Not That Kind of Doctor - How to Get Unstuck

TLTE Author

05/03/2023 Added

1 Plays

Description

How to Get Unstuck - Ph.D. discussions with Nicholas Husbye and Guy Trainin. www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor and https://mediahub.unl.edu/channels/42980

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:00.094](upbeat music)
[00:00:09.235]No, no, no.
[00:00:12.660]Yes, as opposed to how can I maybe make it fit?
[00:00:16.877]Here's the thing is there's not even space
[00:00:20.430]to make anything fit at this point.
[00:00:22.410]Like, I literally had someone in my email going,
[00:00:27.480]oh, I need an hour and a half for this meeting.
[00:00:29.040]And I was like that's really cute
[00:00:31.590]that you think I have 90 consecutive minutes
[00:00:33.960]free in my Outlook calendar.
[00:00:36.237]I can get you 30.
[00:00:38.250]Yeah.
[00:00:39.656]And that's it.
[00:00:40.489]And like, what's the agenda?
[00:00:42.660]Like, what are we actually doing during this time.
[00:00:46.234]That didn't go over well, but.
[00:00:50.340]But it's necessary.
[00:00:51.420]I mean, when you start saying no to things,
[00:00:53.970]you have to recognize that some people,
[00:00:58.020]at least in the moment will not react well
[00:01:00.510]because everybody always thinks
[00:01:03.330]that you should learn how to say no except to them.
[00:01:09.180]Yeah, well, and it's,
[00:01:12.750]I've come to realize after a semester of overage
[00:01:17.970]and all kinds of different things
[00:01:20.100]that I kind of let my boundaries slip for a while,
[00:01:25.860]for a minute, for a hot minute.
[00:01:27.540]And I've been paying for that ever since.
[00:01:29.040]And so I'm stuck in this kind of Sisyphean Task
[00:01:31.320]of how do I continue doing what I've been doing
[00:01:39.240]in an okay fashion,
[00:01:41.880]but also like pick up some of the plates I've dropped
[00:01:45.780]and glue them back together.
[00:01:47.580]How do I find time for that?
[00:01:49.770]So I'm kind of stuck in this like,
[00:01:54.712]weird cycle of I am behind and because I'm behind,
[00:02:00.870]I can't get caught up, and I'm just stuck,
[00:02:04.740]which is the topic of today's episode.
[00:02:07.200]Look at how I segued.
[00:02:08.430]Yes, and our topic is really how do we get unstuck
[00:02:12.210]because we all know how to get stuck.
[00:02:15.000]That is the easy part.
[00:02:16.920]I mean, and part of the trick is
[00:02:20.280]do you know when you're getting stuck?
[00:02:22.710]So essentially this episode is just gonna be
[00:02:24.930]a whole big therapy session for myself
[00:02:27.750]that I don't have to pay for, which is nice.
[00:02:29.670]So thanks for coming and helping me out.
[00:02:33.390]I'm always happy to help out.
[00:02:35.760]And maybe, you know, give you some tips
[00:02:38.820]around how to not get stuck in the first place,
[00:02:41.310]but also if you do find yourself getting stuck,
[00:02:43.410]how to get unstuck.
[00:02:44.712]This is "Not That Kind of Doctor."
[00:02:47.100]I'm Nick Husbye.
[00:02:48.210]I'm an Associate Professor
[00:02:49.620]of Elementary Literacy Education here at UNL.
[00:02:51.873]I'm Guy Trainin.
[00:02:53.160]I'm a Professor of Education here at UNL.
[00:02:55.530]And we are gonna talk about getting stuck
[00:02:58.320]and then getting unstuck.
[00:03:00.000]So talk to us a little bit
[00:03:01.020]about how you are stuck right now.
[00:03:03.000]How am I stuck right now?
[00:03:03.930]So, to give some context to this,
[00:03:07.020]at time of recording, we are what,
[00:03:09.630]two and a half weeks or two, yeah,
[00:03:12.033]two and a half weeks away from the end of the semester.
[00:03:13.140]Yeah.
[00:03:14.370]I agreed to teach an overage this semester.
[00:03:22.740]And essentially I doubled the amount of classes
[00:03:27.210]I am teaching, which I love my teaching.
[00:03:30.750]I love, I love students.
[00:03:33.240]I love my work in teacher education.
[00:03:35.700]Like that's my, that coincides with my area of research.
[00:03:39.780]Like there were so many good reasons to say yes,
[00:03:43.336]but I'm realizing that I didn't, when I said yes to that,
[00:03:46.680]renegotiate my other service obligations.
[00:03:50.490]And so it's kind of been a semester
[00:03:55.020]where there's a death by 1,000 paper cuts, right.
[00:03:57.900]Like individually, these paper cuts don't hurt.
[00:04:01.980]They're annoying,
[00:04:03.540]but things just kind of snowball as like,
[00:04:10.170]oh, I forgot this, and oh, I need to do this.
[00:04:13.260]And just stuff got kind of lost.
[00:04:17.190]And so now I'm at this point in the semester
[00:04:19.950]where I'm finally somewhat caught up on grading.
[00:04:23.520]I am like fairly okay
[00:04:26.910]with like what I'm supposed to be doing with my service,
[00:04:29.790]but it's literally working all the time.
[00:04:33.270]Yeah.
[00:04:34.470]Which is exhausting.
[00:04:37.134]And unhealthy, definitely long term.
[00:04:39.840]We can all sprint for a while.
[00:04:42.120]Definitely unhealthy, and I mean,
[00:04:44.910]I am not the most in shape person,
[00:04:46.710]so a whole semester of sprinting.
[00:04:50.094]Yes.
[00:04:51.292]Does not work.
[00:04:55.770]And so I'm trying to get myself unstuck.
[00:04:57.180]I'm trying to get my,
[00:04:58.140]I'm kind of finally to a point where the end is in sight,
[00:05:05.220]and I'm trying to,
[00:05:09.690]what am I trying to, not be bitter
[00:05:12.000]because I did this to myself.
[00:05:13.140]Yeah.
[00:05:14.536]I did this to myself to an extent, right?
[00:05:15.570]Like there's some level
[00:05:17.190]of how do systems allow this to happen?
[00:05:21.134]Yeah.
[00:05:22.260]But also I didn't have to say yes.
[00:05:29.100]Which is a little bit different
[00:05:30.690]than being a graduate student sometimes.
[00:05:32.910]Oh very.
[00:05:33.743]Or a young faculty member who's just started.
[00:05:36.570]And that ability to say no feels a lot more,
[00:05:41.812]a lot maybe less possible.
[00:05:43.260]And so being really strategic,
[00:05:44.790]and we talked in previous shows
[00:05:46.620]about how do you learn to say no?
[00:05:49.020]How do you use your mentors to back you up
[00:05:51.330]and to put boundaries around you
[00:05:52.770]when you are struggling to do that?
[00:05:55.290]But once you get to stuck point,
[00:05:57.810]what do you do to get unstuck?
[00:05:59.130]So what are you doing right now to get unstuck?
[00:06:00.911]I mean,
[00:06:02.188]literally the strategy for the entire semester
[00:06:06.570]has just been get stuff done.
[00:06:10.350]Like, it's not gonna be perfect.
[00:06:12.090]It's not gonna be your best work.
[00:06:14.190]You're just knocking stuff off your to-do list
[00:06:17.280]in order to keep forward momentum
[00:06:22.080]because that's kind of what
[00:06:25.320]moving through that stuckness feels like.
[00:06:28.020]Right, particularly when we're talking about teaching,
[00:06:30.900]service, research, all of that combined
[00:06:34.140]like it's just a matter of, you know,
[00:06:37.170]I'd list out what I needed to get done in my week
[00:06:40.410]and just keep chipping away at those items.
[00:06:48.000]Here's what I found.
[00:06:49.200]Oh, there's what you found.
[00:06:51.360]The key to efficiency mind tools, oh, Siri,
[00:06:55.380]not listening to us at all.
[00:06:57.150]Shouldn't be worried about that at all.
[00:06:59.760]What's going on?
[00:07:02.400]Right now it's looking like,
[00:07:04.800]so that's like being stuck, right?
[00:07:06.810]Like you're kind of in this.
[00:07:09.270]That's a version of stuck.
[00:07:11.730]My version of stuck that when I came up with this topic
[00:07:15.420]is partially that because I'm often over scheduled,
[00:07:19.320]which is kind of at the heart of this.
[00:07:22.109]You do love over scheduling.
[00:07:22.942]I do love over scheduling.
[00:07:23.970]If his blocks in his calendar are not overlapping,
[00:07:26.490]he is not happy.
[00:07:28.500]But eh, for me, what stuck feels like sometimes
[00:07:33.570]is that paralysis of I have so much to do,
[00:07:38.100]and I need to find a way out of this maze
[00:07:42.720]because I have so many obligations,
[00:07:44.550]which seems reasonable
[00:07:46.260]as those paper cuts were showing up occasionally.
[00:07:49.530]But there are moments in time, end of semester sometimes
[00:07:52.710]or other reporting times for grants, things like that,
[00:07:56.160]where suddenly you are facing the fact
[00:07:58.920]that when it all comes together,
[00:08:01.380]it is more than any one person can handle.
[00:08:04.290]Yeah.
[00:08:05.393]And so there's that sense, that rise in anxiety
[00:08:09.840]and that sense of, you know, what would be a good choice?
[00:08:13.075]Spending some hours watching Netflix or something else.
[00:08:18.750]Or building a time machine.
[00:08:19.860]Or building a time machine.
[00:08:20.820]Going back in time.
[00:08:21.750]And saying no.
[00:08:22.770]Yeah.
[00:08:24.660]So when you do get to this,
[00:08:26.820]when Elon Musk builds this machine, that's your solution.
[00:08:30.233]I mean, but didn't, didn't his last like shuttle
[00:08:33.600]just explode or something a couple of weeks ago?
[00:08:35.490]Like, do I trust this man?
[00:08:37.290]Like the blue check Twitter thing, like, I feel like.
[00:08:40.800]He's stuck.
[00:08:41.670]I don't understand.
[00:08:43.590]He needs to watch.
[00:08:44.670]The Elon obsession.
[00:08:46.980]He's got a lot of money.
[00:08:48.090]He had one or two good ideas.
[00:08:51.113]We are, we are obsessed with people
[00:08:52.590]that have a lot of money, but he is also stuck.
[00:08:55.050]So talk about how you get unstuck.
[00:08:57.720]Okay, so one of the things that I am proud of myself
[00:09:03.600]for doing this semester was I avoided paralysis
[00:09:08.190]by getting my list done.
[00:09:12.690]Like getting that listed out, moving it over.
[00:09:17.040]I typically organize myself in a bullet journal.
[00:09:21.840]So shout out to Ryder Carroll for that whole system
[00:09:26.991]of really thinking about how to track the work
[00:09:29.700]that you're trying to get done and giving yourself
[00:09:34.350]some frameworks for getting it done in.
[00:09:36.793]It resulted in like I essentially have been working
[00:09:41.820]from eight in the morning until five or six at night,
[00:09:48.180]sometimes seven, sometimes eight.
[00:09:50.250]On teaching days I'm up early because my working hours are,
[00:09:55.710]I teach back to back.
[00:09:57.615]Yeah.
[00:09:58.631]Right, so like that takes a ton of time.
[00:10:00.570]All of my classes are kind of new-ish preps.
[00:10:06.780]There's elements that are big and new for all of them.
[00:10:11.040]And so keeping up with that list has been helpful.
[00:10:17.340]Like I don't feel like I haven't gotten stuff done.
[00:10:21.450]I just, there's not enough time in the day
[00:10:27.780]literally to maintain some healthy-ish boundaries
[00:10:35.190]and live a life.
[00:10:41.850]So some things are just going to fall apart,
[00:10:44.370]and coming to grips with that.
[00:10:47.340]Yeah, and so I think that in the short term,
[00:10:49.890]it's managing time.
[00:10:51.750]I use the system from Michael Hyatt for example
[00:10:57.535]that really talks about what are the three things
[00:10:59.190]you must accomplish today.
[00:11:01.140]In a way, so you still have your lists,
[00:11:03.780]but you think about what do I have to get done today?
[00:11:06.960]And if I get those three things done,
[00:11:09.390]I feel like my day was successful
[00:11:11.640]even though I probably did another 20 things
[00:11:14.190]that may have been on my list.
[00:11:15.570]But that helps you sense the progress
[00:11:18.330]and also prioritize early and make sure
[00:11:21.750]that you can get through the day through these hard periods.
[00:11:24.810]But I think the most important thing is after that period,
[00:11:27.897]and the beauty and the difficulty of working academic lives
[00:11:31.530]is that we do have seasons,
[00:11:33.840]and we do have beginnings and ends.
[00:11:35.640]And those tend to be stressful in different ways.
[00:11:39.630]But that gives us the opportunity to also rethink.
[00:11:41.970]So after that period, the rethinking of what has to change
[00:11:46.470]so I don't find myself exactly back in that spot
[00:11:49.274]next year this time, right?
[00:11:52.170]In your case, it's probably maybe not taking an,
[00:11:55.876]being over committed to teaching, right?
[00:12:01.920]Is like thinking, was that last time,
[00:12:04.350]was that a good choice?
[00:12:05.730]If I make that choice, how do I have to organize my life
[00:12:08.550]so it doesn't, so I manage other commitments
[00:12:12.351]if I do take this extra commitment on?
[00:12:15.270]And being, I think for me too
[00:12:17.220]the other thing that I would do differently next time
[00:12:20.550]is reconfigure.
[00:12:24.750]Like why are things being done
[00:12:26.160]the way that they're being done
[00:12:28.006]outside of this overage, right?
[00:12:29.400]Like that's.
[00:12:30.233]Yeah.
[00:12:32.063]That's another piece.
[00:12:33.240]Yes.
[00:12:34.609]But like, I think that prioritizing,
[00:12:35.910]as you were talking about like the,
[00:12:38.280]there's the idea of you eat the frog every morning.
[00:12:43.230]Have you heard that?
[00:12:44.130]No.
[00:12:45.769]So like.
[00:12:46.772]I try not to eat frogs, they're not kosher.
[00:12:48.240]I mean that is true.
[00:12:49.530]I don't want to, no, let's not do that.
[00:12:51.930]But like, it's that notion of
[00:12:55.410]you do your most difficult thing.
[00:12:57.960]Yeah.
[00:12:58.793]First thing in the morning when you're most able to focus,
[00:13:04.500]and you just get it done, and then it's off your checklist.
[00:13:11.010]And you feel better.
[00:13:11.843]And you feel like you've accomplished something
[00:13:13.920]which then leads to like, you know,
[00:13:16.500]success happens to successful people, right?
[00:13:19.290]Like if you're already successful,
[00:13:20.820]chances are you're going to engage
[00:13:22.170]in more successful practices later.
[00:13:24.240]And so if you accomplish that one hard thing,
[00:13:26.760]then it just kind of snowballs versus putting it off all day
[00:13:31.170]and you procrastinate all day around that one item,
[00:13:34.260]and it just doesn't get done.
[00:13:36.101]And one thing that I see a lot of graduate students doing,
[00:13:40.500]mostly because they're still young,
[00:13:42.330]is thinking about late at night kind of activity.
[00:13:47.670]It's like I am most productive late at night.
[00:13:49.980]So they don't, to borrow that phrase,
[00:13:53.280]they don't eat that frog early in the morning
[00:13:55.020]or in the morning.
[00:13:57.289]They wait till it's late and then they're anxious.
[00:13:59.250]They procrastinated all day, and I will tell you
[00:14:02.310]that as you get a little bit older,
[00:14:05.310]those late nights and pulling them through time after time
[00:14:08.520]does not work as a solution.
[00:14:10.650]They just don't happen anymore.
[00:14:12.810]Like, when did I get middle-aged?
[00:14:14.100]When did we get middle-aged?
[00:14:16.230]I mean, at least you have kids.
[00:14:17.580]Yes.
[00:14:19.064]And a wife.
[00:14:19.897]So I have somebody to blame.
[00:14:20.730]Is that you're saying?
[00:14:21.563]No, I'm saying you have markers of adulthood
[00:14:22.740]versus I'm just out here living my best like teenage life
[00:14:26.580]with a disposable income.
[00:14:28.950]You would think I would drive something more exciting
[00:14:30.690]than a Subaru.
[00:14:32.028]You know?
[00:14:33.330]Subaru is exciting.
[00:14:34.710]Have you driven a Subaru?
[00:14:36.210]Not anytime recently.
[00:14:37.890]Okay, so that's where,
[00:14:39.204]that's where that statement's coming from.
[00:14:40.770]It is a practical car, Guy.
[00:14:43.350]It is a practical car.
[00:14:45.030]All right.
[00:14:46.325]I once went on a date where someone was like,
[00:14:47.610]oh, I can't date you.
[00:14:48.600]You drive a station wagon.
[00:14:51.270]That's the kind of car it is.
[00:14:53.670]Yeah, I can see that.
[00:14:55.170]Just throwing that out there.
[00:14:57.180]So back to be getting unstuck.
[00:14:59.520]So try to get it done.
[00:15:02.160]Have a list of what happens.
[00:15:04.440]I think that thinking about what must happen today
[00:15:07.680]has been, when I get to this bottlenecks,
[00:15:10.380]because I do a lot of, I do a lot of grant work.
[00:15:14.040]There's always bottlenecks,
[00:15:15.270]and suddenly everybody wants a report from you.
[00:15:17.910]So managing your time then becomes critical,
[00:15:20.940]and of course then the thinking backwards is
[00:15:23.190]how do I prevent this?
[00:15:24.330]This is for me the most important thing
[00:15:26.100]is how do I prevent this from happening,
[00:15:28.260]or as I feel it happening. I used to,
[00:15:32.040]I may have talked about this in a previous episode,
[00:15:33.990]I'm not sure, but I used to do this moment,
[00:15:37.350]at least once a year,
[00:15:38.220]sometimes once a semester where we would sit to breakfast,
[00:15:41.190]Sarah and I and say, and I would say,
[00:15:43.890]here is everything I'm doing.
[00:15:46.020]What am I taking off my plate?
[00:15:48.240]So making that decision to start saying no to things
[00:15:51.600]and start saying what is really important to me,
[00:15:54.480]to my ability to be influential and to my career
[00:15:57.450]and what is just stuff I'm doing
[00:15:59.820]because I'm trying to be helpful
[00:16:01.500]or I'm trying to support somebody else.
[00:16:04.440]And it's great to support other people.
[00:16:06.180]And right now as a full professor,
[00:16:07.470]I do a lot of that and I enjoy that.
[00:16:09.300]But early in your career and when you're a graduate student,
[00:16:11.910]you have to make sure I'm doing the things I need to do
[00:16:15.570]for me to become a professional,
[00:16:17.370]for me to be able to be successful.
[00:16:19.080]Because if you are not successful,
[00:16:21.030]all that support you gave other people is not,
[00:16:24.330]that's not worth it.
[00:16:25.800]You can, if you take care of yourself in your career,
[00:16:29.130]you will be able to support people for a long time.
[00:16:32.430]If you're not gonna be able to graduate with your doctorate,
[00:16:35.190]you're not gonna be able to get that job
[00:16:37.200]or you're not gonna be able to get tenure,
[00:16:39.600]then you're not gonna be able to support people.
[00:16:41.520]So even if you are thinking about other people
[00:16:43.400]as a primary concern in your life,
[00:16:45.660]you still have to get there yourself first.
[00:16:48.720]And so really thinking,
[00:16:51.120]I had a graduate who's now teaching at another university,
[00:16:55.770]and I meet with her about once or twice a year.
[00:16:59.280]And one of the things I told her about teaching is,
[00:17:02.769]and we talked about teaching is teaching is great,
[00:17:06.240]but at the end of every semester think what didn't work?
[00:17:09.270]What is too much?
[00:17:10.470]How do I pare this down so I can manage?
[00:17:13.260]Because she started her career with a class that had,
[00:17:16.830]that was reduced from six credits
[00:17:18.930]and all the time that it contains to three credits
[00:17:22.890]without taking anything out of the syllabus.
[00:17:25.470]That's a classic, this is how you get stuck
[00:17:28.530]because you're not getting paid for all of that time.
[00:17:31.950]You are not being supported for all of that time.
[00:17:34.290]Students aren't, but you are asking for all of this.
[00:17:37.050]This is not manageable.
[00:17:38.730]So you've gotta rethink.
[00:17:39.900]So use those times, I think, in the academic year
[00:17:44.225]and in the semester to rethink what you've done
[00:17:46.590]when you are still feeling the pain, right?
[00:17:49.470]This is the moment that you need to recall
[00:17:51.900]is that stuck moment to think back and say,
[00:17:55.410]I need to not be in this position again.
[00:17:58.108]Yeah, well, and so my previous strategy and/or tactic
[00:18:04.770]for getting through with the to-do list,
[00:18:07.170]just really when things are bottle necking.
[00:18:09.120]So like three, four weeks ago,
[00:18:12.810]that was my primary strategy to get unstuck.
[00:18:16.800]And kind of where I'm at now really works
[00:18:21.000]with that idea of there's a light at the end of the tunnel
[00:18:27.210]one, and I can think forward a little bit.
[00:18:35.580]I can actually engage in some proactive planning
[00:18:38.130]versus always having to be in the moment
[00:18:42.209]checking stuff of my to-do list and putting out fires
[00:18:47.880]and et cetera, et cetera.
[00:18:49.680]So now there's a little bit of an opportunity to plan ahead,
[00:18:54.420]and that's been really helpful
[00:18:59.520]in terms of getting out of kind of a stuck mindset
[00:19:05.220]because of how much time I've had to invest in teaching,
[00:19:10.590]how much time I've been able to dedicate to writing,
[00:19:14.460]how much time I've been able to dedicate to service,
[00:19:17.943]et cetera, et cetera.
[00:19:19.320]Like thinking through strategically
[00:19:22.230]where have I made inroads and particularly with teaching,
[00:19:25.980]like what has been useful.
[00:19:29.520]Because of my lack of time
[00:19:30.900]I've had to figure out some more efficient ways
[00:19:32.850]around teaching.
[00:19:33.810]How do I wanna, how do I want to codify
[00:19:37.230]what really worked well and what didn't?
[00:19:39.720]What can I get rid of?
[00:19:43.244]So that's actually been fairly reinvigorating
[00:19:50.520]in terms of like finishing out the semester.
[00:19:53.640]Not necessarily strong, but just finishing.
[00:19:55.530]I just wanna finish right?
[00:19:57.240]Like no one ever says I ran the race plus,
[00:20:01.530]or I ran the race minus.
[00:20:02.610]You ran the race, full stop.
[00:20:04.560]That's, I just wanna finish, just wanna finish the semester.
[00:20:08.940]So, but that has been super helpful
[00:20:12.330]in terms of also setting up, so it's spring semester,
[00:20:17.430]setting up what is the work that I want to be doing
[00:20:24.150]for this coming year?
[00:20:25.860]Like what is most important to me as a professional,
[00:20:32.520]as a member of the department,
[00:20:33.720]as a member of the university,
[00:20:36.120]as a member of the larger field,
[00:20:38.760]what's the work that I want to be doing?
[00:20:44.550]And how do I get that done?
[00:20:45.750]Yeah, and I think that early in your career,
[00:20:48.510]especially as a graduate student,
[00:20:50.370]everything feels like an opportunity
[00:20:52.380]because everything is an opportunity
[00:20:55.004]because you're new to this and it's all new,
[00:20:58.050]and you don't know what's hiding behind some opportunity.
[00:21:01.410]But there is that point where you have to start remembering
[00:21:04.890]that at the end of the semester,
[00:21:06.210]if you're a graduate student,
[00:21:07.590]you're going to have all of these papers
[00:21:09.540]and projects that are due.
[00:21:10.890]If you're young faculty members, at the end of the semester,
[00:21:13.890]there's going to be all of these papers
[00:21:16.620]that you need to read, all of these assignments.
[00:21:19.140]So how do you make sure that your other obligations
[00:21:22.903]will not bring you back to a position where you're frozen?
[00:21:26.541]One of the things I often say to young faculty members,
[00:21:30.240]just remember that no matter,
[00:21:32.790]and graduate students who are teaching,
[00:21:35.025]every semester, at least in my living memory,
[00:21:38.820]25 years in higher education,
[00:21:41.010]every semester ends, and the grades are in,
[00:21:44.404]and everybody survives.
[00:21:46.980]At least the teaching part, the teaching and learning part.
[00:21:49.800]So it feels like you're not gonna get there.
[00:21:52.680]We all get there.
[00:21:53.820]There are shortcuts and solutions
[00:21:56.220]and ways to get there more effectively.
[00:21:59.430]But again, remember that moment of pressure
[00:22:02.880]because I think that is the key to not getting stuck
[00:22:05.550]in the same position later.
[00:22:08.160]If you don't take that reflective moment,
[00:22:10.050]then you are bound to repeat it.
[00:22:12.180]And there's the third part of, the third kind of stuck,
[00:22:15.900]which you kind of described but not fully.
[00:22:17.940]And that is the frantic stuck.
[00:22:19.410]You're always doing something.
[00:22:20.730]You feel like your time is full,
[00:22:22.385]but you're really scurrying around trying to put out fires
[00:22:26.340]and never completing anything,
[00:22:28.260]never productively getting to a point
[00:22:31.860]where the tasks are done, and you can move on
[00:22:33.600]and you can relax,
[00:22:34.920]and it gives you a sense of forward movement.
[00:22:36.870]But really without that reflective moment of saying,
[00:22:39.360]how do I not end up here again?
[00:22:41.520]You're gonna be back there because we do.
[00:22:44.070]I mean it is the same principle
[00:22:47.340]as the closet principle, right?
[00:22:49.680]If you have a closet, you're gonna fill it.
[00:22:53.910]Just hopefully not with myself
[00:22:55.905]cause, you know, been there, done that,
[00:22:56.738]don't wanna do that again.
[00:22:58.320]Not that closet.
[00:22:59.370]But you have a closet, you're gonna fill it.
[00:23:01.440]Wait, wait, what kinda house do you live in
[00:23:03.090]where your bedroom has more than one closet?
[00:23:05.100]Does your bedroom have more than one closet?
[00:23:06.540]Yeah.
[00:23:08.044]Wow, you fancy.
[00:23:09.047]I am fancy.
[00:23:09.880]I'm super fancy.
[00:23:10.713]You are super fancy.
[00:23:12.510]We have two closets.
[00:23:14.490]And this is where I stop feeling like an adult.
[00:23:17.250]I only have one closet, and my.
[00:23:18.900]You need only one.
[00:23:20.305]How do you need two?
[00:23:22.360]You need one.
[00:23:23.193]I would just like to have it.
[00:23:24.450]Oh, just to have it, okay.
[00:23:26.343]Why not?
[00:23:27.825]I think it can be arranged.
[00:23:29.010]No it can't.
[00:23:30.044]But then you get stuck because there's too many clothes.
[00:23:32.541]I mean, I am running into a problem
[00:23:34.440]where I actually have too few clothes.
[00:23:38.400]Is it a problem though?
[00:23:40.650]I mean, how many t-shirts,
[00:23:42.240]how many shirts do you have, Guy?
[00:23:44.550]In the comments tell us.
[00:23:46.200]Yes.
[00:23:47.251]How many shirts has Guy worn on this podcast.
[00:23:51.720]I have.
[00:23:53.250]If you're watching on YouTube.
[00:23:55.923]I don't know, I have maybe 20, I don't know.
[00:24:01.650]Probably more.
[00:24:03.660]But I've just edited.
[00:24:04.920]I've just gone through editing because I felt stuck.
[00:24:07.830]It's like I have this closet,
[00:24:09.360]and there are a lot of shirts in there,
[00:24:10.770]but I'm wearing a very small sub section.
[00:24:13.440]Why do I have these other shirts from other times in my life
[00:24:17.550]before I got fancy and shiny? (both laughing)
[00:24:24.450]So maybe I need two closets.
[00:24:26.010]Maybe you do.
[00:24:27.300]But probably not, there's no room.
[00:24:29.735]Okay, so thinking about,
[00:24:35.460]one of the other things that's been really tricky for me
[00:24:39.630]is when I took on this overage, I really did plan for it.
[00:24:44.903]Yeah.
[00:24:46.540]Like I time blocked.
[00:24:50.280]I did everything I was supposed to.
[00:24:52.530]And one of the things that has stood out to me is
[00:24:58.642]because my time has been so valuable
[00:25:08.220]in terms of being able to get stuff done,
[00:25:09.840]and I haven't fallen into that like I'm running frantic.
[00:25:13.110]I haven't fallen into the frantic piece.
[00:25:15.600]And I think part of that is just like
[00:25:18.450]I know the semester is going to end.
[00:25:20.760]Like I had a paper chain at home on my window
[00:25:25.080]where I'd like, oh look, class day.
[00:25:27.480]Cut that off.
[00:25:29.300]Oh, look, that's how many are left?
[00:25:30.133]Like it's down to, it's down to two now.
[00:25:34.950]So I did everything right.
[00:25:37.680]Yeah.
[00:25:39.179]In terms of like that pre-planning
[00:25:40.920]and thinking through like what times I would need
[00:25:44.242]to do a good portion of stuff,
[00:25:46.920]but the thing that I did not plan for
[00:25:51.270]would be thinking through demands on my time
[00:26:01.290]that didn't actually result
[00:26:03.450]in any kind of meaningful work getting done.
[00:26:07.320]Yeah.
[00:26:08.310]Right like there's,
[00:26:10.530]I was reading some research about effective meetings,
[00:26:14.460]and it takes the average person two and a half hours
[00:26:18.750]to recover from a bad hour long meeting.
[00:26:22.359]Yeah.
[00:26:23.830]And I felt that this semester.
[00:26:26.940]Yeah, and my strategy,
[00:26:28.830]and again as a graduate student,
[00:26:30.810]and me, I'm a faculty member,
[00:26:32.010]you have very little,
[00:26:34.260]you have very little impact on the quality
[00:26:37.170]of most of the meetings you will find yourself in.
[00:26:39.960]So at that point, the biggest thing you can do
[00:26:43.140]is not volunteer for meetings you don't need to be in.
[00:26:45.600]That is the one thing you can say is, I simply can't.
[00:26:48.390]I'm sorry, I can't.
[00:26:50.400]But when you start designing meetings,
[00:26:52.680]I put a portion of almost every meeting that I have
[00:26:56.280]into executing on that meeting.
[00:26:58.140]So if there's five emails that need to be written
[00:27:01.080]as a result of this meeting,
[00:27:02.340]they get written during the meeting, not after the meeting.
[00:27:05.550]This is, the meeting is not to produce more work.
[00:27:07.980]It's to resolve the work that needs to be done.
[00:27:10.961]Right.
[00:27:11.794]It's a different way to think about it.
[00:27:13.170]But for me that that's a way to do it.
[00:27:15.480]And those are the invisible things that you start noticing
[00:27:18.780]when you don't have time.
[00:27:20.160]Right.
[00:27:21.501]In a general way, if you have a little bit of time,
[00:27:24.300]you spend some time on a meeting that's not very useful,
[00:27:27.030]and you just write it off and play video games
[00:27:30.570]on your devices maybe.
[00:27:33.600]Not saying that happened to me.
[00:27:36.036]How's your Animal Crossing island?
[00:27:39.360]And so there, but when you are tight for time
[00:27:44.490]and every minute matters,
[00:27:46.350]you start feeling those inefficiencies in other ways.
[00:27:50.220]I did wanna mention something.
[00:27:51.960]If you are seriously stuck,
[00:27:53.820]there are really good strategies.
[00:27:56.910]I always recommend if you are a graduate student,
[00:27:59.730]if you are a faculty member,
[00:28:00.870]most universities will have the ability to provide therapy.
[00:28:05.190]And if you're really stuck, and you're feeling this
[00:28:07.440]over a long period of time,
[00:28:08.700]I highly recommend using those resources.
[00:28:11.280]They're there for a reason.
[00:28:12.600]They're there to help you.
[00:28:13.890]Working with somebody else often helps get you unstuck
[00:28:18.300]or realize that you need to let go of some things
[00:28:22.230]and help you reframe.
[00:28:24.000]So that's really, really useful.
[00:28:25.560]And I want you to use those resources, use them.
[00:28:28.500]They're there for a reason.
[00:28:29.850]And those professionals,
[00:28:31.710]even better than professionals
[00:28:33.390]that are outside universities,
[00:28:35.160]you are the kind of people that they meet,
[00:28:37.470]so they know what graduate students go through.
[00:28:39.879]They know what young faculty go through.
[00:28:42.840]So they're able to provide some supports
[00:28:46.200]that maybe a therapist
[00:28:49.290]that you're working with from somewhere else
[00:28:51.180]is a little bit less able to understand.
[00:28:54.210]It doesn't mean if you have your own therapist
[00:28:56.340]and you're comfortable with them, don't change.
[00:28:58.350]But what I'm saying is,
[00:28:59.610]if you're feeling these feelings for the first time
[00:29:01.740]because you're a graduate student or young faculty member,
[00:29:04.230]use those resources.
[00:29:05.370]They're there for a reason.
[00:29:06.600]Well, and I think that that highlights
[00:29:08.700]a really important like figure out the nature
[00:29:11.760]of what's the cause of your stuckness.
[00:29:14.820]Yeah.
[00:29:15.653]Right like my stuckness is my own bad decision making.
[00:29:21.150]It's not necessarily anything connected to anxiety
[00:29:26.190]or anything else.
[00:29:28.050]So like, like I haven't,
[00:29:31.650]like my therapist knows that I'm busy.
[00:29:33.810]Yeah.
[00:29:34.999]Like busy AF and like running around
[00:29:37.620]getting stuff checked off my list, la la la la la.
[00:29:40.530]But knows that this stuckness, this like being,
[00:29:48.300]there's not a sense of Ennui, right?
[00:29:50.280]Like this, like, oh, I just don't,
[00:29:53.880]I can't force myself to do anything.
[00:29:56.550]Like that's a really different kind of experience.
[00:30:01.500]It's a really different kind of stuck, right?
[00:30:05.250]Like what happens when you can't power through?
[00:30:09.750]Yeah.
[00:30:10.583]Right like I've been through this,
[00:30:13.320]I've been in this profession for long enough.
[00:30:16.440]Ugh, that feels weird to say,
[00:30:19.830]Oh, for long enough to know that yes, this semester will end
[00:30:23.202]and ultimately it will be fine.
[00:30:27.300]Yeah.
[00:30:28.583]Like, no lasting damage has been done.
[00:30:30.900]It doesn't feel great as you're realizing that, oh, look at,
[00:30:34.950]look at, look at the field
[00:30:36.660]in which I have broken all the plates that I was spinning,
[00:30:39.150]but look at those eight that I still have spinning, right?
[00:30:41.520]Like I can manage that
[00:30:44.119]better than I probably could five years ago.
[00:30:48.990]I can manage that better than I could
[00:30:50.520]definitely 10 years ago.
[00:30:52.260]But if it were to the point where I just laid in bed all day
[00:31:01.230]and was like, oh, I have so much to do.
[00:31:03.661]Like that would be a moment
[00:31:04.920]that I would need to go find some help, right?
[00:31:10.080]Yeah.
[00:31:10.950]Like to use, I grew up in Michigan.
[00:31:13.350]So winters crazy, right?
[00:31:16.260]And when you get stuck in the winter,
[00:31:21.000]you put chains on your tires,
[00:31:22.560]like that was a thing that we did.
[00:31:25.200]Metaphorically, if I can't get the chains on my tires
[00:31:27.750]to get some traction moving
[00:31:30.270]that tells me that I need to go do something else, right?
[00:31:36.060]And so deciding what's the nature of your stuckness,
[00:31:42.150]I think is important.
[00:31:43.500]Is it this kind of,
[00:31:46.299]are there some things that you need to work through
[00:31:50.310]in terms of just feeling distracted and unable to focus?
[00:31:57.060]Or is it like literally you've just over committed yourself,
[00:32:01.800]and you're gonna break some plates,
[00:32:03.759]and you need to be okay with that?
[00:32:06.000]Does that make sense?
[00:32:06.833]Yes, that does make sense.
[00:32:08.550]Although, so for me, a little bit different
[00:32:14.370]than you're thinking about this I think.
[00:32:16.230]For me, therapy can also help at that moment
[00:32:20.070]where you need to admit that some breaks,
[00:32:22.110]that some plates are gonna break.
[00:32:24.480]That sometimes having a conversation with a therapist
[00:32:27.900]helps you let go, so if you're finding that moment hard,
[00:32:32.760]that can be really helpful in supporting and saying,
[00:32:36.570]yeah, well, everything that you've described
[00:32:40.350]will lead to that.
[00:32:41.220]Now sometimes you have good mentors or friends
[00:32:45.150]or people you can talk to that will help you
[00:32:47.490]kind of process.
[00:32:48.720]But sometimes, especially I think about graduate students
[00:32:52.050]who may be in a new, or new faculty members
[00:32:54.930]who are in a new city,
[00:32:56.190]they don't have that social fabric that can support them
[00:32:58.920]in the same way.
[00:33:00.450]And so you suddenly find yourself needing that ear.
[00:33:05.154]You can journal.
[00:33:09.060]You can use other supports, and you can go see a therapist
[00:33:13.770]even if it's for a few meetings just to help you process.
[00:33:19.260]It's been an interesting experience
[00:33:20.940]in terms of like setting boundaries, right?
[00:33:24.840]And that idea that when you set boundaries
[00:33:29.370]and sometimes there are boundaries that you set,
[00:33:31.878]sometimes there are boundaries that are set for you.
[00:33:34.719]There's going to always be some level of disappointment.
[00:33:38.370]Right, whether it's you being disappointed
[00:33:40.950]for allowing your boundaries to be crossed by someone,
[00:33:44.970]or whether it's someone's disappointment in you
[00:33:49.170]that you are not giving up your boundary.
[00:33:53.010]You're not taking down your boundary
[00:33:54.480]in order to accommodate what the ask is.
[00:33:57.570]And being okay with that disappointment is probably
[00:34:10.920]like if I have a superpower, that might be it.
[00:34:15.030]Like I'm fairly okay
[00:34:16.680]with a certain level of disappointment in me.
[00:34:23.357]I have not been in the past.
[00:34:26.580]I've learned to be very okay with that.
[00:34:29.190]I struggle with disappointing other people
[00:34:31.830]because there's a certain part of me
[00:34:33.570]that is very much a people pleaser,
[00:34:35.280]and I want to make people happy.
[00:34:37.860]But I have learned to let go of that
[00:34:40.080]and to know that not everybody's gonna love me.
[00:34:43.170]Most people are gonna love me.
[00:34:45.138]You like it when they do.
[00:34:46.378]I do like it when they do, but I'm perfectly fine.
[00:34:48.000]I've learned it's never going to be like that.
[00:34:50.070]And there's going to be friction,
[00:34:51.720]and not everybody's going to love everything that we do.
[00:34:55.260]And when we teach, our goal is to teach
[00:34:57.563]not for our students to love us.
[00:34:59.550]I mean, if they love us, it's a bonus,
[00:35:01.557]and it helps make things easier.
[00:35:04.560]But it's not a prerequisite.
[00:35:06.060]And so I've learned to let go,
[00:35:09.240]and I've become really good at letting go of the semester
[00:35:12.960]when it's over, and it's a hard semester
[00:35:14.850]where I've over committed, I've learned to let it go
[00:35:16.950]and say that semester has happened,
[00:35:19.110]and a new one will come right after it,
[00:35:21.480]and we will have a chance to do it better.
[00:35:23.700]Coming up, it's coming up.
[00:35:25.080]But I feel like that notion of,
[00:35:30.300]and particularly in teaching, we cleave to that idea of
[00:35:34.517]oh, I can't disappoint anyone so hard.
[00:35:37.320]Yeah.
[00:35:38.153]That that could be something I could see like
[00:35:40.720]get some help around that particular issue.
[00:35:47.918]Yeah.
[00:35:49.410]That doesn't mean that I'm like off
[00:35:52.080]and disappointing people left and right.
[00:35:54.316]No that is not the goal.
[00:35:55.918]Like here's a disappointment for you.
[00:35:57.240]A disappointment for you, a disappointment for you.
[00:35:58.650]I'm just disappointing.
[00:36:02.220]That says so much about my dating life though.
[00:36:04.470]Oh.
[00:36:06.016]That I'm just disappointing.
[00:36:06.849]I drive a station wagon.
[00:36:08.670]See that call back.
[00:36:09.630]Yeah, nice.
[00:36:10.463]Yeah, that was good.
[00:36:11.550]That was good.
[00:36:12.870]Yeah.
[00:36:14.312]All right.
[00:36:15.570]It's been, it's been a session.
[00:36:18.480]It's been a session.
[00:36:19.980]Will you mail me my bill?
[00:36:21.000]Will you check with my insurance first?
[00:36:22.980]How does this work?
[00:36:23.880]We have the same insurance,
[00:36:25.230]so you know what you're up against.
[00:36:26.447]We do, but yes, that is a complicated one.
[00:36:29.940]So this is,
[00:36:31.357]But still use the services.
[00:36:32.190]There's a reason we have insurance.
[00:36:33.330]Still use the services,
[00:36:35.256]like that is part of your compensation.
[00:36:38.490]Yes, use it.
[00:36:39.323]Therefore, you should be using it.
[00:36:42.870]Just saying.
[00:36:43.980]Take advantage of all of the compensatory policies
[00:36:48.461]that are available to you.
[00:36:51.030]So, yeah.
[00:36:53.520]Semester is winding down.
[00:36:55.890]Winding down.
[00:36:56.723]Two and a half weeks.
[00:36:58.200]Yeah.
[00:36:59.880]I hope this hasn't been construed as,
[00:37:01.980]the one thing I can't kvetch about.
[00:37:03.690]Yes.
[00:37:04.860]Are, I have to say that my students have been amazing.
[00:37:07.363]So if you're hearing this TACT 311, 313 TACT 302
[00:37:12.461]and TACT 989, you have been amazing.
[00:37:17.190]Like (blowing kiss) chef's kiss.
[00:37:19.410]So smart, super great teachers in practice,
[00:37:22.530]super great teachers in training.
[00:37:24.120]I cannot complain about that.
[00:37:26.365]What I can complain about and have been complaining about
[00:37:30.030]for the last what, half hour?
[00:37:33.390]Or so.
[00:37:34.440]Just the sheer amount of crap that I have on my to-do list
[00:37:37.650]that's left me with a feeling of just being stuck.
[00:37:40.080]However, I'm in a point now
[00:37:41.340]where like I've known it's going to end,
[00:37:47.446]and now I see it.
[00:37:48.960]Yes, the light.
[00:37:51.360]And that has been delightful.
[00:37:55.140]Like it's this nice feeling of getting a little,
[00:37:58.860]getting a little unstuck in terms of like the morass
[00:38:03.360]of a to-do, a never ending to-do list.
[00:38:06.330]So that's exciting.
[00:38:07.230]So summer is coming.
[00:38:09.270]Let's not talk about summer yet.
[00:38:10.440]I can barely think past Friday.
[00:38:12.561]All right.
[00:38:14.670]But if you're stuck, there are ways out, and hopefully,
[00:38:20.970]hopefully this has been somewhat helpful
[00:38:22.560]in terms of like thinking through some adaptations.
[00:38:27.030]I'm trying to think of what the value added
[00:38:28.560]of this has been, aside from a glimpse
[00:38:32.130]inside of the craziness that is my head.
[00:38:34.860]A glimpse at knowing that we're all experiencing this,
[00:38:39.870]that you're not alone when you feel stuck
[00:38:43.620]and a little bit crazy and sort of structured.
[00:38:47.610]A little bit crazy?
[00:38:48.450]A little bit.
[00:38:49.784]A lot of crazy.
[00:38:50.617]A lot of crazy, I think a lot.
[00:38:51.480]It's all good.
[00:38:52.470]It's fine, cause you know what?
[00:38:53.610]The semester's ending.
[00:38:55.238]Yes.
[00:38:56.071]Two and a half weeks.
[00:38:56.904]The semester is ending folks.
[00:38:58.380](upbeat music)

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Not That Kind of Doctor - How to Get Unstuck

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments