My Re-Organization

Over the next few days I am going to be re-vamping how I work on my dissertation. It is clear to me that my past study and work habits are not going to be sufficient to accomplish the long term goal of completing this thing.

I have always been an active reader; however, my reading habits are somewhat sporadic. I am attempting to focus my schedule so that I will have a consistent time each day to read. My initial goal is to read one academic article or a book chapter on my dissertation topic each day. I then take less than 1/2 hour to write a short summary of what I have read. This will likely be an improvement over my one or two day a week marathon sessions, and before-bed reading.

I am also setting aside time to write each day. If I do not have any planned writing to work on I will be free writing. The way that I have approached writing in the past has been flawed flawed. I have for most of my academic career waited too long to start a writing project hoping for a lightning bolt of inspiration or an ingenious idea. When no superb insight occurs to me by the deadline I write in a marathon style, burning the midnight oil until I have a first draft. I then have just enough time to do some quick editing for obvious mistakes and turn it in. This method has been basically successful for me so far in my studies, although I am sure that alternative methods would have been superior. However, it will obviously not work for a dissertation. So I have to adapt.

I will be implementing so called SMART goals as I go along. Each week I will establish a worthwhile but attainable objective to meet in my writing and research. I will also be utilizing backward planning to achieve completion of this whole process in a timely and controlled manner.

Well, there you have some insight to the types of changes I am trying to implement. Most of it seems like common sense...that is because it is. However, I need to improve on these areas if I am ever to get where I want to go. Being disciplined and proactive with my time and efforts will hopefully allow me to tackle this project while balancing other obligations to my family, church, teaching, and household.