By writing your initials in appropriate boxes, please fill in the visualizations on the board.
For each writing session, was it devoted primarily to active waiting, prewriting, drafting, editing, or something else?
For each day, what best describes the duration of your primary writing session that day?
For each session, what best describes the time of day? Best time, a productive time, or a less productive time?
Please answer these questions on the board by placing an anonymous mark in the appropriate place:
Which best describes the length and frequency of your writing sessions?
How many different locations have you used?
Is your primary location comfortable, somewhat comfortable, adequate, somewhat uncomfortable, or uncomfortable?
Is your secondary location comfortable, somewhat comfortable, adequate, somewhat uncomfortable, or uncomfortable?
Check the times of day at which you work. Is the timing of your sessions very regular, somewhat regular, irregular, or very irregular?
Again, please make anonymous marks.
Is your writing starting to feel like a habit?
How well do you feel you can use a writing session of just 5 to 10 minutes?
How well do you feel you can use a writing session of 10 to 30 minutes?
So that we can know who has tried these ideas, please answer the next two questions by writing your initials on the board.
Have you used some sort of contingency (a computer scientist might say “forcing function”) to force the new habit of brief, daily sessions?
Have you visualized any data from your lab notebook in the form of a chart? Did it help?
These questions are for discussion. Don’t write on the board.
When you start a writing session, you must recall many details: about your project, about what you did last time, or about your technical work.
What changes, if any, have you observed in the process of bringing details to mind at the beginning of a session?
Many scientists and academics worry about not getting enough done. When you’re working, how you do feel about your production? When your production is higher or lower than usual, what do you think? How do you feel?
Have the answers to any of these questions started to change?
How has your experience of cognitive load changed? At all?
What, if anything, have you learned about time and time management?