33. Follow the Basics

Transcript of Episode: Welcome to office hours with Dr. Lacy. Hi, I'm Dr. Lacy, your dissertation strategist, where I help doctoral students finished their qualitative dissertations so that they can graduate and successfully become a doctor. Let's get started with this week's episode. Guess what? I am hosting my very first writing retreat in November with Jen and be at home in Chicago and I'm inviting a few friends along for a beautiful protective rejuvenating writing retreat right before the holiday. So we are going to meet meeting in Chicago November 24th, so this one is seven, four days, three nights of writing, scholarly pursuits, whatever that may be. Fun we are going to be talking about, so like for your scholarly self, we're going to be talking about best ways of organizing yourself, how to make a realistic schedule and a realistic routine. We're going to have some time to get some eyes and your writing to really help you flesh out those ideas. Have a really solid plan for not only getting a significant writing bent at the retreat because there, there's nothing more I find annoying that we go to in the bang. You're out, you're all excited and you're motivated and you're like, get them to do all the things and you go home and you're like, I don't even know how to take the next step. So we're going to make sure that when you leave, we know what to do. Plus, you know, I don't like, I can't just sit there and just work, you know, that's not my emo. So while we will have 20 hours dedicated to solid writing time, we will also have time to talk about things that are happening outside of writing. Like how do you keep your motivation, how do you stay productive, how do you manage your chair and your committee and keep everybody on schedule and on the same page, how do you manage your own selves that you know you can continue to show up and go after your dulls. Plus so much more breakfast and lunch is included in the price and we have three different options for packages available. So please, please, please go over to Margaret lacey.com you think you're going to click the red button at the top right corner and it says work with me. And there you will find all the information about the writing retreat. I'm so excited. I have so many surprises planned. We already have people signed up and so please don't miss out. I would hate for you to miss out. Just go on over to the website or you can DM me on Instagram and we can talk there and I can tell you more about it, but please don't miss out. Alright, we're going to get onto today's episode head low. Coming to you all. The lady from Maryland, I finally made a job. So I'll forget those of you who do not know, I just moved to Maryland because I am, I just took a new position as a postdoc at the university of Maryland college park and I had to move my whole life from Milwaukee to Maryland. So I'm here. I decided, I found a place in Beltsville, Maryland, so to DMV area. I'm settling in. All of my things have finally arrived. I'm slowly doing the whole process of unpacking, but I'm ready for it to be done because I'm just ready for it to be overweight. I'm sure you can relate to anyone who has a recently moved. Yeah. I'm just, you know, just getting used to everything. The driving here is a bit different than what I'm used to. You know, it's not even, I don't even know how to explain it. I don't even have words. People are just doing very strange things and I'm not sure why they're doing it while they're driving. Like, you know, why would you stop in the middle of the road and there is no stop light. You just decided to stop and then make a you tire on a one way. Like it doesn't make sense. Or people are just like switching in and out of lanes, but it's not like it's traffic. You know. Sometimes people do that cause they're trying to like, you know, get there fast or Nope, the roads are clear and people just keep switching from lane to lane with no point. It just seems like everyone is perpetually lost and trying to find their way. But I've just had a hard time believing that everyone was like that. I don't know. Yeah, that is not what this episode is about. Today's episode is about following the basics. Now this is week one, week one for my 90 day challenge. Maybe you are not signed up for the challenge. What are you doing? Sign up. So this is week one and week one we're talking about the basics of what you like. If you don't do anything else, these are the things that you should do. These are the things you should come back to. These are your starting points. These are your anchor. Okay? You will know that. I will not be talking a lot about writing or about like the technical stuff of dissertation and qualitative research for these first for this first month of this challenge because I know that it is not it's not important. Not that it's not like important, but that it comes second to you and how you feel and how you're taking care of you. If you've been around me, if you knew I care more about who you are, how you feel, your health, your wellbeing, then your dissertation is, the Academy would have you thinking that it should be the other way around. But here's the thing, if you don't have you, you don't have your health, you're not, well, there's no way you're going to be doing writing or anything for that matter. Okay? And my, one of my main goals is to re reimagine the possibilities of scholarly pursuits. Just re-imagine what life could be like as a scholar, as a writer, as a student, as a faculty, whatever. Re-Imagine what your life could be in the Academy. It does not have to be this. We overwork ourselves and we're exhausted and we're just going and going and going. Cause for what? Because you're going to look up and you won't have lived a life. Your health will be suffering. You will have all of these conditions because stress is real. And so what I'm going to be introducing this week are very small things, very, very small things that you can do on a daily basis to care for yourself. I'm asking you to take hours and hours. I'm asking you one hour each day, one hour. So moving right in. That is the first basic. You take one hour for yourself, I say in the morning because at least you'd know that your first hour is dedicated to you and then whatever else comes up comes up throughout the day, but it's not hanging over your head. Some people take their first hour and night and their first hour, excuse me, they take their hour at night as like a bedtime routine. But you know how you work best and you know that you're most likely to do, but at the very least, no matter when taking hour for yourself. The second thing is you want to drink at least 64 ounces of water in a day. Some people are like, that's it. Some people are like, Oh, how and where? Listen, what I do, as soon as I wake up, I have a cup of water about, I bet like a 16 ounce cup of boarder by my bed and I put that there at night so that when I wake up I still actually grab for the cup and just Chuck the water. When I do that, when I drink the 16 ounces in the morning, the 64 just happens so effortlessly throughout the day. Because I do 16 ounces in the morning and I do 16 ounces right before I go to bed, that's 32 and now I noticed that I just need 3,200 ounces throughout the day. Another thing that I have adopted to like get this water in, cause I'm all about the routine because the way life is set up now, I need things to happen in a way that I don't have to think about them. And so developing routines have helped immensely with that. So drinking a 16 ounce in the morning, I now try to drink one at lunch, then one before bit that gives me the 48 ounces. And I'll either do the other 16 ounces. Like when I get home from work cause I usually will drink tea or something like that. Or owl. If I go workout that day, I'll do it during a workout, but that ensures that I at least get the 64 ounces. What I like to get more sure and know on those, on those days when I want like more of like filling it, it's great. But on those days when I'm like, Ooh, life is just not it today. That routine of doing it in the morning at lunch when I get off of work and at night helps me get those 64 ounces in. So drink your water. Okay. So that's a second base. Basic. The third one is move for 10 minutes. If you follow me on my instant stories, you'll see that I've put that in there and it's like you have to move for at least 10 minutes now. Been in a new place. I've been more tired. Am I crafting consumption has gone back up. And so the way to get more caffeine is that I tell myself I have to walk to go get it. So from my office there are some stores, there's like a CVS, it's like a coffee shop, there's a McDonald's whatever. And to get to them, those places to get there and back, it's about a 10 minute walk. And so that is the way I like bribed myself on that because I think it's so ridiculous, but that's how I bribed myself to go do my 10 minute walk or when I get home. I live in a very large building, like large, like there are like hundreds of apartments in here. And so I will walk around the hallways while I'm trying to learn the building cause everything looks the same. And then to, because it's so large, I can just keep walking and get my 10 minutes in. And so I'll do that while listening to like a podcast or like watching a video or something like that. So that's what I do for my 10 minutes. But it's important whether that's like exercising, whether that's like yoga, maybe you're moving, it's like turning on some music and dancing. Maybe when you're on fall and you're just circling in your apartment, maybe it's like [inaudible] or just even some light stretching. But the point is to move your body in some way for at least 10 minutes a day and work yourself up after that. But just 10 minutes a day. And then the fifth basic is, no, I've missed something. That was three. Yes, I missed something. I miss four. I'm like that little girl on that video. Have you seen that little that, that video and that girl is I mean she might be like two or three and just her, she's counting with her parents and I think she keeps skipping. Like, I don't know, she keeps skipping like four or five and she keeps skipping a number and I keep trying to walk her through it like one, two, three, four, five, and whatever the numbers, she consistently skips it. It's really cute. I'll try to find it and put it in the show notes, but that's what I just thought about for myself. We are on number four. Let's recap. Number one was second hour for yourself. Number two was drink 64 ounces of water. Number three was moved for 10 minutes and number four is bright for 10 minutes. This is what happens when you, you write notes and then you go out of order. That's what just happened. Okay, so number four is write for 10 minutes. We need to be, I mean you're, I'm sure you've heard people saying to fight every day to develop that habit of writing, to just get your, to get your body in the habit of writing your hands, your mind, whatever. But a lot of times people are not sure what they should be writing. What I tell my clients to do is to pull up a document or they have daily pages, sheets that pull up a document, set a timer for 10 minutes and dumped everything out in your brain. Just brain dump. Any thoughts, all the thoughts to do lists. People you want to talk to, things you should think you should eat or thinking about cooking places you want to go. Maybe some random thoughts about this article you read. Maybe something about a TV show. Just, just write it down. It's not about being perfect is no such thing as if you're doing it right. You're doing it right. If you're writing, typing, whatever that is, just get it all out. Maybe it's like things that you hope for for the future. Things you want to do for your dissertation, things you want to tell your chair, things you want to call your mama and say, I don't know. You just do that for 10 minutes. You just, right, right, right, right, right. The goal then because what, like what will happen is you would get into the habit a few weeks ago by if you're doing this and then your brain will say, Hmm, how can I do this more intentionally? And you may say, I read this article, I'm just going to write about that, or I'm supposed to be working on this section of my dissertation. Let me just use this 10 minutes to write that because now you don't have to worry about getting over the hump of, Oh, I have to sit down and I have to write it. I don't know what I'm writing about. That's done. Cause you've done it already. You've developed a habit. Now your brain can focus on, Oh we do this every day. It's fine, but what if that's how you know? Like what if we started writing about this section? What if we use this time to get ahead and the dissertation and not only will you start to move forward in that, but you'll also notice that that 10 minutes we'll start to expand into 12 and in 1415 1820 next thing you know it's like 60 minutes. Have I interrupted writing time and how productive you will be doing that. That is what the power of writing for 10 minutes and at anytime if you fall off, you just not like, or are you having a stressful day or a busy day? You know, I just need to do this for 10 minutes. Hey girl, the ones that come in the middle of this episode and tell you about my 90 day challenge. Yes, the last 90 days. How do we finish this year strong? So if you're familiar with Rachel Hollis, she does the last 90 days challenge and I decided to do my own version of that. And so I'm here to help all of my scholar friends make the last 90 days the best 90 days of 2019 all you had to do is come on over to the website, my bet, Lacey's dot com scroll all the way down to the bottom and you will see a button there for you to sign up. There should also be a button at the top of the page, but just in case you don't see it, it's there and you are. You're on a sign up and you're going to get emails. And what I'm doing is saying, folks, an email every week full of motivation and a challenge for them to do every week in this challenge takes no time. Like it's asking you to take an hour for yourself in, listen, if you don't have that, how every day for yourself, like Rachel says, do you even have a life? So yes, that's where we are going to be delivered in 90 days. It's not too late to sign up. It's never too late to start going towards your dreams. So please come on over to the website, sign up and let's get back to the episode. That's number four. Number five is execute your top three. You know, if you see it again, follow me on Instagram. Are you following me on Instagram? I'm at Marvette Lacy follow me. I do a top three every day. I do a top three for general in my day in a top three. When I get to work, it helps fo