-9-words-of-wisdom/

Also - a side note - I don't really agree with the blogger's interpretation of everything here... 

3. Keep your eyes on where you are going.

“Never mistake motion for action.”

It’s very easy to get lost in busy work. You may spend much time in your in-box or filing and organizing things. But at the end of the day or week, what have you accomplished? 

Just because you’re moving doesn’t mean that you are moving in the direction you really want to go. To do that you have to do the things that you know are really important and in alignment with your goals. And not getting lost in busy work.

So, improve your effectiveness and productivity. But, more importantly, never lose your view of your big picture. And take the action and do the things you need to do to get yourself where you want to go.

[CH note: I've been using Ashu's work as an excuse and distraction away from what I really need to do.  It's time to get on that, make more time.  Get on a normalized sleep schedule, throw myself into my work and making myself the best person I can be.]

4. Just do.

“The shortest answer is doing the thing.”

How do you get things done? You take action and do them. You may need to do some planning, but don’t get lost in that stage or in over thinking things. Planning or thinking won’t get you any results in real-life if you don’t take action too.

So take action and just try something. Maybe you’ll succeed. Maybe you’ll fail, but if you do then failure can always teach you a bunch of things. The worst thing is not failure, it’s to just sit on your hands and do nothing.

Developing a just do it habit – where you learn to do what you know you want to do despite how you feel or what your thoughts are telling you at the moment – can be difficult. But it’s rewarding not only because you’ll get actual results and – sooner or later – success. It also builds real confidence in yourself, in your capabilities and in your own personal power to achieve what you want in life.

[CH: Stop talking, just do your shit.]

5. Do. Fail. Learn. Do.

“The first draft of anything is shit”

So you have to keep your eyes on where you are going and do the right things to get yourself there. However, you will not always get what you want on your first try. No worries though, if you have the right attitude. 

What attitude is that? The attitude of the much younger you. The kid who learned to walk and ride a bike. A younger you that doesn’t put so much value into a failure. But instead just gets up after falling down, learns a lesson or two from what happened and then tries again. And again. 

By cultivating that way of thinking about failure – instead of the more usual, more grown up one where you may think that the world will come to an end just because you failed – you can over time achieve some pretty awesome things.

You can read more about how failure can be redefined and be of great help to you in 4 Reasons Why Failure is Pretty Awesome.

[CH note: And first product of your shit is going to be shit.]

9. Don’t judge.

“The writer’s job is not to judge, but to seek to understand.”

I think this is not just a great piece of advice for writers but for anyone really. Seeking to understand rather than judging is hard but is something that can help you and the people around you a great deal. And this also goes back to the first tip, the one about listening. To be a good listener you must have the intent to understand the other person rather than judging him/her.

Instead of going into interactions or just life with a bunch of judgements that you apply on everything and everyone try acceptance. This is not easy if you are used to making judgements about everything. And the thing is, by making a judgement you can often strengthen you ego. You get a small ego boost and you feel good for a while. But just like with caffeine this wears off pretty quickly and you soon need to judge again to feel good.

Accepting may not feel so appealing or “normal” but I have found that when I just accept things I feel a relief and stillness inside. You just feel good. I’m still working on this though.

Accepting someone’s opinion doesn’t mean that you surrender and let them “win”. Nor does it mean that you need to just sit back and cannot take any action. You can accept and still take action to change something if that is what you’d like to do. Accepting just means that you let that person think and feels as s/he likes without judging it. When you just accept and let your judgements rest it’s easier to really understand each other and connect. 

[CH note: don't realy like this interpretation - not knowing the context with which this was written, I think Hemingway is telling us not to form impressions and judgments informed by our framework for understanding, but to watch and be receptive to a reality we are unfamiliar with.  You're a researcher, your job is to watch, be observant, and try to understand what is going on with the world and/or data.]