Thanksgiving: Binge or Break?

This week contains two reasons to give thanks: 1) the Thanksgiving holiday, and 2) a few days off from classes, meetings, and campus activities! How will you spend your holiday break this week? Are you planning a writing binge or a writing break? Will it be a time of enjoyment spent with family and friends, or will it be a time where you are the sole inhabitant of your department floor, working away on your writing projects? As always, there's no right or wrong answer. Instead I want to encourage you to make conscious choices that meet your needs and reflect on how your approach to Thanksgiving Break is related to your daily work habits.

The Break-As-Binge Model

Many new faculty members view scheduled breaks in the academic calendar (Thanksgiving Break, Christmas Break, and Spring Break) as a time to catch up on writing projects that they planned to work on during the semester, but did not. These breaks hold the promise of writing salvation: large blocks of uninterrupted time, solitude (either at home or in a campus office without others around), and the leisure time to just THINK. Many imagine that they can finally go into a multi-day writing frenzy and come out the other side with their goals met.

Unfortunately, that beautiful imagined break often gets disturbed by the reality that holidays include travel, family obligations, and/or various types of personal commitments, all of which require time and energy. For many people, classroom and departmental obligations are often simply replaced by equally time intensive commitments with family and friends.

When the binge is successful, we feel back on track with our writing projects and a sense of significant professional progress. But the cost is often physical and mental exhaustion, and (if family and friends expect our attention) some strain on our personal relationships. When the binge is unsuccessful and we don't accomplish all we imagined, we may experience guilt, disappointment and shame over another broken promise to ourselves. While I have binged on many breaks in the past out of necessity, it has always felt like I lost more than I gained. For me, bingeing was simply an unsustainable way to work over the long haul of an academic career.


The Break-As-Break Model

For those of you who write every day and make slow-and-steady progress, holiday breaks are real breaks (as in a time to rest from work). If you have created a semester plan for your writing, paid yourself first every morning by writing for 30-60 minutes, and made consistent progress towards your writing goals, then treating the break as a break makes perfect sense. In short, the Break-As-Break Model is possible when you have successfully shifted from hoping for large blocks of time for writing to pro-actively creating small blocks of time in your daily schedule.

Ultimately, how we understand Thanksgiving Break speaks volumes about how we work on a daily basis AND how we understand the core of our professional identity. In other words, when my normal daily existence includes writing, then a "break" means a break from writing. But when my daily routine is spent serving everyone else around me, then a "break" means a break from meeting the needs of my students and colleagues and a time in which I can finally attend to my own needs. If you subscribe to the Monday Motivator, it's probably because you are trying to make that subtle but important shift in your professional identity from being reactive to the needs of others (and spending the vast majority of your time on teaching and service) to pro-actively establishing yourself as a scholar (by carving out time for research and writing). I know it's hard and I know it doesn't happen overnight. I also know you WILL get there over time as you slowly but surely make adjustments in your daily behavior.

I want to encourage you to spend this Thanksgiving Break in whatever way that your needs dictate. It's okay to binge and it's okay to take a break. And I also want you to ask yourself: 

1. What do my plans for Thanksgiving Break say about my daily work patterns?
2. Am I satisfied with my work life and productivity?
3. Is my current productivity putting me on track to get what I want (completing my degree, getting a job, tenure and promotion, disseminating my groundbreaking ideas, etc...)
   
4. Is it time to make some additional behavioral changes?  

If you want support over the break for your binge OR if you want to start making changes in your writing behavior, know that you have a loving community of support in my discussion forum. The forum is designed as a private safe-space to gather, communicate openly and honestly about your experiences in Academia, collectively problem-solve, engage in peer-mentoring, and share information. The honesty and wisdom that are shared in this online community serve as a pleasant departure from what many of us experience in our departments and often provide the context for making empowered changes in those spaces.

The Weekly Challenge

If you are unhappy with your productivity, I challenge you to:

• Honestly assess where you are and how you feel physically, emotionally, relationally and professionally.
• Based on that assessment, decide how you need to spend your break and do so without guilt, shame or judgment.
• If you hope to be in a different place by Christmas Break, take a few moments at your Sunday Meeting this week to start thinking what small changes you can make NOW to move in that direction.
• Consider joining the November Writing Challenge if you intend to binge through the break.
• If you need a jump start, consider signing up now for the last tele-workshop of the semester Writing, Procrastination, and Resistance: How to Identify Your Funk and Move Through it.
  
• Thank the universe for all your many blessings!

I am incredibly thankful to YOU for reading the Monday Motivator each week and forwarding it to others! My subscriber list has grown from a handful of my mentees to over 2000 graduate students, post-docs, and new faculty. I am also thankful for the amazing, supportive and inspiring group of writers that show up every day in the discussion forum. My own productivity has soared with the nurturing of this online community.

I hope that this week brings each of you the strength to honestly assess your needs, the clarity to make whatever adjustments are necessary, and the rest you so richly deserve!


Peace and Productivity,
Kerry Ann Rockquemore, PhD
Associate Professor of African American Studies & Sociology
University of Illinois at Chicago
Phone: 773-285-4901
E-Mail: KerryAnn@NewFacultySuccess.com
Web: www.NewFacultySuccess.com
Blog: NewFacultySuccess.blogspot.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/divaprof