A professor recently came to me for help with what he called an “issue of thinking.”
Part of it was procrastination, which many people are wrestling with. I suggested framing the habit as an expression of inner conflict. If there is something you really want to do, but you’re not doing it, there is probably another part of you that’s resisting. So it’s a negotiation between two parties, except that they are both you.
They’re different parts of self, with needs that don’t seem to fit together—or not at the very same instant. The part that wants instant gratification, now and forever, is probably a lot younger than the part that’s more interested in getting valuable things done (like pursuing justice, or doing the laundry,), even if that means having to wait awhile for some of the other kinds of value (like ice cream, or a movie).
Like ordinary negotiations, these are best pursued with gentle firmness, a vigilant yet easygoing grace that is authoritative because it takes the long view of the situation, and sets appropriate priorities. In other words, find your most adult self in there somewhere; assume it (i.e. take it on, activate it, become it); and parent the rest of you into ceding control to this most-adult part-of-self.
Your inner child doesn’t actually want to run the show, knowing he or she lacks the skills, the knowledge, and the fortitude to run an adult life (in the world of grownups, with taxes and jobs and the occasional blizzard). But in order to stand down and let you get busy, the kid needs to feel that his or her yearnings and appetites matter; that they will not be trampled, mocked, or ignored; and that enough love is present to soothe a small person through the fear, boredom, and sheer fussiness that delayed gratification usually involves.
But the professor was working on more than procrastination. In fact, that wasn’t the main thing.
His problem had to do with determining what to work on—which was tricky because, he said, he’s “too detail-oriented.” He had plenty of ideas, but they all pointed in different directions. It wasn’t clear which, if any, was really worth developing into a paper he would be confident he could (and should) try to publish. So he found himself floundering, despite a real wish to be productive and enjoy his work. In the classroom, he felt something similar. He wanted to let himself be the kind of beneficially weird lecturer who, as a student, he had always wanted and rarely got: the kind who’s full of quotations and colorful embellishments that link the parts of the course together, and even connect it to adjacent disciplines. But he kept fretting about whether this would be acceptable.
In an academic department, as in a marriage or a family, it’s good to have people with diverse thinking styles. But there is an art to knowing the limits of what’s unusual about the way you do things. Of course, your difference from other people’s style and methods will be partly built-in and unconscious. And yet some of it should be, or become, a free choice that you can adjust to the needs of the moment. As a teacher you can allow yourself plenty of (semi-relevant, but educational) digressions in your lectures. But when there’s an exam coming up, it’s best to curtail those a bit, the better to support your students as they try to prepare.
If you’re brimming with lore and anecdotes and allusions, and you believe they’ll enrich the course, most students will find that style at least a little bothersome—even if they can also appreciate it a little, since it’s unusual and therefore refreshing. “He goes on tangents,” they will complain, forgetting that a tangent does touch the circle at some point, and that there is more than one way to conduct a good lecture. It’s not a military campaign or a corporate boardroom.
A small minority of students will highly prize what you’re giving them, because they can’t get it anywhere else—assuming you’re the only faculty member in your Department who teaches that way. You’re teaching whatever the actual subject is, but you’re also modeling the figure of the lifelong learner, whose love of knowledge transcends the frame of professional credentialing and credit accumulation. Be yourself up there—especially if you’re the type of teacher who strives to impart wisdom and skills, not information alone.
On the writing side, I suggest jotting down the seeds of ideas that you can water later on. You may find they’ve already begun to germinate under the surface in the meantime. Map out a few of them without committing to the immediate development of any particular one (let alone all of them at once). Then take a step back. Get a coffee. Play with the books you’ve already read as fertilizer for the process, and the ones you’ve got waiting for you.
Now see which of those ideas you find yourself wanting to explore first. Which do you feel like discussing with a close friend? Spell out to yourself, as you would over lunch, and see where it leads. If that first idea seems too minor, well, maybe stick with it anyway. Maybe it’s a good preliminary piece of work, a warmup before you take on something more ambitious. If it doesn’t seem likely to fit into the top scholarly journal in your field, is there a second-tier journal you respect, where it might fit better?
Your minor works do not define you as a writer of minor works only.
There’s a difference between (a) living up to your own high standards as to the quality of a project—which is necessary—and (b) executing only the most serious, far-reaching, and consequential projects—which is not necessary, and may be counterproductive. As a scholar, you are not only engaged in the project at hand, whatever it turns out to be. You are also building a body of work over a lifetime career.
It can be helpful to call to mind a figure you respect, whose best work you deeply admire, and who also wrote quite a lot. Some scholars write a small number of books, but a large number of papers across the decades. How is that achieved? By taking oneself seriously, with an encouraging version of humility. Assume your own thinking will probably bear valuable fruit, if you allow yourself to try things out and see where they lead. As they say in finger-paintiing class, “Get in there and smear.”
The point isn’t to produce as much as possible, but to become as free to produce as you can possibly become.
If this post resonates with you, consider booking an appointment with me at 917-873-0292, or email Jamey@drjameyhecht.com. Sessions are available in-office in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and remotely in NY, NJ, TX, and CA.