coldhearted scientist وداد

xdanne: Boice encourages not word count but “# of typed page equivalents” which are then charted in relation to “”# of hrs. spent writing”. You thus get a neat little productivity graph which becomes a writing goal in and of itself.

I too dislike the dog-training aspect of behavioral approaches. I don’t want to tell myself “no shower before you’ve written two pages” or “you’ll get a nice coffee if you finish by 10″. I don’t want to play little tricks on myself; I want to work efficiently and have a well-rounded life.

z: Play little tricks, I do not like these either. Those charts sound as though they would take on a life of their own and drive quality and purpose down.

I like my old system, invented in sixth grade and refined for my dissertation — my sixth grade paper and my dissertation still being the two longest documents I have written.

Dissertation plan, invented 1985 without reading any efficiency expert: one page a day, in finished prose. Method: read and revise yesterday’s page; write today’s page; note down beginning phrase and sketch for tomorrow’s page. This is to take 2.5 hours or less and ideas that come to me but do not fit into today’s work are written on an index card which is put into a box, the idea box. Part of this box is organized and part of it is a grab box, to pull a card out of when one is stuck.

Later in the day, up to 2.5 hours of research might be done. If I do not have a lot of other responsibilities, I could also put in another 2.5 hour (or less) block like the morning block and write another page, and if things are very serious I can put in a third 2.5 hour (or less) block. More than three blocks are not allowed and if there are three, only two will normally be writing blocks; the third is a research block.

This was a six day a week plan, although since only one block was really required each day, it could be flexibilized such as to take off two or even three day weekends sometimes. I am going to use it this summer.

Sixth grade paper plan, invented 1968 without reading any efficiency expert: This was a plan about work time, not output. I had 15 minutes at recess (15 of 30 minutes), 30 minutes at lunch (30 of 60 minutes), 45 minutes during school and 1 hour after school to work on this, I decided, five days a week, for a total of 2.5 hours a day, or 12.5 hours a week. I had a deadline for the paper but no specific length, so I decided how many weeks I would have of reading and research, how many of writing, and how many of revising and recopying. This gave me a work plan.

Professordom plan: During the year, I use a version of the sixth grade plan. During breaks, I use a version of the dissertation plan. If this does not work, if one does not make progress, it means there is something wrong that does not have to do with the time plan. That is what the Boiceans will not admit and this is why I am against them.

♦

I dislike Boiceans because they always used to accuse me of being too slow. I was only writing a page a day, I looked healthy, I could not be working hard enough, I would never finish. This despite my always having finished, usually ahead of them. But they had read Boice, so they were right.

I dislike Boiceans yet more because, when later on I ran into serious project design issues, they would not allow that this could be a problem and would not discuss it. Everything had to be about lack of discipline. Since this is the lobotomizing effect Boice has on people, I am against him. I really have tried to substitute increased discipline for research and speed for quality, as the Boiceans recommend, and it has done me and the field harm.

J’insiste, I am within my rights to oppose Boice and the Boiceans. These last have done their utmost to oppose my progress, and I am a person just like them with as much right to my work as they have to theirs. I have sacrificed a very great deal in the interest of being kind and respectful to them; I have been polite for years about their guru; I have handled their emotional needs with kid gloves. The fact that they are so unable to tolerate criticism of Boice or to see that anyone can accomplish anything without Boice, and so unwilling to consider that projects can have problems that are not related to discipline, indicates to me that there is something cultish about this Boice phenomenon.

There might also be a Boicean personality. I have noticed in Boiceans: resentment of the university because it requires things of us; the perception of being judged; anger about rules; various forms of entitlement. There is something sadomasochistic about this personality, or Christian, or just very authoritarian. In elementary school, just because the books were there, I read about Zen Buddhism and I also read a lot of Erich Fromm; these books seem to have raised me to have a different kind of discipline than that the Boiceans appear to want and need.

Later when I have time, I will try to consider methods of using my plan, or even a Boicean style plan, to address problems that do not have to do with the low level problems he addresses, which appear to be not liking to write, not having any experience writing, not being organized, not having a strong work ethic. If you have work block you have to trust yourself about this; it might be possible to use a Boicean style plan to get out of it but this would not involve using his time blocks to actually write.

Axé.