Downtime is Productive

by Robyn Byrd

As winter break approaches, folks will ask writers and researchers, "so you plan to get a lot done over vacation?" First of all, winter break is not a vacation. Second... NO.

As behind as one might be on writing a thesis or dissertation (or on any other big project), it is important to take your downtime where you can get it. Even if it means filling your schedule with other things, like a day job. Some of my colleagues spent the break doing nothing. If you can afford it, downtime doing nothing can be just what you need. But if you can't, or if you're restless, then setting aside knowledge work for a time and working on "regular people" stuff instead can be a much needed respite. In the 21st century, we now know that sometimes a break from work is the only thing that can really increase work productivity. 

It is important to affirm this to yourself, just as it important to renounce the lie that downtime is lazy. Americans, even those of us who have opted out of the rat race, are obsessed with being productive, with working ourselves every hour that's available. It doesn't actually help us get much done, and it wrecks our relationship with the intellectual work we love.

I spent my winter "break" doing seasonal work and teaching intensive ESL courses for international students. I worked seven days a week. I don't recommend it. But what didn't I do? I purposely didn't work on my dissertation. Sometimes this stressed me out, but other times it was freeing. I had license not to do schoolwork. It was winter break. Besides, I had not a single hour left in the day to do anything but "real" work. I paid off the bills, almost as if I wasn't a poverty-wages grad student. I gave my kids a middle-class Christmas. And somehow, as exhausted as I was by all this... I'm ready to start my dissertation work again.

It's okay to bench yourself.

Pushing through a winter break, or even too much of summer, by working on a thesis or dissertation is a bad idea. Think of any other craft that involves such specialized, Herculean effort. Athletes, for instance, don't train like crazy for their sport in year-round. Not until it's time. If they trained every day, they would wear themselves out, open themselves up to injury, and probably become bored. And if they're smart they don't train right up until the night before the big meet. They stop to eat, and take much needed downtime to heal. Knowledge workers, mental athletes, need to allow ourselves the room to heal, to prepare, and to let downtime make us yearn for our work.

This analogy applies to musicians as well. My partner's band goes on hiatus every winter after a December Christmas show. They play hard through the summer and into the holiday season, so they know they'll burn out if they play through the year's end. In spring, someone will get a gig again. They make a plan to have one by March. And then they rest. It is then that new ideas for songs come, tunes heard on the radio remind them of what they love about music, and soon enough they are back at it, ready to rock.

It's important to note that even though I worked my butt off at not writing this winter, I didn't do it without a plan to come back. The semester system gives an unstructured person like me just the calendar I need to plan my work. Next week the university starts up again. Winter break officially ends. I will officially quit my seasonal job, and I will set to work on my dissertation, yet once more. You see, while downtime is very important, you have to set a limit on it. A couple of months was just right for me. Just enough to get lost in this different life of being a working person. After my time away, physically and mentally, I'm ready to strain my brain instead of my back.

The Graduate Degree: A Prelude to Knowledge Work

Investigating, analyzing, evaluating, creating, contextualizing, self-directing: skills like these are integral to the writing of a thesis or dissertation but also characteristic of the broad occupational domain called knowledge work.  To thesis and dissertation writers at any stage of their projects, below we offer thoughts on how you’re already developing—and can continue to develop—skills that are crucial for success in knowledge-oriented fields.

Tallies and Time Clocks?

Knowledge work is generally hard to quantify or measure.  Ironically, though, those who engage in such work across fields of academia tend to be fairly obsessed with counting and measuring.  Most carefully keep or monitor totals of papers presented, articles published, grants awarded, committees served on, and classes taught per year.  When you arrange your CV and the several accompanying documents needed for an academic job search, your field’s particular obsessions with such performance-related numbers boldly reassert themselves.  Other academic endeavors are sometimes summed up in terms of hours spent per week in classrooms, offices, labs, meetings, field investigations, grading sessions, or writing stints.

Yet the efforts that go into various kinds of academic production are not always easy to break down into regular time chunks.  Realistically, much academic work can keep the worker occupied from early morning to late at night, during parts of weekends, and during stretches of semester breaks.  (Let me briefly add that plenty in and outside academia do seem interested in figuring out the number of hours per week academics actually work—or in debating how many hours per week they should work.  A couple of recent reports (see here and here) suggest that such investigations and debates are complex and sometimes testy.  We avoid these issues in this post.)

Your Project: Training in Key Knowledge-Work Skills

A lot of what you do while completing your thesis or dissertation is obviously solid preparation for a future career in knowledge-centered domains.  As outlined and nicely detailed by the Careers & Employment Division at the University of Manchester, those aiming for a career in academia need to develop at least five skills for success.  Good news: as soon as you embark on your project, you’re immersed in an experience that can help you hone each of them.

Networking: As you develop relationships with members of your committee, each member can introduce you to others to help build your professional network.  In addition, while researching and writing, you can further extend your network by attending and/or presenting parts of your project at conferences.  Last year around this time, I traveled to a national conference to present a paper based on research for one of my dissertation chapters and attended multiple panels in areas central and peripheral to my academic interests.  The experience led to new contacts and eventually a request to submit a piece to a scholarly society’s publication.  Next month, I’ll travel to a regional conference to deliver a presentation with an NIU colleague and attend several discussion sessions.  You’re likely taking advantage of similar networking opportunities.  If not, seek them out.

Time Management: You’re already a knowledge worker and thus already weighing priorities and setting many deadlines of your own.  In previous posts on this blog, we’ve covered approaches to managing time during writing sessions, balancing your project with family matters, and maintaining your focus and enthusiasm by mixing work with recreational activities.  Consider such scheduling practices as sound preparation for the self-directed knowledge work of your post-degree career.

Resilience: While writing a thesis or dissertation, setbacks inevitably occur.  Data may need to be reanalyzed.  Ideas and approaches may need revamping.  Feedback on your progress from committee members—or from attendees at academic conferences—can be encouraging but also humbling.  As you get closer to the project’s completion, you’ll likely start looking for your postgraduate job.  Academic job hunting is especially fraught with pressures, rejections, and disappointments.  But lows like these that you experience throughout your project build your patience and resilience for similar wrinkles you’ll face down the road.

Presentation Skills: As a knowledge worker, you need to be able to present ideas clearly, in a variety of settings, among colleagues but also among people unfamiliar with intricacies of your work.  Each time you revise a section of your long document, you add useful material to your expanding pool of well-articulated expressions of your findings.  And you shouldn’t just aim to present them at your defense—another reason to plan to present at conferences while completing your project.  If you’re teaching, consider ways to integrate insights from your developing work in the classroom.

Project Management: At the NIU Thesis Office, we stress the value of being proactive in managing your thesis or dissertation project.  In a previous post, we featured a review of a useful book that describes the project-management approach to the dissertation.  Ultimately, you’re the manager of your project—under supervision of your director, of course.  The management experiences you gain now will certainly inform many aspects of your future knowledge-oriented employment.

Final Thoughts

Happy investigating, analyzing, evaluating, self-directing, and writing to all.  And good luck to those of you defending over the next few weeks!