Here's what I'm learning that finishing a herculean task consists of:
Framing the task within parameters of structure and consistency. The reason I'm waking up every morning at 5:45 am and leaving out at 6 am to then go work out for 30 minutes every morning and then arriving at my library carrel by 8 am Monday through Friday is so that I can burn "schedule" and "consistency" into my brain and consciousness. It's not that I love waking up early or that I'm trying to lose weight. It's just a thing I need to do. I'm consistently getting up. I'm consistently working out. I'm consistently going to the library. I'm hoping these things will translate into "I'm consistently working on my dissertation." It's hard. It's hard to stay focused. It's hard to make the kind of progress I would be happy with. But I'm making some progress every day. That's what needs to be consistent.
A colleague introduced me to a productivity app that I'm going to try stick to called Pomodoro. Each "pomodoro" is a 25-minute interval, which ends in a 5-minute break. After 4 pomodoro/5-minute break intervals, then you get a longer 15-minute break. It's a way to make yourself consistently work without feeling overwhelmed. It's good for a person like me who finds it hard to consistently work for long periods of time. But 25-minutes of consistent work at a time is doable. And it gives you the option to skip a break if you're on a roll and then at the end of the 4 intervals, you get a longer break. Operation Pomodoro starts tomorrow.
I have the chance to personally interview and communicate with the author of one of the books I'm analyzing. I wrote her and let her know that I'm excited about the chance to talk to her, but that I would like to have time to prepare first, and asked for her availability to perhaps conduct the interview via Skype. I'm pretty pumped about it. My adviser and I are discussing the possibility of bringing her to the university for a talk. That would be pretty awesome. We shall see.
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