Question your questions. Your research question is the first step to putting your ideas into action. The process involves forming viable research questions that address what interests you, indicate a trajectory for your research, and make a contribution to the field. Yet the first questions you articulate may not be the final questions you answer. Throughout your research, be sure to question your questions. Are you asking the best questions? Might your research take a novel approach if you ask it another way? Does your question have an easy answer? Does it get you where you want to go?

On over-organization. Workshops, books, planners, webinars, retreats–everywhere you turn, someone is promoting a new method for organizing your workflow and your life. It is not difficult to be persuaded by a hard sell trying to convince you that a new product will be just the thing to transform your life. Many academics go from one planning system to another, looking for the right software, hardware, or paper system to match their scheduling needs. Unfortunately, those investments of time, energy, and money spent on transferring your information to a new system and learning its quirks can drain the time and energy you might spend on writing and research. Organization is key to successful writing, but over-organizing can be a terrific distraction.

Noticing: a nip of mindfulness. One of the important concepts in practices of mindfulness is noticing. This can be useful in situations where it is difficult to get started writing, where the process becomes frustrating, and where distractions lead you away from the work you would like to be doing. If you find yourself out of sorts, take a moment and notice what you are doing, how you are feeling, and what you might wish to be different in that moment. Noticing is a basic first step to getting to where you want to be. An analogy for road travelers: it’s not until you realize that you are lost that you pull over and look at your GPS, your map, or ask for directions. Then you can reset your course.

Have a meeting. Rather than have a meeting about your project, have a meeting with your project. Maybe you’ve assigned a pet name to your research project, or otherwise seen that it has some anthropomorphic qualities. Imagine that your project has a persona. Fix it a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. Write an agenda if it would be helpful. Then you two can talk. What’s going well? Where does Project need more help? How has Project been successful? What resources can Project benefit from? What are your concerns? What do you need from Project? How can you help it along? It’s best recommended to not have this project meeting in public spaces…and you both might appreciate some privacy for your discussion.

Get to know your librarian. Researchers have few better allies than librarians, who are themselves trained to conduct research broad and focused, using any and all available sources. Good librarians love good challenges, so they are not only tremendously helpful but may also share your enthusiasm for finding an obscure document, a new theorist, or a new direction for your project. Librarians are also among the leaders at the forefront of digital humanities.Your campus librarian can be a great resource for promoting your scholarly work and helping you develop digital projects.

Be inspired. This may seem like an impossible request for those of us who struggle to come to the page and begin writing. However, where inspiration appears difficult, it can be made simple. Imagine your positive outcomes. Imagine your success. Imagine yourself deeply engaged in the flow of writing and thinking, and how satisfying that feeling can be. Some of us are inspired by process, others by product. Figure out what works for you and imagine yourself in a space where your goals are easily achieved. It may seem far-fetched, but it can also be inspiring.

Determination. For its multiple meanings and applications, determination is a helpful quality to consider in writing and research. On the one hand, determining precisely what you want to accomplish is a first step in bringing those goals to fruition. On the other hand, approaching your work with a sense of determination and drive can put you in a frame of mind that pushes you toward completing the goals you set out to accomplish. To determine what you can accomplish in a particular block of time, figure out what the best measure is (word count, page count, time committed) and set realistic, manageable goals.

Make Arrangements. Making, arranging, organizing: creating the spaces in which you write can be a first step to starting a new project, finishing a forgotten one, or moving forward with work already underway. How you arrange your space can make a difference in your comfort level–physically and otherwise. Being mindful and deliberate about how you make arrangements might lead to a more engaged writing experience.

Create an emergency. Noting the similarity between “emerge” and “emergency” inspires some word play that leads to creative thinking about deadlines. Many writers will agree that deadlines can be a strong motivator: when you finally reach the point where you absolutely must get your writing done, there is little choice but to put everything else aside and focus on meeting that deadline. Now imagine creating a microdeadline that is an emergency: I absolutely must finish this paragraph/abstract/outline/chapter before I do anything else. On deadline, we’ll excuse ourselves from obligations to family and friends, let the call go to voice mail and let email go answered. What might emerge if you create a small space of no contact with an urgent deadline for yourself?

Host Pat Thomson will moderate a discussion on the challenges of setting and meeting academic writing goals. Everyone is welcome to join in with their questions and insights about productivity in academic writing. At this time of year, many writers are trying new approaches and making new resolutions; in this chat, we will consider why those resolutions are so hard to keep. Are we setting unrealistic goals? Are we saying “yes” to too many non-writing activities? Are we trying to find time to write without giving up anything else? Are we sticking with writing approaches that haven’t worked well for us in the past? Are we getting discouraged by the lack of immediate results? Are we assessing our own writing too harshly? One thing that we know often hampers attempts to develop new habits is trying to do it alone. While writing is often a solitary task, we can still gain solace from a community of other writers. The #acwri chats are a way of building that community and creating a space for writers to share their experiences with all facets of academic writing. Please join us on January 22 to be part of this valuable forum. In addition to questions and comments about goal setting, we welcome suggestions for topics for future chats.

To learn more about the history of the #acwri hashtag, read this post from Anna Tarrant. And to learn more about the #AcWriMo hashtag, read this post from Charlotte Frost.

What will you call it? When I teach public speaking, I encourage students to title their speeches in progress, often as a first step in writing. That title may never be spoken, or known to anyone but the speaker, unless someone read a written version of the speech. Perhaps even better than writing a thesis statement (which often seems to vex undergraduates), the title helps students remember what they are working on and stay on target as they are researching and writing. This method can be useful for any essay or manuscript in progress. Giving it a title is also a way of making it manifest.

Did you make a resolution? Now make a plan. A goal without a plan is likely to go unfinished. We’ve talked about setting microdeadlines here before, and breaking big goals down into small pieces can make clear how to meet your goals in a manageable system. If you set a project goal, try to get an idea of all of the component parts. You might then set a backward timeline: if you know that you want or need to have that article finished by mid-April, how much work do you need to do each day or week in order to complete it on schedule?

Is your resolution to write every day? If so, determine if you can adequately manage that. That some days are quite full with other responsibilities may make daily goals difficult, so setting them quite small can be helpful. And if you miss a day? So be it. Set it aside and get back on track. It’s easy to abandon daily resolutions when goals are met for a day or two. Don’t give up, and don’t give up hope!

Forgo resolutions and write a statement of purpose instead. With the new year around the corner, many of us have given thought to what we hope to accomplish in 2015. From quitting one habit to adopting another, many aspirations are affirmed on new year’s eve. While we often resolve what to do, how often do we articulate why we want to do it? As a writer, researcher, and scholar, what is your fundamental purpose? Examining why we do what we do can facilitate progress and productivity. Your statement of purpose can also be a reminder to stay on track when struggles arise.