Tip one : Mail your entire life savings to your sister, or other family member who you trust with your kala, and tell them to send you the money for rent, food, and the dissertator's staple, coffee, ONLY when you have mailed off significant chunks of your writing. This keeps you housed, and on deadline!!! One of my professors actually did this and his book has just been published. (so it apparently works) This technique plays on your threshold for humiliation and hunger. Two great motivators wouldn't you agree?Tip two: Wake up early in the morning and sit in front of the computer in your bathrobe, tie yourself to said chair UNTIL you have completed three entire pages of text. Then you can get on with the rest of your day----and your chapter. This may work, especially since I'm here in New England, and you actually need a bathrobe here to keep warm. A great way to jump start your day. It beats the dread one feels while puttering around between the shower, front door and kitchen while dithering about whether or not you will wear that red top today that makes you look fat, or if you should eat oatmeal for breakfast or waste time making spam and rice...Tip three: A variation on number one above: This one will probably be effective with Hawaiians, certainly it struck the fear of God into me, if I don't turn in 5-10 pages a week to my host, I'm not allowed to our weekly Friday social dinner in which no less than 5 but as many as 18 of our friends have been known to show up. Friday evening dinners allow us to have a break from parenting because our son has loads of aunties and uncles to hang with, it also is a chance for us to enjoy someone else's cooking, and the warmth of ho'okipa in a place where we have no family and few close friends. Socializing + food, losing this? ONE HELL of an incentive.Tip four: Only for the stout of heart. Substitute 'ai above with ai. You get the gist...Anyone else have suggestions?Please send them with love.
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