Do you have to force yourself to work?

I was talking with a writer this morning and he said to me something like "I have to force myself to work on this." This seemed to me problematic in some ways, though correct in others.

He brought up the analogy of working out: "When you're working out regularly, you don't need to force yourself because you almost have to work out; it doesn't feel right if you don't; but if you've had a lay-off and have to get back into it, it can be hard, and you do have to force yourself." This I liked much better, because it contains an important element that the first statement didn't. In this statement there is the recognition of and focus on the good that comes along with the investment of effort. And this is the key.

My yoga teacher told the class something to the effect of: "At the moment of greatest difficulty, something beautiful is waiting to be born." The idea being, I think, that it is through the difficulty that we grow into new appreciations.

I just started reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In it he says

we have all experienced times when, instead of being buffeted by anonymous forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our own fate. On the rare occasions that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for what life should be like....
Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times--although such experiences can also be enjoyable if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen....
Such experiences are not necessarily pleasant at the time they occur.

The emphasis on "make" is his. But this is the kind of forcing that is positive: when we recognize that in the reaching and in the stretching to our limits, there we are going to be the most satisfied. So yes, we need to put in effort, and to push our comfort zone, but if that effort is motivated by our sense that this is a route to feeling good.
Yes, he notes that there may be some sort of discomfort, but that discomfort is not certain--and once in "flow" easily put aside (at least in my experience).

So, if you're thinking you have to force yourself to work, remember the optimal experiences in your past. What are the moments in your memory that stand out as the most pleasurable? Are any of them flow moments? Are they memories of things that required effort? Can remembering how good those moments felt help you engage with the project at hand?

Momentum

I had a post titled momentum about a year ago, but it's been long enough that I thought I would recycle some ideas. In a way, this blog is a place where I am recycling ideas--thinking through the same concept again and again, and trying to write it out, to see it more clearly and to understand how to bring it to life. Writing and rewriting have something of the same character as trying to teach other people: we learn ideas in a completely new way when we try to share them with others--but that's beside the point.

I titled the post "momentum" because I was thinking of the importance of getting moving, and using the momentum of the project to help you in the writing. I was talking with two writers this afternoon--one who is closing in on completion, and for whom the project has a lot of momentum: she finds it easy to write; easier and less painful. The other is just starting to get going after being completely stuck; he is making progress, but feeling a good deal of frustration with a project that is still not well-defined. The first has a lot more momentum than the second, and each has more momentum than they did three months ago. I enjoy seeing the momentum build and the relationship with the work change, and these two cases very strongly reminded me of the importance of gaining momentum. I have also been thinking about momentum because I have lost momentum on one project I was working on earlier this spring, while I've kept it on another.

Yesterday I wrote about being over-committed and choosing what to work on--I chose to work on my blog, and I've beenmaking that choice pretty regularly. Not every day, but most days. Because I'm in the habit of doing it, I have momentum that keeps me working on it. The other project, on the other hand, I've lost touch with, making it harder to get moving into it again.

The momentum of the writer is something psychological--it's a familiarity with a project and a sense of purpose and direction. When we're working on a project regularly, it's fresh in our brains--indeed, our brains are working hard to integrate new ideas, so new things will come to us as we continue to work. The familiarity derived from regular, consistent concentration on the project also helps us work more efficiently: we don't have to spend time "getting up to speed", in the same way we do if we have lost familiarity with something.

When we have momentum working we seem to get a lot more from the same amount of effort. When we don't have momentum, every little bit of progress comes with much greater effort. This is just the same as trying to push a car: it's hard to start it rolling, but once it is rolling it takes much less effort to move at a given speed.

If we are writers who have lost our momentum, getting that momentum back is difficult, and perhaps more frustrating because we can sense that we're not being as productive as we once were.

But if a writer who has lost momentum remembers the metaphor or momentum he or she will not be surprised that getting started seems to take a lot of effort for seemingly little return; it is only what one would expect for a project that doesn't have much momentum.

Over-committed

I think it is endemic to be over-committed in our society. There are so many things to do; so many opportunities; so many responsibilities.

It's important to make choices and good choices in how we meet our conflicting commitments.
I'm a bit over-committed tonight, but spending a few minutes to write in this blog is sufficiently important to me that I chose to spend the time, even though it made me late for other things.

When we have multiple commitments, we have to choose which to honor. It's easy to let the commitment to a long-term writing project slide--there's always tomorrow in which to work on it. But if you don't make the choice to fit in the time for the dissertation, it doesn't get done.

That makes it important to have a good relationship with your work, so that you don't feel bad fitting in fifteen minutes of work here or there. It's the regular choice to work on the project that gets it done. With regular work, we get used to working on the project. If that regular work is done in a way that helps develop a positive relationship with your work, then you'll gain momentum; the work will become easier and the amount accomplished will grow.

When you're over-committed, the choice usually isn't mutually exclusive; while I don't advocate being late for appointments, one can choose to make the time for the writing at the expense of some other commitment. And that habit of choosing your work--even a little--is the habit that will get the project done.

Tour de France

I was watching the Tour de France on TV and at one point there was some discussion of when it was most efficient to work the hardest. The speaker--whose qualifications I forget--said that the riders got the most benefit by working the hardest when the situation was most difficult--riding uphill or into a headwind.

I was thinking about whether this has a parallel for writers. Are we going to get the most benefit by working the hardest when things are not going well? Or are we going to get the most benefit by resting a bit when things are going poorly, and then working hard when things start to flow?

We can't do wind tunnel tests to determine this.

I could argue both ways. A dissertation isn't a bike race, so the metaphor is obviously not going to translate without some difficulties.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the curtain of misery; and I think that working hardest when the difficulty is greatest is liable to create the greatest pain when working--you'll be putting in the most effort at exactly that time the work is the least promising.

On the other hand, if you're stuck--if you're discouraged, frustrated, then that might be a moment when you can gain the greatest value from the work because, for one, you need to keep working consistently, even through difficulty, to finish a dissertation; and for two, it is often the case that the moment of frustration and difficulty is the moment at which the greatest change and growth comes. My yoga teacher was recently talking about how at the moment of difficulty something beautiful is waiting to burst out into growth.

I listed this post under the headings of consistency, persistence, and momentum. I don't think that there is a clear answer to what tactic is going to work best on writing a dissertation. The dissertation writing journey and progress through it are not so easily measured as speed and energy output are. But I do think that generally we want to be consistent in working, and persistent in the face of difficulties because there is momentum to projects and to writing: by keeping the project alive and moving in your mind, and on paper, you increase the ease with which you can work on it, and you keep your mind and body in the rhythm and habit of working on the project and thinking about the ideas.

When is the best time to work the hardest? I don't have an answer to that. It partly depends on you and what works best for you. But, in the long run, it is the tortoise that you should emulate: stick at it in a regular pace. What is key is to keep the progress and the writing piling up.