How to create a writing habit despite all of the great reasons why you can’t work on your writing right now

Plus yet another highly dated pop culture reference and some light profanity. If you wish to avoid spoilers for a 42-year-old movie and/or are offended by mild swear words, proceed carefully.

Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here. 

In 1979, the terrifying When a Stranger Calls was released. I saw it in the mid-80s and the movie scarred (not a typo) me so much that when I looked up the Youtube video for today’s newsletter, I had to turn it off as soon as I heard “Have you checked the children?” It took two leftover Halloween mini-chocolate bars to calm me down.

The things I do for you, dear reader.

What made When a Stranger Calls so scary was the unexpected reveal: “we have traced the call, it is coming from inside the house.” The babysitter had been receiving disturbing calls and took steps to address the external threat: locking the doors, finding a household object to use as a weapon, calling the police. But the call is from inside the house! 

Over time, the phrase “the call is from inside the house” became a trope for self-sabotage. The house is your brain. The call is your thoughts rationalizing actions that go against your larger goals.

Like, say, writing.

I have written before about how to write when you don’t want to write. I outlined the Write for 10 Minutes writing approach, in which you set very small writing goals and link these together to move your writing forward. It is a very effective approach - but only if you actually, you know, do it.

So today’s small thing to try immediately takes the Write for 10 Minutes writing approach and marries it with the growing popular literature about habit formation. This literature tells us why habits are powerful, how to change habits, and how and why to make habits small to achieve success. My own experience confirms that habits can be transformational. And for those of us whose career success in whole or in part depends on writing, establishing a writing habit can transform your career.

You might be tempted to leave today’s small idea for some future date when you are less busy or more motivated or [insert your own thing here]. But if writing matters to you and your goals, consider giving this one a try immediately. 

Maybe even today.

(Writing not an issue in your life? Use the approach for reading, exercising, house cleaning, language learning, or whatever is relevant for you.)

One Small Thing to Try Immediately: The 10 Minute Habit Builder

Drawing on the habits formation literature and my own experience, here is how to establish and maintain a Write for 10 Minutes writing habit.

1. Schedule your writing time for the week ahead. Select the days that you want to write for 10 minutes or more, and schedule this writing time in your calendar,  complete with a calendar alert. (Pro tip: if others can view your calendar, make sure the time is coded as ‘busy’.) 

Some suggestions:

• Make establishing your writing habit a priority by allocating it your earliest available productive time. If you are a morning person without kids to get ready for school or dogs to walk, this might be 8 am. If your brain doesn’t start working properly until 11 am, schedule accordingly.

• Select as many sessions as feels most achievable and no more. It is better to aim for one session (e.g., “every Monday from 9:00-9:10 am”) and achieve it than to plan five and feel defeated if you only manage to do four. Don’t be an asshole to your Future Self!

• Plan for only 10 minutes. Ten minutes is more than zero minutes. Remember, your goal is to create a habit. If you finish your 10 minutes, want to write more, and have time to do so, awesome - go for it. If you finish your 10 minutes, want to write more, and don’t have time to do more, awesome - you now have more motivation for your next scheduled writing session. If you finish your 10 minutes and are DONE, awesome - goal achieved.

2. Anticipate your resistance thoughts and plan your counter-resistance. There is a good chance that when your writing time appears, your brain will raise arguments to keep you from writing. “Ten minutes for writing is not enough time to get anything done.” “I really need to respond to this super-important email right now.” “I can’t do anything on this article until Godot gets back to me.” “I need some chocolate.”

This is the call coming from inside the house. 

Calls from inside the house are normal. They are predictable. They are ‘known knowns’. So plan ahead. Anticipate your resistance thoughts and write down your responses ahead of time. In my experience, rather than arguing with resistance thoughts, it is most effective to simply provide a counter-resistance response. For example:

Resistance Thought: Ten minutes is not enough time to bother with.

Counter-Resistance Thought: I am going to write for 10 minutes right now anyways.

Resistance Thought: I am too tired to work on this today.

Counter-Resistance Thought: I am going to write for 10 minutes right now anyways.

Resistance Thought: I have other, more important things to work on.

Counter-Resistance Thought: I am going to write for 10 minutes right now anyways.

Resistance Thought: I am a shitty writer and my ideas are bad and it is all hopeless and everyone thinks I am a joke and why do I even bother and I think there is some leftover cake.

Counter-Resistance Thought: I am going to write for 10 minutes right now anyways.

If you amuse easily, as I do, you may want to imagine an avatar for your resistance thoughts and/or give this voice in your head a name.

3. Show up, experience your resistance thoughts, and then write anyways. When it is your writing time, notice any resistance thoughts that arise. Let them happen. Observe them dispassionately. Don’t judge them, or yourself for having them. They are just thoughts. Sentences in your brain. 

Read the counter-resistance response(s) you prepared. And then, like the grown-ass adult that you are, complete your 10 minutes of uninterrupted writing time. 

A quick note on a word you may have skipped over: uninterrupted. Shut down email and Slack, turn off your phone, and do NOT visit social media sites. Yes, you are very important. But still, take a leap of courage and let the world survive without your attention for 10 whole minutes. 

Allow your writing to be shitty. (I am a huge believer in Anne Lamott’s idea of “shitty first drafts”, as she outlines in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I am also a believer in shitty second drafts.) Allow your writing to be simply creating a bullet list of ideas, or an outline, or rewriting the same sentence four times, only to return to the original version. If needed, allow yourself to spend your 10 minutes of writing time staring at the open document. Remember: you are working on building a writing habit.

Allow habit-building to be enough.

5. Celebrate your writing time. When you have spent at least 10 minutes with your writing, count it as a win - and do something immediately to positively reinforce the habit. You could say something aloud (“Victory!”, “Superstar!”, “Haha - take that, [insert name of your nemesis here]!”) or do something physical (fist pump, jazz hands, that funky dance move of yours that embarrasses your kids). 

Why on earth would you do this? Well, psychologist BJ Fogg, author of Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything, argues a “shot of positive emotion and feeling” helps to cement habits more quickly. Plus, well, it is kind of fun. And you need a bit more fun in your day.

6. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Once your habit is established: repeat. And repeat. And repeat. You may be wondering, “Loleen, when will the writing resistance thoughts go away?” Well, I have been at this for over a quarter-century and I am still waiting. But I have written a lot in the meantime.

And so can you.

What writing resistance thoughts do you have, and how do you counter them? Please hit comment and let me know!

Chipping Away: What I Have Been Up To

A quick update on some of my own activities since my last newsletter, since I have your attention:

• Is your university or college exploring or offering options for microcredential programs? In my November Skills Agenda column, “Why faculty need to talk about microcredentials”, I argue faculty members need to pay attention to this space. I also suggest ways that academic units can identify innovative microcredential programs that allow them to advance their own academic priorities rather than leaving this to be a top-down effort. Please take a look and share this article with your department chair and colleagues. 

• I have made some progress on my holiday shopping and aspire to be done by December 1-ish. Or at least by December 10. Absolutely no later than December 15. If you still have shopping to do, be sure to check out my holiday gift ideas list to spur your own thinking. 

• Winter has arrived in Saskatoon! While the temperatures can be mild (just below freezing), there have also been some less-than-mild overnight lows (as in -20C). Fortunately, it is very pretty. Let’s see if I still feel that way in late March. 

Until next time…

My aspiration with Academia Made Easier is to share small ideas (many of which I learned the hard way) to make academic life a bit more manageable for others. If you have people in your network who might benefit from these ideas, please pay this sharing spirit forward and let your colleagues and social media followers know about Academia Made Easier. I appreciate your assistance with this!

Stay well, my colleagues. 

P.S. Funny story, at least to me, about why When a Stranger Calls has been on my mind. Months ago, a fellow Gen-X research partner found the intra-provincial differences are stronger than inter-provincial differences on a particular attitudinal measure of Canadian regionalism. “The call is coming from inside the house,” he posted to our team’s Slack workspace, to which our Millennial research partner responded, “that reference is lost on me.” 

And with that exchange, the idea for today’s newsletter was born. 

Want to support my chocolate habit? You are very sweet. Buy me a coffee is a site that allows readers to show their appreciation for the unpaid labour of writers, artists, and other creatives. Check it out!

Interested in having me lead faculty success and/or graduate student success workshops at your campus? Please ask your university to contact me!

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Loleen Berdahl, Ph.D.: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time on Twitter and binge-watching television, and my house could be a lot cleaner. During the work hours, I am the Executive Director of the  Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of the University Affairs Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are  Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science.

Disclosure: some of the links in this newsletter are affiliate links, which means that if you use the link and then make a purchase, I may make a small commission that I will use to support my chocolate and book-buying habits. The cost is to the corporation and not to you, but you don’t want to use the link, no problem: just search up the item yourself without using the link provided. Better still: support a local business and source the item that way!