Introduction: 

Hey friend, the time has come to finish your dissertation, graduate, and become doctor. Welcome to office hours or Dr. Lacy, where we talk about how to finally master this time management thing so you can stay on top of it without losing your mind. Every Wednesday you can find a new episode, wherever you listen to podcasts, make sure you hit the subscribe button to make sure you never miss an episode. I'm Dr. Marvette Lacy, your dissertation writing strategist, here to be with you along every step of the way and I would like to thank you for coming to today's office hours. Let's get started on today's episode. Hey, before we get into today's episode, I just want to come in really quickly and let you know that Start Your Dissertation is now open for new students. If you don't know what Start Your Dissertation is, it's all about writing your complete literature review in 30 days. Yep. I'm talking about 30 real days on the calendar that you will go from general topic to a full draft of your literature review. I walk you through step by step through the process that I personally use direct my literature review and the process I use currently with clients to get them quick results and I'm not talking about half assin' a literature review. I am talking about actually writing something that you can be proud of and you can be confident in when you press send to your dissertation chair. If this is what you need at this moment, I got you. Come on over to StartYourDissertation.com to sign up. Now let's get on to the show.

Establishing a Scholar Mindset: 

Welcome back everyone one to this week's episode. This is part three of a four part series that I'm doing about how to start your dissertation. And so part one, which was episode 46 was giving you the overview of why it may be a little bit difficult for you right now to start your dissertation. And I explained at the end of that episode of there were three steps that I, that I use when working with clients to get them to start their dissertation. And so step one was explained in episode 48 and that you needed to develop a scholar mindset and today we're going to be talking about step two, which is establishing a scholar routine. And then step three will happen in two weeks for episode 52 about how to engage in a scholar community. And I really believe and know for a fact that if you do these three steps and the way that I'm explaining, not only will you be able to start your dissertation, but you will finish it and keep your sanity and your peace intact while you do that.

Recap of Episodes 46 & 48: 

Um, episode 46 and 48 was really heavy on the mindset and the stuff that's happening in our brains that are causing, you know, the the not the not, words are me! They are, they are the thoughts are the reason why you may be having some of the results you're having right now in life in terms of maybe you feel like you're putting all of this time and effort in and it's not paying off. You don't understand. You work really hard. You care about your dissertation, you're committed to it. But for whatever reason it doesn't seem like that from the outside. We really go deep and episode 46 and 48 why that's happening and what you can do or start to to, to, to change things around. And today's episode is really gonna focus on the doing part, the action part. And I didn't start off here, which I'm sure some of you probably wanted me to, but I didn't start off here because to me this part doesn't matter. It's nothing without the proper mindset. Right? Um, I tell people, they ask me all the time like, how do I do X, Y, Z, how do I start a literature review? And I tell them and they don't do it. And I know it goes back to mindset, whether they're dismissing it or they don't think they can do it or whatever. And that's why I focus so much on it. So if you ever decided to work with me or you are a client and you know I'm always asking you about mindset, we are always focused on that cause to me that's, that's the core of everything.

The Big 5-0: 

But like let's take a pause right now y'all this episode 50, five zero and I just want to take a moment to give myself a round of applause because your girl has been consistent. I started this podcast maybe, I don't know, like about three years ago. At this point a little bit under three years and cause it would have been late fall of 2017 I started this and I just could not keep up with it and then I would come back and do an episode and then stop. And I had a talk with my own mindset and I said, Hey, are you going to do this or not? And I decided to do it and I've been showing up. I've been showing up. So I'm giving myself some kudos in celebrating cause uh, we are at fifties milestone. Yes! Also, maybe I should do something special for the hundredth episode. What you think? So that'll be probably, yeah, that'll be this time depending on what happens this year. But right now it's looking like the end of this year, early next year. So if that would be something you'd think you would be interested in, let me know.

Story Time- How I Established My Routine : 

But now let's get back to this episode. So today talking about establishing a routine and I want to do another story time here. Um, so I think it was episode 46, I told you a little bit about exams but I was telling you more about the lapse in terms of writing for my dissertation. But this time I want to go back a little bit and talk to you about my preliminary exam process. So I, see I need to go check some dates, cause I've been over here saying it was fall. But now I'm wondering if it really was fall but I believe it was fall. But I'm sure someone will come and correct me and tell me if I'm wrong. The dates are not as important as it is about the story I'm going to tell you y'all, like some of this stuff is a haze because you know, sometimes you just, you just thankful that you made it through something and the details, you know., well, some of them get lost. But either way, I was preparing for exams and our exam process, um, was a four day event. So you have four days to complete your exams. You are in a room, most likely a room without windows, a very small room that I was in with one other person. Shout out to you, Kayla. Um, you have four days and it's just you, your laptop and a reference list. You don't get to use any notes or anything like that or any books. And you show up every morning to the assigned room. And then someone comes in, maybe an administrative assistant or someone who is considered neutral within the program.

They come in with an envelope and there is a question in the, in the envelope, and you have, you get the envelope, you get a copy of the question, and then you have four hours to answer that question through a paper. And typically you're like, I was writing anywhere from like four to eight pages. Some people write more on a, I don't know what's, I dunno how, but like I was writing around four to eight pages per question. Um, and the last day of the exam is a take home part. So on day three you get your question, you answer it. At the end of that four hour period, the person comes back in and hand you a new envelope and that is a case study and you have 24 hours to answer that case study. Now you can take that home and you can use notes or whatever, but you have the 24 hour period to answer it. And then at the end of that you're done with the writing part and your, um, program at that time it was all the faculty in the program reviewed it and decided if you pass the written part and then if you did pass that part, you were able to then defendant orally in front of all of the faculty in the program.

Right. So because, um, I wasn't going to get any questions ahead of time and I wasn't going to be able to use my notes, it was very important that I prepare for the four days that I refamiliarize myself with all of the content from the courses and be able to recall sources and authors and literature off the top of my head. Um, in case I needed to use it during the exam process. Right. Because the whole point is to demonstrate that you went to all your classes and you understood the concepts that you need. Like, like essentially can you be an expert in your field? So can I be an expert in college student development in a simplified form. Um, and so that was two years of material. Right? And so I was really anxious about could I remember all of that? Um, the time limit really threw me off.

I'm like four hours. That's not how I write. I can't write under such constraints. I need freedom is what I was thinking. And I knew that the most important part, the, the number one piece of advice that I got was you just have to make sure you answer the question and that's what I would tell anyone. Side note, if you're doing your exams, you're preparing and you get any type of like question, situation and answer the question before you try to demonstrate everything that you know and make sure that you actually answered the question. Okay. Side note ended. So how I prepared, right? Because I was really concerned with, I was pretty, I was more confident that I could memorize what I needed to memorize, but I was more concerned about this four hour limit cause I know me, I like to do, I was like, I like to just take my time and do all the things, right.

So my plan was that I was going to focus on working in these four hour chunks. So every day for about three to four weeks, I would go to my, like one of my favorite coffee shops in Athens and I would sit at the same table. Right? If you saw me around this time then you know, I sit at the same table. I ordered the same drink, which was some latte with four shots of espresso, I think it was called like a crack-a-ccino or something and I would get different flavors. But you know, the, the four shots were consistent. Um, also probably had a monster at that point in the day too. But you know, we live and we learn. But I would get the same drink. I would turn on. I decided I was going to re-watch all of the seasons of Grey's anatomy and I was turning on an episode of Grey's anatomy and for about 50 minutes or however long the episode was, I would, uh, my first step was, okay, I need to make sure that I understand the literature and that I can recall it and I can refresh my memory.

So I would take 50 minutes or so and read different pieces of literature or materials from different classes and I would make flashcards. I just went back to my chemistry days, repetition and memorization. So I was like making flashcards. And I would do that for the episode. And when the episode went off, that was my cue to say, now it's time for you to take a break. Right? Because I knew that if I tried to force myself to sit too long that my brain would just peace out and be like, I'm not doing this. Um, and I know that I, I am more susceptible to working straight through and burning myself out. And because I knew this was a four day situation, that pacing was going to be important. So I would watch the episode, make the flash cards, and the episode went off. I would get up, go outside, walk around, do some other things. Um, Grey's anatomy was a good choice for me because I've watched it a billion kajillion times. And it's one of those shows that I could have in the background and not get caught up in it unless I wanted to get caught up in it, if you know what happened. So that's why I chose it. And so then I would watch four episodes making all the cards. And then at the end of the last episode, I would pack up my stuff and I would go home or wherever else I was going, probably Michael's.

And at some point, either that night or the next morning, I would spend about 30 or 40 minutes just flipping through the cards. So this process did two things, right? It got me in the habit of sitting still in one place for four hours and it got me used to taking breaks every 10 minutes. I mean, every 50 minutes. And it also helped me to refresh my memory and to memorize the, the whatever the important notes I wanted with the associated citation. And then on so I would do that Monday or Sunday through, yeah, like Sunday through Thursday and Friday or Saturday I would do a practice question. Um, the program provided like a Dropbox folder of practice questions or questions that were used in the past. And so I would choose one of those questions and I would practice answering it in four hours to see if I had retained anything from my flash cards or anything like that. And I would still get up every 50 minutes and I was taking my break. But my goal was to just see, could I remember to stuff, could I write a solid answer in four hours? And so I did that and I did that for the three weeks.

And I really liked this tactic of like testing myself. This is like a side note kinda. My dad told me like long time ago when I was, you know, what is it like second or third grade when things get real and you're like, Oh, I gotta actually focus, or at least that's how it was for me. Um, and he would say, make your own tests because the tests that you make will be way more difficult than the tests that your teacher's gonna come up with. Cause you're looking directly at your notes in your book when you're making it and, or you're looking at the study guide. So if you can answer that, then you should have any problems. And you know, that worked really well, like K through 12, but somewhere in college that stopped working cause yeah, the test, not that it stopped working completely, but like the test got more difficult. But the tactic, I still use the same thing through college and through master's and now even through like the PhD. Um, cause it just worked for me and this was my way of testing myself by doing this whole routine of going to this coffee shop and everything. But it was very important that I had a routine and that things were consistent, that I sat in the same place at the same table because I wanted to get my brain used to like what, what would it mean to show up somewhere in the same space and not have anything else like around to distract you and that you know for these four hours you have to be committed to writing or memorizing. Um, and so I went into my exams. I felt a little bit more confident. I wasn't completely confident.

I was still convinced that I was going to fail and they were going to tell me to go back and try again. But I felt more comfortable I would say because I had establish a routine. And so when we went into the room, it was still more about, okay, you're going to sit down, you're gonna set your timer for 50 minutes cause I couldn't watch Grey's anatomy, you know, in such a time over 50 minutes and you're going to get up and run around and walk around. But I just knew that while I was nervous that they were going to tell me that I needed to start over. I knew like deep down, and maybe this is arrogance or whatever, I knew that it wasn't going to be because I didn't know my information. But the reason why I wasn't going to pass was because it was personal or it was something about writing. But it wasn't going to be that I didn't answer the question. Um, and I would just say when I look back on that, because when I created that routine, it wasn't as intentional as I'm seeing it now. I can say it in this way because I'm looking back and telling you about it. But I now know that the success that I had, cause I passed my written exams and I passed my oral exam and that's a whole other story. But yes, passed it and got so many compliments. And I would say that the secret to that was the routine I had established for myself. Um, and that was the beginning of my process that I like used for my dissertation and the process that I use now for clients. Of course it has adapted over time and improved. Um, but this is where it was birthed-using it on myself.

Defining Routine & Commitment: 

Um, and essentially I share that story to say, if you want to start your dissertation and you want to make some serious progress, then you're success is going to be in your routine. You need to get a routine, you need to establish a scholar routine. And you're like, but how, how sway? Um, I'm just, I'm going to share with you how, how to do that. But first, um, you know, if you listen to episode, um, 46, yes, I defined all the words and I want to define routine, I want to take a moment to define it. And so routine means it's a defined sequence of actions regularly followed a fixed program. As an adjective it means to be performed as part of a regular procedure rather than for a special reason. Repeat it means to be performed as part of a regular procedure rather than for a special reason. Meaning you ain't new to this, you true to this every day you show up and you follow the same set of actions to get a certain result. Now to come back remember we talked about mindset and you're probably like, well why do I need a certain mindset to show up and do the same thing over and over? Because when things get hard, when you don't feel like it, when something else better comes up, like somebody is like inviting you to go to this party or this show or whatever, go out to eat when a certain show comes on or something else pops up. And when anxiety is trying to take you out, are you still going to show up to do your routine? That is why we talk about mindset so much, right? Because what we're really, what it really comes down to is commitment.

And to define words commitment is a, as a verb is to carry out or um, to pledge or as a promise or to to a certain course of action. Meaning like you promise to carry out a certain course of action over and over. Um, this is not a one time thing. Like you don't just make a commitment one day and that's it. You make the decision every day, every minute to do the thing that you say you're going to do. You commit every day that you will be the person who follows a certain course of action even when you don't feel like it, even when you don't want to, even when there's things that you much rather be doing. Instead you, you honor the decision to show up and do what you said you would do. That's commitment and that's where the mindset comes in. It's like, are you going to be that person who does what she says she's going to do? Or they said, they said that they were going to do? Um, it can't be something you just think about like one time, like, you know, we are at the end of January and I'm sure that at the beginning of the month or the end of December, you were like, yes, new year new me, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that, saying bye to all the toxic people in my life, we just about big things. And then you're probably on this side of January at the end. Like, I don't know who that person is. Hope I don't sound ridiculous. Um, it's because sitting in commitment when it's no longer shiny and new and indignant um, when it becomes boring and routine and tedious, are you going to still show up?

Stop Hiding & Show Up: 

Do you have the mindset to show up and make the decision every day to do what you said you were going to do, but you have to stop hiding too. Like we get stuck. Um, we also get stuck in a point like when we get, let me back up. Sometimes, right, if you're like me, when the routine starts to get real, things start to get more challenging, right? I like to run and hide. Like forget it. Like I can't do it. Clearly all these things are happening. That means I'm not supposed to do it. And we try to run and hide or out work like even our doubts and our worries and our fears. And really the simple thing, the simple answer is you need to face them head on, right? Right. Cause the doubts or worries and the fears are not going anywhere. So the only thing you can try to pretend like you don't hear it, you can stop doing this brain dump. You can stop writing out your thoughts, you can stop talking to people, but it's still gonna be there. Cause you said you wanted to do it in your brain remembers we're supposed to be doing this thing, right? Are you going to show up and do it? And you will try to resist, right? Showing up to do it because it's scary. But when you have the mindset, you will know, you can do hard things.

You Need a Writing Schedule: 

You know that at the end of the day, the worst that you're going to experience are some thoughts and some feelings, and that's it. And you gonna survive, you're gonna pick yourself back up and you're gonna make the next best decision because you're going to know you've been through worse than not meeting a deadline for so-and-so, like a literature review, or even the, even if you didn't pass your exams or you don't pass your defense, you've been through worse. Um, I'm willing to bet and put money on, you've been through worse and yes, it'll hurt a little bit. Your ego will be a little bit like bruised, but the next day you'll get up, wipe yourself off, maybe cry a little bit, and then at some point you're going to have to make the decision. What are you gonna do next? You'll figure it out. Right? But before we even get there to say that, I just wanted to make that point and say, let's get to the routine prior, right. Cause you're like, okay girl, I got it. I got the mindset. Here's another thing I want to say you need, um, the first thing you're going to need is a writing schedule and I'm not going to go into detail about how to create the writing schedule. I'm just going to say you need a writing schedule every week. I don't know. You don't need a, you know, I think I'm a write on Wednesday for like two hours. Maybe I got some time on Friday and I got some time on Sunday. So that should be good.

No, just cause you have some time doesn't mean you're going to show up. When are you showing up? Where are you showing up and what are you going to do? Your writing schedule isn't just about saying times when you are free. Your writing schedule is very deliberate. When are you going to like, when are you showing up? Is that time only dedicated to writing? The answer should be yes. It's only dedicated to writing. You know where you're going to do it. Do you have a writing book at home? Are you going to your favorite coffee shop? Where are you going? You're going to a wine bar. I don't really care where you're going. I just need you to know where you're going at that time. And then the third thing is I need you to know what you are working on. And don't go up in there talking about, you know, Friday I'm just going to work on my dissertation or I'm going to work on my literature review. What does that mean? What? Like when you sit down, what does that mean? What is the first step you're taking? Do you know? Or you just saying in general, you're gonna work on your literature review, or I'm just gonna read some articles. How many articles? Why are you reading them?

What are they going to do? I need you to think about this and the level of detail that is needed to make sure you show up and do what you say. Okay? But if you need some help with trying to figure out the detail, here's the scholar routine that I talked to my clients about. We go through this every week, every Sunday in the write your dissertation group. We go through this process because you're not about to go into this week talking about you don't know what you're gonna do. That's pointless. You're going to waste your time. Remember, you have more time. Just means you have time. What are you going to do with that time? And I swear if I talk to you and you say, I'm just going to work on my literature review, what does that mean? And you don't have very concrete action steps, especially after this episode, friend, I will come find you.

7 Step Scholar Routine: 

I will get you. Okay. There are seven steps, right? We have our pen and paper, seven steps that you need to do. You need to first identify a 30 day goal. We'll talk about why in a minute. Step two is to complete a brain dump. You already been doing it, especially if you listen to episode 48 and you've been following it. You've been doing that. Step three is to list out your top 15 of the week. Talk about what that is. Step four is to complete your weekly plan. Step five is to review your weekly plan. Step six is to complete a weekly plan every week for the 30 days. And step seven is to review your monthly progress. All of these steps are important. Do not skip it. Okay?

1. 30 Day Goal: 

So step one is to have 30 day goals, what do you want to accomplish over the next 30 days? So let's say about an end of February. What do you want to accomplish if you're listening to this in real time, why do we, why 30 days? Well, 30 days I feel like it's enough times. It's about four to five weeks and it's enough time for you to see some progress, but not get so far ahead of yourself that things become overwhelming or you go down some rabbit hole that you don't need to go down or you just give up because you just stopped. Right? Cause it was such a long time. We make a lot of mistakes when we try to plan too far ahead. Um, and you try to like when you, when people tell you to make longer goals or like, so like think about the goals you made for 2020. It just seems like it's a like, Oh, I have, I have time, I'll get to it. Right? And now we're at the end of January and it's like, did you get to it? Now we have 11 months left, right? So we, when you do 30 days goals y'all, I can't today when you do 30 day goals you, you have enough time to say, have I been showing up in the way that I want to show up and what are some tweaks I need to make? Right? So what I want you to do is sit down and think about, it would be nice if I could do what in the next 30 days. Maybe it's something that's been nagging at you. Maybe it's the thing that you have been looking forward to doing the most but feel like you haven't had a time. Maybe there's a draft or something that you need to get out, but you haven't, right. We are working on one, one goal, just one goal. Listen to me just one goal, like an example of this. One goal would be I want to write chapter two. I want to write a draft of chapter two in the next 30 days. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Or I want to transcribe all of my interviews in the next 30 days. Very doable. Got it. So it's not that you're going to work on your chapter two it's I want a draft of chapter two in the next 30 days. Right? Okay. So you have your goal. Write that down.

2. Brain Dump:

Now step two is instantly things are going start flooding your brain of like what? How are we going to do that? What do you mean we got to go do this? mm mm. I want you to do a brain dump. Step two, it is important to empty out your brain right now because you just set an intention of what you want to do and your brain is working on trying to figure out how to do that or and also trying to protect you because it's scary. Why are you coming up with such scary goals? Right? We need to clean out our brains. Like, think about it. Have you ever went on like a decluttering spree? I do this from time to time. I'm like, I'm going to clean out the closet. The scary closet, you know the one that you don't open the door that you don't open to, cause it's just, it's scary to even go in there. But just say like today was the day you decided I'm going to clean it out. And you do the Marie Kondo method and you take everything out and put it in the center of the room and you see all the shit that's pilling up in the middle of your room. But then when you look at that closet, you just feel it just feels good, it's empty and you're like, I didn't even know I had that much space in that closet.

Right. And so then you go through, does this spark joy, does it not? And you have the pile of things that you're going to keep and you rearrange that back into that closet in a very nice, neat, orderly fashion. Right. And you donate the other stuff or whatever you're going to do with it. And then next time you like the next day or something, you go to open that closet door. You just instantly, it was like instantly feel lighter and just like, Oh I love this closet and now I want to open this door all the time. Right? Because you took out all the stuff that you didn't need and you put back what you need it. That is what a brain dump does for you. It allows you to see like in black and white outside of your head, you get to see all the thoughts that have been bouncing around in your head and then you get to be in a better position to figure out, okay, these are the things I want to focus on and these are the things that I'm like, I'm good without it. And you get to put it back in your brain in a way that feels more organized and light. Okay. It gives us more freedom to have more room. So after you establish your 30 day goal, you want to write down everything that you think you would need to do or you would want to do in order to achieve this 30 day goal. Don't focus on the how as much as just focusing on what are the things, what are some things like if you had to guess, what are some things that you think you would need to do in order to achieve this goal? All right.

3. Top 15-Part A:

After that we are going to get down to our top 15. So step three is broken up into two different parts. The first part is now you did your brain dump. You have all those things down on a sheet of paper. We often quit on our goals when we feel like it's too much or it's overwhelming or we're not sure where to start, which is probably why you're listening to this series and we intellectually know like you need to break it down into achievable goals. But like have you ever sat down and really thought about what does that mean exactly? What does it mean to break down a goal and achieve, achievable way? Like how do you know if it's achievable, but you're not going to skip this step. You're going to do this, right? So you have your brain dump list, right? I want you to go through with a highlighter or maybe you want to circle or put a certain symbol. I want you to circle the things that you think are the most important that would make the most difference right now in achieving your goal. Like circle it, highlight it, whatever, and try to limit yourself to 15, right? So you're going to find 15 things from this brain dump list that like if you did these 15 things, you would definitely achieve this goal. And I want you like once you had those determined, those 15 things determined, you're going to write them down on a new sheet of paper.

And I have a, if you're like, I need a system, I need a workbook or something, you, I will have a um, a document in the show notes that if you click to download it, you can get that for free. So, um, if like there should be a more button in your podcast so you can see it or you can go to the website Marvettelacy.com/episode50. No, we're episode 50. Um, and you should be able to find the document there, right? But you're going to, so you gonna figure out your 30 day goal. You're going to brain dump all the things you need to do in order to achieve that goal. And then you're going to identify 15 items that if you did those things you would achieve your goal, right. And then you're going to write them on a new sheet of paper.

Top 15- Part B: 

Now that you have your new sheet of paper with your 15 items, you're going to review those 15, and you're going to say, can I do each of these things in 20 minutes or less? If the answer is yes, you keep it as is. If the answer is no or maybe: break it down into something that you know it will take you 20 minutes or less to achieve, right? So sometimes maybe for example, you may have something like, um, I need to write an outline for my chapter. Can you write a complete outline in 20 minutes? Maybe could you write an outline of the intro section in 20 minutes? Oh yeah. That's the type of like tasks that you want to write. So you want to break now these, these 15 into tasks that would take 20 minutes or less. Don't worry about if you go over the 15 limit. The goal is just to break it down into 20 minute or less task. It doesn't have to be an exact science.

Don't spend too much time like is it 20 minutes or is it 22 minutes? The goal is to get it into around the 20 minute range. Right? Some other examples you may say, I want to finish chapter two, right? Um, I just picked on chapter two because I feel like that's where most people like to start. Um, you may say like, I'm a brainstorm some concepts or major topics that I should cover in chapter two. Another task may be I'm gonna go to the library and pick up those two books that I put on reserve. Another task might be I'm a write the introduction program, or I'm a brainstorm possible theoretical frameworks, I should use: brainstorm, not read. I'm going to write a paragraph that defines my theoretical framework. Those are the type of tasks that you want to think about. Okay? So you write those out, right?

4. Your Top 3:

So now we're on step four. So you have, so let me pause at this point, right? You have a solid plan. You had the direction you're going in, which is your goal. You have thought about everything possible that you could do to achieve that goal. You have prioritized the main items that you're going to start with for those goals, right? And most people probably will stop here cause they're like, okay, that's good. Mhmmm we not stopping there, right? Because the goal is you have your writing schedule where right when you show up, you need to know what exactly you're doing. So we need to keep going. So step four is where we're going to look at our weekly plan, right? We're going to look at, okay, here for the next seven days. Here's what we have going on. You're going to write down, remember going back to the beginning, you're going to write down, when are you going to work over the next seven days? Where are you going to work the next seven days? Right? And then somewhere for each of the seven days, you want to write down three items from that list that you made for the top 15 that list, you want to write down three items each day that you commit to doing each day. This is the top three I talked about this last week that I have scholar basics that I have clients follow and that one of them is to complete your top three every day. This is how we get to the top three.

Because you've already did the job, the hard part of prioritizing the most important task and you broke it down into very manageable 20 minute or less task. Now you can assign each day three of those that you're going to accomplish and you may say, well, that's only an hour a day. That's fine. If you just showed up a hour each day, that's seven hours in a week, you would accomplish so much more than you probably accomplish in the past three months. Let's be real. But you probably can't tell me what you did in the past three months cause you don't really know cause you didn't really like write it out or plan it out in this way. This is going to get you very clear on what you're doing, what you did, how you did it, when you did it, where you did it. Okay? So if you have downloaded the worksheet, then you'll see that there's a place for you to put these things. So each day should have top 3, there are 21 available spots. It doesn't matter where you just put those things and then you can keep the items that you don't use, right? Because my assumption is that you went past 15 because some of those were not 20 minutes or less. And if you didn't have any that you needed to break down, um, I'm going strongly advise you to go review that again. So you assigned everything into a day. Now you have your plan. So you know when you're writing, where you're, when you get to where you're going, now you know exactly where you need to start. Oh, I need to brainstorm possible lists of theoretical frameworks. Oh, I'm gonna write this introduction paragraph. And then at the end, when I leave here, I'm gonna swing by the library to pick up those books. Boom. It sounds real simple. It sounds so simple that you're going to be like, that's not gonna work for me. But you know what I'm going to say, go back to your mindset. Go back to those thoughts.

5. Weekly Review:

Now, here's where I lose people. Well, I don't lose people. People lose themselves. Um, they don't think they need to take cause. Right? We only talked about four steps. I said there were seven, right? These next three steps are the most important of all the steps. These are the most important. So if you do not follow, these, do not come to me talking about the system doesn't work. Your routine doesn't work for me cause I'm gonna tell you, friend, go back and try it again. Okay? So step five, right you, you went through the week, you showed up for your seven days, you did your, your top three every day. Some things you realize are gonna take you longer. Somethings went by way quicker than you expected, right? Whatever. But now you, you'd made it through the week. At the end of the week, you want to do a weekly review. Right? Now, review means to examine or assess formerly with the possibility or intention of instituting change if necessary. Meaning reviewing your week is figuring out is this plan working for you? What's working about it and what do you may need? Like what are some changes or tweaks that you may need to do? It's a systematic approach to knowing what is going to help you to keep your commitment to yourself. Okay? So at the end of the week, what you want to do is you want to write down, you want to talk about like how would you describe your progress so far this week? What were some things that went to plan? They didn't go to plan? What are some behaviors that you notice about yourself that you may want to continue? What are some things you would have done differently? Right? You want to think about that? You want to write that out. It's important. It doesn't have to be a certain length or anything. You just want to review it.

6. Planning a New Week: 

Step six is to review when you get, you want to do it, so let me back up. So you have figured out what you're gonna do for this week. You did what you needed to do for this week and now you're going to review that process and then you're going to repeat the planning process, which that, yeah, you're going to repeat the planning process every week for 30 days, right? You want to show up and do the same thing over and over. You want to do a brain dump. You want to write out the 15 items. You want to make sure those 15 items are 20 minutes or less. You're going to schedule those 15 or those 21 items in at this point across the seven days of the week and you're going to show up. You're going to do it, you're going to review it. You're going to keep doing it for the four weeks, right? It's going to get you to 28 days, keep doing it.

7. Monthly Review & Repeat the Planning Process:

And then at the end of the month is when you want to do the next step, which is you want to review overall how did the month go? Right? Cause you've been doing this review every week. But now is now we're at the point where we said this was a 30 day goal. This is the time. Did you achieve your goal or not? Why or why not? You want to take some time and journal and really review how did you show up? How did you use your time? Sometimes people write out, they list out all the things that they did right? Because you have all the tasks. If you check them off. Sometimes people just, um, they're really simple. Like did I write the chapter two or not? But there needs to be some sort of monthly review process and in both, um, for the both the weekly review and the monthly review, I go into more detail in the start your dissertation course about how to do that. And I have like worksheets and guide it like I gave you a worksheet for this. Um, but I go into way more detail in the course because it's part of a larger system. But this will definitely help you even if you can't take the course. Right. And then the last step is to repeat the process. You just keep doing it every 30 days. Every week you show up and you keep doing it. Repetition is a mother of learning. Have you heard that before? And in order for you to know if something is working right in order to get the results you have to be consistent. I mean you have to keep showing up and doing it over and over and over, but you can't keep doing something if you don't know if it's working. And that's why the review part is so important. There is no magic.

Final Thoughts: 

That's it. Like people just show up and they do the same thing over and over and over. So that is the routine. That's the scholar routine. I would be curious to know what your thoughts are about that. Um, if, if you think this is something you can use in your life, you may have to re listen to this episode again. Um, but make sure you go ahead and download that sheet so you can get your copy. But I would be curious what are, what is your goal for the next 30 days. What are you committed to doing for February or whenever you're listening to this, come on over to Instagram @ Marvette Lacy, and tell me what are you committed to achieving in the next 30 days? So in two weeks we are going to come back and we're going to round out the series. We're going to finish it up and I'm going to tell you about step three, engaging in a scholar community. You may think I don't need that. Friend, I wouldn't be sitting here making these episodes or going into so much detail if I didn't know you needed all three of these things.

Don't play yourself. Show up to episode 52 so you can listen to this but also show for episode 51 because I'm excited. It's another interview. It's an interview and um, it is with someone who has been with me for almost a year now in terms of being a client. Um, and I'm excited to listen to her journey. I know you'll love her journey as well. So comeback episode 51 would be Margaret Sebastian and episode 52 will be how to engage in the scholar community. So I will see you next week. Until then, do something to show yourself some love. I'll talk to you Instagram in the meantime and talk with you next week. Bye for now. Thank you for joining in for today's office hours. Make sure you come on Instagram and tag me @ Marvette Lacy and let me know what your thoughts were on today's episode. Until next time, do something to show yourself some love. I'll talk to you next week. Bye for now.