Five Tips for Slaying the Email Dragon

Since the vast majority of our correspondence and many of our work tasks arrive in the form of email, it cannot be ignored. And yet academics often fall into the habit of constant checking throughout the day, pulling their attention away from their most important...

The Tomato Cure

Almost every week several clients tell me what a hard time they have getting started on writing, how overwhelmed they feel when they face their writing time, or how easily distracted they are when trying to write. Often, I prescribe The Pomodoro Technique®. This...

Goal Setting

I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions – if you want to start exercising or develop better writing habits, you can start today, right now, rather than waiting until tomorrow, Monday, or next January 1. But I am a big fan of planning. At this time of year, many of my...

Seize Small Time Blocks

I often hear from academics who are frustrated because they think they need large blocks of time to move writing projects forward, and during busy teaching semesters large blocks of time are few and far between. People are often surprised to find to find that they CAN...

Writing While Teaching

To Write More – Pay Yourself First We use the same word, “spend,” when referring to both money and time. If we pay bills and then go shopping, and only put whatever is left over into a savings account, the savings will accumulate very slowly. Likewise, if a...