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“If you fail to believe you will procrastinate or become idealistic about how awesome you are at working hard and managing your time you never develop a strategy for outmaneuvering your own weakness.”

Very wise words we could all do with hearing at some point in our lives! Hands up who has procrastinated over an essay? Who is procrastinating right now?!

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Planning doesn’t have to be time-consuming. It can be as little as writing ‘PLAN’ at the top of the page and then listing a few headings; pretty much a quick brainstorming session. For example, I wrote ‘The Blank Page: Part 2,’ then in the text box listed ‘make a plan,’ ‘talk to someone else’ and ‘write it out as questions.’ Just these simple headings written in advance (I started drafting yesterday) have made it so much easier for me to come back to you today and ‘Just Do It.’

Of course, your plans don’t need to be as simple as mine. Afterall, this is a blog post that will only reach 700 words, or there abouts. Something like a dissertation, for example, requires a detailed plan constructed after much careful research, with headings and references included. HOWEVER, your dissertation plan can be started in much the same way, short notes can always be built up over time.

But don’t despair at all this talk of planning, you don’t have to do it all alone, oh no: another thing I did was chat through my ideas with Mr Scriveny and other friends. Sometimes taking the time to tell someone else what’s in your head gives your thoughts a chance to get organised. This works especially well if you’re not that comfortable with writing, or are really struggling with a particular piece.

My theory is that because you’re not stressing about using exactly the right words, you’re giving your brain chance to work on the ideas, rather than the style. It doesn’t matter if it comes out garbled, because the thoughts will be there. I tend to type/scribble down quick notes as ideas come to me, but you could also record yourself (Mr Scriveny recommends Camstudio, which is a free screen recording program he uses, but I think you guys are savvy enough to search the net for something that suits you.)

I first used ‘Talk to Someone’ when I was 15/16, back when I was slaving over my GCSE English and History coursework. My poor parents probably remember more about The Merchant of Venice and English castles than I do.

Speaking of my parents, here’s another thing they helped me with: rephrasing the topic using questions. I was fortunate enough to have a family who would chat to me about work and would often find a different way of asking me about it. For example, in writing this blog, if I were struggling to think of ideas I could have asked myself:

“Who has helped me in the past?
What else can I do to spark some motivation?
When are the techniques useful?
Why do they work?
Where have I used them successfully?”

You may notice these questions are some of the journalistic buzz words: Who What When Where and Why (don’t forget How as well though!) Journalists use these questions to get a view of the whole story, and you can use them to make a well-rounded essay, because a tight argument, with well explored points and examples, is pivotal to a good piece of writing. For example, in this blog the questions help to support my technique suggestions: rather than simply stating what to do, using ‘All the W’s’ makes my explanation more focused, more detailed and much more interesting.

I hope these are good starter points for your own writing; Planning, Talk to Someone and All the W’s are great ways of hacking into that hidden knowledge you can’t seem to get onto the page. Hopefully, along with Just Do It, a funky Mantra and Work on The Fun Bits, you’ve now got an arsenal of places to turn when the inner brat starts pouting at you.

Have you used any of these ideas? Or do you have other techniques you turn to in times of brattyness? Let me know what has worked for you!

'Fund our Future' - 10.11.10

Well, how about that government eh? The news coverage of the Browne Report made me do three things:

• rage

• get a large glass of wine

• rage some more

Whether the changes are fair or not, Browne’s suggestions highlight the fact that embarking on a degree should be taken very seriously. I remember the sheer ‘Squeeeee!’ that came with the appearance of my student loan at the start of every term, but that money wasn’t really real to me, it wasn’t something I’d worked for; it was just there, and I was much more free with that money than the money I earned for myself.

With fees set to rise and every student and prospective student in the country freaking out, maybe it’s time to start thinking about the investment we make when we accept our uni places. Our money is paying for this, and that money is real! The student loan is not just a magic number in a bank account, it’s our future earnings. It’s money that we could have had but won’t ever see a penny of: it’s gone years before it’s earned, plus interest.

With the possibility of losing £21,000 for 3 years education (plus a maintenance loan of around £9,000) you really need to be sure that you’re going to get something useful out of the investment. Afterall, who would willingly spend £30,000 on getting drunk, producing bad work and getting a substandard degree at the end of it?

What can you do?

So, say you’re at Uni, you’re spending that loan, but feeling a bit worried about the future. Or perhaps you’re an A level student, writing your UCAS application right now, thinking about how these new university fees are going to affect you. It’s impossible to predict what might happen, but it’s always possible to get the best, most rewarding experience out of higher education, if you can make use of all the resources available to you:

• University support services: these are invaluable, support centres normally run sessions on everything from practical advice for managing your time and study, to dealing with stress and money.
• Ask questions! Your tutors/professors are there for more than just lecturing – they have access to inside information and useful contacts.
• Research your industry/field in the real world, even better, do something to contribute that isn’t part of your course. If you’re a game design student, make games in your own time and contact companies. A journalism student: write as much and as often as possible, in as many places as possible!

Final Thoughts

Whilst the ideological implications of the Browne report are a matter for a different post, (perhaps even a different blog) the actual impact of increased fees will leave thousands of future students questioning their career decisions.

If University, that fantastic, thrown-in-at-the-deep-end life experience, is still your decision, then I’m hugely excited for you!  I can certainly say it’s one of the best experiences I’ve ever had and would recommend it to anyone, but don’t ever be fooled into thinking it’s only about the drinking, or that a job is guaranteed at the end of it. The people who get the promised jobs are normally one of two things: well-connected or damn hard workers. Or , most likely, both.

Are you a graduate who would recommend a University education? Or not? Are you taking your A levels and making these tough decisions? Or are you a lecturer with a unique perspective on these issues? Any and all comments considered.

The most annoying thing about my brand of procrastination is that there’s rarely anything new to look at each time I do it. All the navigating that I do during my procrastination sessions adds up to precious minutes away from the productive thing I should be doing. I know for a fact that if I only looked at my social sites and blog reader for 30 minutes each morning then I would always have something interesting to read.

The temptation, however, is hideous; and a blank page makes it more so. The vast whiteness makes all the ideas float around without any purpose (I imagine them as miniature raspberries blowing raspberries at me as they drift around my brain).

Ahem. So what can be done to make them behave?

My first port of call is ‘Just Do It.’ This isn’t always the most productive, but it starts things off and, once I’m on a roll, it breaks the habitual site checking. I start writing without even thinking about it, even if I’m thinking ‘I can’t do it,’ even if what I write isn’t completely relevant, it still helps to break the block and get some words out there. In fact, some of my favourite work has come out of ‘Just Do It,’ because it turns out that I actually did know what to write, it was just Betty being obstructive.

‘Just Do It’ also works great if combined with a mantra, for example, ‘it’s only a draft’ or ‘mistakes don’t matter’ or, more simply, ‘keep going’. Mantras help keep my focus on the task at hand and stop the inner Betty from winning the battle of wills. You might be interested to know that Betty is really good at doing negative mantras, ones like ‘I can’t do it,’ ‘I don’t know how to start,’ or ‘I can’t be bothered,’ which are very draining, so my positive ones are a good way of breaking the cycle of doom.

Another thing I do is start with the bits which feel the most comfortable. The most interesting, fun or the easiest parts. This gets the raspberry-blowing-thoughts ‘out there’ and gives me a boost of confidence to keep going (and gets me closer to the finished word count!)

There’ll be plenty more advice for beating writer’s block in part 2, I hope these personal strategies are a helpful starter: Just Do It (and do the fun bits) and give yourself a perfectionist kick up the bum by remembering ‘it’s just a draft’!

If all else fails, go and do something else that’s going to make you feel good for 30 mins to an hour, and don’t beat yourself up about it, if your block is that bad you’re probably working too hard anyway.

Anyway, I don’t believe that some people are naturally better at writing than other people; I think writing is something everyone can do, if they get the right support. But if the right support hasn’t come at the right time then it can bypass you completely. I’ve spoken to many people who have been told ‘your essay is good, up til half way’ or ‘more critical analysis’, without any hint at what or how the teacher (or lecturer) expects you to improve.

One of my old teachers used to tell people ‘FOFO;’ which stood for  ‘_ Off and Find Out!’ Which is all very well when you’re looking for information, and we all know it’s tough enough researching, taking notes, understanding the question and creating an answer; but what if they way you have worded that carefully crafted answer doesn’t meet their expectations? What if all the information is there, and you’ve spent literally hours working on it, but they don’t think you’ve answered the question?

I remember spending HOURS upon HOURS with my A level English teacher, thrashing out exactly how to word my answers and why they need to be worded so. When I got to uni I felt so grateful to that teacher for helping me to understand how to get my point across. These days I love that moment where an essay seem to ‘come together’ because all the separate bits are nicely linked, when I know that I’ve produced a really good argument for my case. I was lucky someone was willing to put their time into helping me learn that skill; I’ve ended up actually enjoying writing essays!

Does anyone have any memories, good or bad, from writing essays at school?  Did teachers inspire you, or make you despair?