Standing Between Binaries

Some of you might recognize the stuff I’m talking about below to be inspired by Brene Brown. I was first inspired by her Ted Talk. I read three of her books this year: Daring Greatly, The Gifts of Imperfection, and I Thought It Was Just Me, all of which I highly recommend. If you’ve ever read her work, you’ll notice that she’s influenced me in a big way as I talk about in the post below.  

“If you wish to be a warrior prepare to get broken, if you wish to be an explorer prepare to get lost and if you wish to be a lover prepare to be both.” -Daniel Saint

This is my favorite quote from 2015.

I’ve wanted so badly to be able to love without being broken. I’ve wanted so badly to walk down the straight path of life (House + Marriage + Baby = Life) without getting lost along the way. And I’ve wanted so badly to be be able to learn without making mistakes.

Well, as I’m sure all of you will be shocked to learn, life doesn’t work that way. I’ve discovered that...drumroll please...you can’t succeed without failure. Shocking, I know. Making those mistakes is painful. Well, as it turns out that shame and suffering are part of the human experience. DAMNIT. I WANTED IT TO BE ALL SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS.

Take-Away Point #1: As long as we are human beings capable of love and connection, we will experience emotional pain and suffering.

Have I blown your mind yet?

How do you experience human connection without facing the shame of rejection? You can’t. How do you experience love without letting yourself get hurt? You can’t. How can you practice self-compassion while letting people walk all over you? You can’t. How can you succeed without failing? You can’t. How can you be creative without taking risks? How can you learn a foreign language without making mistakes? How do you cultivate respect without setting boundaries? You can’t. How do you hide from shame? You can’t.

You can imagine how disappointed I was to discover this.

In order to genuinely connect with others, we have to be open. We have to emotionally expose ourselves. We have to take the risk that they might reject us.

Courage is risking being disappointed. Courage is to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.

Embracing this new philosophy, and finding myself utterly alone in early 2015, I leaned in and I leaned in HARD.

I leaned into life and I leaned into my relationships. I leaned into my workaholism. I leaned into jiujitsu. I leaned into working out, lifting weights, and dieting. I gave everything and everyone my all until I had nothing left.

I said to life, “Okay, I’m here! I’m vulnerable! I’ve exposed my heart and my soul. Show me what you got! Give it to me, baby! You said if I loved and took risks and was vulnerable, then I would get love back. You said I had to pay it forward and then I would get the returns. Pay up!”

I had invested my whole heart into everything and everyone around me and I wanted my money back. I’d worked hard and I wanted my adviser to acknowledge that. I was a good friend and I wanted people to be as equally receptive to me as I was to them. I desperately sought validation from everyone around me: Was I good enough? I wanted everyone to tell me that I was.

Well. It turns out life’s not quite that simple (surprise, surprise!). I had extracted all of the sunshine and rainbows out of Brene Brown’s work and was like, “Oh! Okay. So vulnerability is the key to happiness. GOT IT. Happiness, here I come!” I didn’t look before I lept and ended up leaping off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

It turns out there’s a difference between being brave and being stupid.

As I went through my extreme vulnerability phase, I thought to myself, “WHAT? BUT I THOUGHT LOVE BEGETS MORE LOVE? HOW CAN PEOPLE BE SUCH TERRIBLE, SELFISH JERKS? PEOPLE ARE TERRIBLE, I HATE PEOPLE” I screamed inwardly as people around me tore my heart out and trampled on it on the cold, hard linoleum floor over and over again. I was being vulnerable with people, why weren’t they returning the favor? Why were people taking advantage of me? Why were people pulling away from me, changing the subject, and re-directing conversations toward themselves? Couldn’t they see that I’d given them my all? And now they were leaving me out in the cold, alone and resentful.

I believed very strongly that being open and vulnerable with people was the key to happiness and connection, and as a result I was very open with people. But I was hurt many times by people who have taken advantage and used me for my openness and vulnerability. Thus began The Dark Ages of 2015.

I declared to myself and many people around me: “I don't think I can get close with anyone for a long time. I feel so jaded... Like my heart has been ripped out, used, and then thrown out by so many people this year. I can’t trust anyone ever again. I will never love again.”

I told myself that I wanted to end all of my human relationships once and for all, which created a dark cloud over my life. I started only seeing the negative and selfish sides of people. I built walls around my heart. I wanted to bury myself in a hole and never come out. I wanted to take a long nap and never wake up. I wanted to hide in my room and never leave. I had extinguished the fire of human love and connection in my life and in my heart. I had extinguished my purpose for being. I tried again to lean in to work, but wasn’t very successful this time. Without the fire of human connection, my life and my work was meaningless.

I read more deeply into Brene Brown’s work and I discovered something that she’d been saying all along, but I’d never really listened:

Take Away Point #2: You should only be vulnerable with people who have earned your trust.

OH.

Duh.

I learned a hard and valuable lesson that setting boundaries, waiting to establish trust, and protecting your vulnerabilities is just as important as being open and vulnerable.

I found that protecting your vulnerabilities allows you to feel safe so that you can be more open with the people who are the most important to you about the things that are most important to you.

What does protecting your vulnerabilities look like? It’s different for everyone. For example, I get nervous speaking Uyghur because I still make a lot of mistakes and I feel like it makes me look stupid. There are some people I know who make fun of me, or roll their eyes, or sigh, or are impatient with me when I make mistakes or when I ask them to repeat. Protecting my vulnerabilities doesn’t mean I should never speak Uyghur. It means I shouldn’t speak Uyghur with people who make me feel bad about myself when I do so. It means finding people who I know are patient with me enough to speak slowly and repeat themselves when I need them to, and practicing as much as I can with them.

For the Chinese government, it means keeping tight control over poor populations, while allowing the middle class more freedom. As Heberer and Gobel (2011) state, “In a seemingly contradictory fashion, authoritarian rule thus creates a limited space in which community self-governance is allowed and even desired.” I know, weird analogy. But it really resonated with me! When I read that, I was like, “That’s it!!! That’s it! Protecting your vulnerabilities grants you freedom!!”

As another example, protecting your vulnerabilities might mean not getting wasted at a party with your co-workers. It doesn’t mean you should never drink or you should never go out with your co-workers. It means having a few drinks with your closest friends, but keeping the alcohol at a minimum when you’re with people you don’t know super well.

Other examples would be not sharing your deepest darkest secret with a person you just met, or not asking an untrustworthy or unreliable friend for help at a time of need.

People have to earn your trust. It shouldn’t just happen automatically. Otherwise, you will end up emotionally exposed without the trust and care needed to make you feel safe.

The more mistakes you make, the more likely you are to succeed... BUT only when the people who you are making the mistakes in front of are willing and able to express compassion and empathy when you fail.

In the same way, setting boundaries allows you to be compassionate: How can you be compassionate to people when they’re walking all over you? Practicing self-compassion is the most selfless thing you can do: How can you be kind to others when you’re beating yourself up? Resting and relaxing allows you to be more productive: How can you work when you’re burned out?

I learned that I have to be open to the possibility of getting hurt every time I connect with another human. Because people will let you down. They will hurt you. Things will go wrong. You are not perfect and you never will be, just in the same way that the people around you are not perfect and they never will be.   

I learned that I need to be brave, but not careless. And that is a dangerous, unknown, tricky, and shaky balance beam to walk on. If I ever walk that line successfully, I’ll let you know. I’ll deserve a gold medal for that one. But I’m going to keep trying.

There was a point and time in my life this year when I was very open with people. Then I swung all the way on the other end of the spectrum: I will never love again, I declared. But now as this year is coming to a close, I’m slowly creeping towards the middle again, a balance point between extremes, standing between binaries.

As long as there is connection, love, and vulnerability, there will be pain and shame. I recognize and accept this fact of human nature. I can and should be vulnerable--with my relationships, with my jiujitsu, with my writing, and with learning new languages. Otherwise my relationships and skills will never progress. Yet, that does not mean I should be learning with everyone I come across with. It means establishing boundaries with who and what I can be vulnerable with, and being conscious of protecting myself from those vulnerabilities--not sharing my deepest secrets with the co-worker I just met, not picking the 250 white belt to roll, not insisting on speaking Uyghur with the people who I know will make fun of me. But it does mean calling my friends to share an embarrassing story. It does mean being willing to practice new languages. It does mean trying new jiujitsu moves on the mat. It does mean submitting articles for publication. It does mean asking for help when I need it.

I started off 2015 asking myself, How can I love without getting broken? And I’m ending 2015 asking, How can I be more compassionate? How can I build trust with the people I care about?

At heart I’m an explorer, lover, and warrior. And to that I say to life, BRING IT ON!!!! And I will probably always lean on the side of openness with people because in the depths of my heart I yearn for love, belonging, and human connection. But next time I’m going to look before I leap.

UGH, VULNERABILITY AND PAIN AND LOVE AND HAPPINESS AND HOPE! 

...Ugh... LIFE!

Oh and one more lesson I learned in 2015:

Tips for improving productivity and focus

While the whole time management and goal/reward system is important, there’s another obstacle that frequently stands in my way: focusing on the scheduled task at hand.

Once I actually sit down at my desk, I often have a hard time actually getting sh*t done. I will do anything to avoid doing work. I’ll clean my desk, browse the New York Times, skim the Twitter headlines, respond to messages on my phone, organize my email, make a to-do list, alphabetize my files… I pretend that I’m being productive, but in reality I’m just avoiding my work.

Inspired by this Reddit post, which I found extremely helpful and highly encourage you to read, I’ve designed my own guide for keeping focus while working:

Before you sit down to work

(I usually do these one day prior before I leave the office for the night):

• Write down your 3 Most Important Tasks (MITs) for the day. As I talked about in my previous post about time management, I keep all of my weekly goals/tasks organized in Google calendar. However, when writing down my MITs, I use my Google calendar as a reference and use an old-fashioned post-it and pen to write down my MITs for the day.
• Break down into manageable tasks. Again using a post-it and pen and making a hierarchy of concrete and manageable tasks. For example:
• Revise urban modernity article
• Read over comments that Sara gave you
• Revise document according to Sara’s comments
• Re-read empirical section and revise focusing on improving thick description
• Revise theory section according to reviewer’s comments
• Write an hour by hour task list for the day and include time for breaks or administrative tasks (e.g., checking your email or getting a flu shot).
• Use Chrome Nanny or other similar apps to block access to Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube (adjust according to your addiction status… these three sites are currently on lock down on my desktop 24/7)

When you sit down to do work:

• Have a pen and blank post-it next to you to write down any other “to-do” tasks that come to your mind. So that when you think, “Oh crap, I gotta call my mom back!” or “I need to write Tim an email!” you write down on your post-it, “email Tim” instead of opening your email and entering the rabbit hole labyrinth of Gmail.
• Chew on gum or suck on a cough drop or other hard candy. I heard once that there was scientific research saying that chewing on gum improves your concentration. It works for me.
• Turn off your phone (or put it on airplane mode or put it in another room or do not disturb mode or completely silent), close your email (yes! close it! no one is going to die if it takes you 2+ hours to respond to their email), and shut down your chat windows (Skype, Facebook, iMessage, Gchat, etc… the messages will still be there when you get back, I promise). It might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s more difficult and also more helpful than you might realize.
• If there’s useless and endless chatter happening in your brain, write it down! Keep a doc on your desktop titled, “distractions.” When you find yourself thinking about your ex-boyfriend, or how much you hate your neighbor, or how much your mom upset you last night, or whatever other drama is happening in your life, open that doc and write down what’s on your mind. Just get it all down and then get back to work.
• Tell yourself, “I’m just going to work for 5 minutes and then I’ll take a break.” Even though I know I’m going to keep working after 5 minutes, this tricks my brain every single time! It reluctantly agrees to work for 5 minutes. Once I get started, it’s easy to keep going.
• Sometimes I find myself frozen because I have so many things on my to-do list and I don’t know where to start. I have 4 urgent things that need to get done right then, so I just sit there not doing anything. When this happens, I usually get out a pen and paper and write down a list of “what I would do right now if I had all the time in the world.” After I write down everything I can think of that I need to do, I pick the three most important things on that list and write them on a post-it, ranking them in order of importance from 1-3. I start with number one and work from there. If I finish what’s on that post-it, I go back to the master list, pick out another 3 things and write them on a new post-it. You should have done this already with the 3 MITs, but sometimes I get overwhelmed and need to start over from a master list.
• I love this video by Matthew Hussey on how to handle stress like a Spartan: take out each soldier one at a time; don’t think about the whole army.  
• Turn on your Toggl timer.

While you’re working:

• Break up your work into 25 minute chunks with 5 minute breaks or 50 minute chunks with 10-minute breaks (pomodoro technique).
• Get your music on. I listen to classical or white noise.
• If you find yourself in the middle of a work session, and you get writer’s block, or your mind wanders, or you get distracted, or you want to put your head down and go to sleep, or you just don’t want to work, take a few deep breaths, and:
• Tell yourself some motivational phrases, such as "you got this," or "this will all be over soon," or like that below:

• Focus your mind on a motivational image or think about obtaining something you desire: imagine yourself on the day you graduate with your PhD, or the day you pass your comps, a stack of money, your proud parents, a car… anything that will motivate you to get back to work.
  
• I often close my eyes and imagine myself succeeding in what I’m doing.
• I often tell myself I only have to work for 5 more minutes.
• I'll tell myself, “If I finish this task, I get to watch one episode of New Girl, or treat myself to a Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks" (or something like that).

GO FORTH AND BE PRODUCTIVE AND REWARD YOURSELF FOR HARD WORK!

Time Management for PhD Students

Why do we care about time management as PhD students?

Time management is one of the hardest, least obvious, most elusive, and most important things to practice as a PhD student, IMO! I think it is key to productivity, but more importantly, good time management is key to maintaining your sanity in grad school. It’s extremely difficult because there is not time card to punch in and out of work, and there is a feeling of guilt that follows us everywhere when we’re not working. So maintaining good time management habits are key for keeping the work/life balance in check.

At the beginning of the week:

• Make concrete, reasonable goals for each week. I try to stick to making 3 or 4 goals each week.
• After you write down your goals, it’s all about the TIME CHUNKING, baby! Time chunking means breaking down larger tasks into smaller tasks that can be accomplished in 30-60 minutes or less. The credit for this goes to Dr. Glenda Russell with CAPS. She is amazing. When she first told me about it, I tried it and my life changed forever. Here is how I do it; adjust accordingly to your needs and personality type:
• First I make around 4 concrete goals per week. As an example, let’s say one of those goals is to “Organize field research from last semester.”
• Then I use the “Tasks” function in Google calendar, but you can use a pen and paper or any other cool app you might have found.
• Underneath the main task I write all of the little subtasks that this one goal is made up of. So it will look like this:
• Organize field research from last semester
• Sort pictures into topical folders
• Translate pictures of propaganda posters
• Code field notes from September
• Read and summarize one journal article
• Time chunking does two crucial things: first, it breaks up one, big formidable task into smaller, more manageable tasks. It plays tricks on your brain so something that seemed insurmountable, and thus an easy target for procrastination, becomes less intimidating. Second, chunking creates multiple tasks that you can check off your list, which feels good in and of itself, but also the act of checking things off a list catalyzes more productivity. Motivation breeds motivation, productivity breeds productivity.
• In addition to having weekly goals, I recommend the following pyramid scheme: Have a 5-year plan, 1-year plan, semester plan, monthly plan, and weekly plan with concrete goals and clear deadlines. They should be detailed accordingly. Edit them regularly.
• Make sure you have someone to hold you accountable for said deadlines. Nothing concentrates the mind like an impending execution, as my adviser is so fond of saying.
• Using the above yearly/monthly/weekly plans as a guideline, keep a really organized calendar with appointments, meetings, and deadlines. Google calendar is the best IMO.

During the week:

• Keep track of the time when you’re actually working. This is so key, my number one piece of advice for productivity, accountability, and stress relief. “Stress relief??” you might be thinking, “Keeping track of my time sounds like stressful way to add another app to my phone.” But YES, STRESS RELIEF. Because sometimes we stress ourselves out thinking, “OMG I didn’t work enough this week!” when in actuality we did 60 hours of work and it’s time for a break. Or sometimes we end the week exhausted, thinking to ourselves, “OMG I’m soooo over-worked!” when in reality we only did 30 hours of work, and we didn’t even realize it but we spent 20 hours organizing and reorganizing our inbox, reading BuzzFeed and stalking our ex on facebook. Time tracking is a fantastic reality check that makes sure you’re actually doing work and makes sure you're not over-working yourself either. Kind of like calorie counting your food. I use the software called Toggl. It is amazing. You can choose projects. If you are TAing or teaching, you should include the hours you spend teaching on here as well, that certainly counts as work! This will divide the time you spend working into different categories. I only have the clock running when I’m actually doing work-- not when I’m walking through campus, getting a cup of coffee, eating lunch, going to the bathroom, or talking with friends. Only when I’m actually doing work is the clock running.  I usually shoot for 40 hours of real work a week, and it will get to up to 60 hours a week during midterms and finals time, or during grant writing and publication deadlines time. For me, 40 hours of real work time usually translated into more than 60 hours in the office a week, but I only have the clock running while I’m actually working. Because I take regular breaks (plus usually have to run around campus for something), I’ll usually get 8 hours of work done for every 10 hours I spend at the office. After you do this for 1 week, you might be surprised by how much or by how little work you actually do during the week.

Here's what the app looks like on your phone:

• Keep track in writing of all your accomplishments during the week. Met with your adviser? Wrote a blog post? Organized your calendar? Read the introduction and conclusion a book (because let’s be real...who has time to read the whole book these days?) Wrote a chapter in your dissertation? Did your laundry? Write it down! I keep track of all my accomplishments for the week on a post-it note and then pin it to the bulletin board behind my computer at the end of the week. It feels good to look back at the end of the week/month/semester on what that I’ve accomplished. Sometimes at the end of the week there is a dreaded feeling: “Ugh, I did NOTHING this week.” But I always have at least one thing written on the post-it (but more often than not I have at least 10 things written down…)
• Keep a research journal where you write down everything that you’ve accomplished, but also are writing summaries of what you’re reading, and any other random thoughts and brilliant insights you have regarding your research topic or what you’ve been reading or thinking about.  
• Wake up at approximately the same time every day. I know, I know, it sounds crazy. But it helps. I don’t know if it’s psychological or physiological, but my brain likes waking up at the same time every morning. I’m not saying you have to wake up early and immediately do work or go to the office. I’ll wake up early on the weekend to read (sometimes even, dare I say it, FICTION! *gasp*), watch TV, or make breakfast. It’s nice having a slow morning to do whatever you want and enjoy yourself. You might feel better than if you sleep until noon. Sometimes I like being productive, and I might clean the house. Sometimes I like being active, and I’ll go exercise. Sometimes I like getting stuff done so I can enjoy the rest of my Saturday, and I’ll go into the office early in the morning on Saturday and do work, which allows me to enjoy a guilt-free afternoon in the sunshine.
• Turn off your phone! Sometimes I find myself getting really anxious and/or going slightly insane with the constant obsession to check my phone and urgent need to respond immediately to messages and email. I’ve noticed that it has helped my mental health and productivity to only check my phone and email 3 times a day: once in the morning, afternoon, and night. Yes, that’s right. Only check your phone 3 times a day. Don’t panic. You might be surprised by how much more productive and relaxed you find yourself to be. And turn off your “read receipts.” Talk about the most anxiety provoking technology ever invented for both parties involved!

At the end of the week:

• REWARD YOURSELF! This is so key. Do not deny pleasure! Rather, delay the pleasure until after you’ve accomplished one of your goals. This can include, depending on the size of the goal accomplished:
• Checking email (my friends laugh at me when I tell them I use checking email as a reward, but this actually works! I don’t let myself open my email until I’ve done 2 hours of writing in the morning, and this actually concentrates my mind and gets me motivated to write because I know I need to check my email ASAP)
• Social media-ing- I don’t let myself Facebook until I’ve accomplished something. I also have Chrome Nanny on my internet browser that won’t let me Facebook for more than 10-minutes a day.
• Playing on your phone- whether it’s playing games or chatting with friends, I use checking my phone or sending a friend a message as motivation to get work done
• Taking the day off
• Watching TV or a movie
• Sleeping in or taking a nap
• Hanging out with a friend
• Throwing a party
• Going hiking
• Taking yourself out to brunch
• Getting a manicure and/or pedicure
• Buying an expensive drink at Starbucks
• Taking your friend out for happy hour

TL;DR: So, to conclude, my formula for smart productivity and time management as a PhD student (aka how to get your work done while not going crazy and actually maybe even getting to enjoy your weekends):

1. Keep track of the time you actually spend working! Keep your time labeled and organized according to each project and what you’ve worked on each week: Toggl is a good tool for this. This will give you a reality check for how much time you’ve actually spent working and will give you a good excuse for some guilt-free relaxation time when you’ve hit your hourly goal for the week.
2. Set clear and attainable weekly goals and employ time chunking: write down concrete, manageable tasks for the week and employ time chunking to break up big tasks into smaller, more manageable and less intimidating tasks.
3. Turn off distractions, especially your phone, email, Facebook, and all other social media.
4. Reward yourself! This one is my favorites! Do this as often as you can.