Get Yourself a NO committee

Guest post by Vilna Bashi Treitler, Professor and Chair of the Department of Black and Latino Studies at Baruch College, and Professor in the Sociology Program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

I have for several years now made a resolution not to work so hard in the coming year. I mostly fail to keep this resolution.

I have overworked for several years now. I worked so much and so hard that when I had a sabbatical, I overworked then too – and I didn’t realize it until my husband asked “What are you doing???” when I would be in my bright but bleak foreign-city office weekends and evenings. Writing, while enormously difficult, was NOT my problem. It was saying no.

I had said “yes” to too many things for too long. Sure, all these opportunities sounded great when I was asked to do them, and the deadlines were so far into the future. After a while, deadlines jam up upon one another in ways that couldn’t be anticipated at the time “yes” is being said. I wanted to build a successful career, but I only slowly realized that instead I was probably building the shortcut to a cardiac unit. I had to figure out a new approach to choosing among the opportunities that trickled my way as I went from graduate student to assistant-, associate-, and then full-professor. I realized that I just could not be trusted to figure out what I should or should not be doing because everything looked like a good opportunity for networking or getting a line on the CV. Lines on the CV are what we all want and need, right?

We also need some limits.

Forming a “No Committee” helped me get perspective on my limits. Let me tell you about my No Committee. On it, I have two friends who are both professors and the third person is my life partner. Their qualifications: they care about me, they know the academy well enough to know what challenges are there for me, and they keep up with me so that they know how much is too much for me to handle.

How do I use them? When an opportunity comes to me, I send them an email with the subject line “Here’s one for the No Committee” and ask them for their advice. In the email I describe the opportunity, what information I have about what it entails (and whether I can trust the information I have), and further, I normally list all my reasons for saying yes to this thing plus whatever doubts I might have, and I hit “send.” Then I wait. I think the subject line tells them enough that they each tend to answer rather quickly. It probably also helps that I always listen  to their advice. I have not yet ignored the No Committee’s vote. That is, if they say no to me, I say no to the opportunity. Seriously. As I said, these are people who care deeply about me, and care less about my ambition or my insecurities which drive me to say yes more than I should. The one time in 2015 when I didn’t ask their advice, I said yes to something I regret saying yes to! And once, I sent them information about an opportunity that I didn’t want to take, and they outvoted me and each told me that I had to do it – and can you believe they were right??? Doing that thing has paid off in ways I surely couldn’t anticipate at the time.

So, form a No Committee for the New Year, and see where it gets you. How?

• First, your committee must have an odd number of people. I find three to be perfect. While a five-person committee would probably work, I imagine you’d have to wait longer to get five answers to your questions. In any event, you need always to have a clear answer, and even numbers leave you at risk for tied votes. A clear majority vote is probably more helpful.
• Second, choose committee members who have three qualities. First, they must care deeply about your well-being, and make that paramount. Second, they must understand the quirks of the academy. By this I mean that have to get why you have to do extra work for which you are not directly paid, like service obligations, taking on mentoring or advising roles, or teaching a new prep that might lead you down some new professional roads. They might also get why you’d do the academic equivalent of herding squirrels, like organizing conferences, or contributing to or putting together an edited volume. (For the love of marshmallows, think twice before you do these last two things!) And they have to understand the personalities of the decision-makers and gatekeepers around you so that they get why moves in certain directions might be good/bad for you. And third, they have to be able to keep confidences.
• Third, choose people who answer their email.
• Finally, when you contact your people, be totally honest about why you want to or don’t want to do something. They can only help you if you give them full information.

Make your first new year’s resolution be “I will form and use my No Committee!” and see where it gets you. Happy new year!

How to become more creative, focused, relaxed, and productive

Would you like to become more creative, more focused, more relaxed, and more productive? Did you know research shows there are specific habits you can develop that will enhance your ability to be all of these things?

There are many myths prevalent in academia that make it difficult for many of us to imagine we can be creative, focused, relaxed, and productive. These myths include: “Some people are geniuses;” “the only way to be successful is to work all the time;” “some people are gifted writers;” “I can only write when I feel inspired;” and “a balanced life is impossible when you are on the tenure track.” These myths are counterproductive and prevent many academics from reaching their full potential.

Instead of believing in these myths, I believe that anyone can become a great writer by practicing their writing; that you can be successful and have a life too; and that there are specific strategies you can learn that will help you tap into your creativity.

Developing new ideas, which is at the core of academia, requires being creative. Your ability to tap into your creative potential is severely limited when you are frazzled, stressed, and overworked. Thus, although it might seem contradictory, being productive requires setting limits on how much you work.

I am sure you can think of a few writers you admire for their craft. I am also sure that those writers did not just wake up one day with the ability to write. Instead, they developed that skill over many years. The good news is that you can do that too. You can develop the ability to write clearly and convincingly, by practicing and honing your writing skills.

There are many strategies you can learn that will help you to become less stressed, more creative, and more productive. Seven of my favorite strategies include:

Daily writing

Unplugging

Spending time in nature

Meditation and mindfulness

Getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep

Getting regular exercise

Connecting to others via conversation about your work

I incorporate all of these strategies into the Creative Connections writing retreat I co-facilitate every year.

The Creative Connections writing retreat is based on the idea that there are four elements that lead to enhanced creativity: 1) focused writing time; 2) spending time unplugged and in nature; 3) connections via conversations about our work; and 4) meditation and mindfulness activities that enhance focus and allow us to tap into our creative potential.

This retreat will use a combination of these proven techniques to create a space that not only provides for productivity during this week, but that also teaches participants valuable skills they can use for the remainder of their careers. Producing cutting-edge scholarship requires imaginative and creative abilities and this retreat is designed to maximize creativity and productivity.

You can read a review of the retreat here, written by a previous participant.

Please consider applying to this retreat by January 15, 2016 to secure your spot!

Direct link to the application here.

I hope to see you in Hawaii this June!

Writing an academic book – from start to finish

Next week, I will finally hold in my hands the physical manifestation of years of hard work – a hard copy of my book, Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor and Global Capitalism. This special occasion is a time of reflection for me and makes me think back to how long it took to write this book, which was a significant departure from my first book – Yo Soy Negro: Blackness in Peru. The short answer: it took seven years from the initial grant proposal to the hard copy.

In August 2008, I began to write a grant proposal to the Fulbright Hays Faculty Research Abroad Award. I submitted that proposal in October 2008, and was notified that I had won the Award in March 2009. I had already planned to do pilot research that summer, and thus was able to begin my research just two months later. I conducted the bulk of the research for this book between May 2009 and August 2010, when my family and I traveled to and lived in four countries so that I could interview deportees. That research trip led to 147 interviews with deportees in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Brazil.

While on our trip, I got the bulk of the interviews transcribed. I also began the process of writing interview summaries for each of the deportees. When I returned to the United States, I continued to work on the interview summaries and began to code the data. I did not finish the interview summaries and coding until January 2012. That part felt like it took forever! However, I had been writing every day on the project while coding and writing summaries and thus had very rough chapter drafts. And, almost immediately after finishing that step of the data analysis, I came up with a framework and an outline of the argument for the book.

I remember that day very clearly. I was walking on the beach in Hawaii by myself after having spent the day writing and had an epiphany: I could organize the book based on a meta-story of deportees’ lives. I could begin with their lives in their home countries, then discuss getting to the United States, and growing up in the United States. Then, I could explain how they got were arrested, detained, and deported. The final chapter would focus on their experiences in their countries of birth. It seems quite simple, but it took me a long time to come up with a narrative arc that makes sense and would allow me to make my argument that global capitalism structures the lives and experiences of deportees.

I spent the year of 2012 revising drafts of each of the chapters. On January 11, 2013, I began to contact editors. In March, the editor at New York University Press agreed to send the first three chapters of the book manuscript out for review. With a favorable response from the reviewers, I continued revising and in March of 2014, I sent the editor a final version. By the end of June 2014, I had a contract in hand and a few revisions to make.

In October 2014, I sent the final revised manuscript to the editor. And, in November 2015, the book will be published! Seven years from idea to final product.

P.S.: If you are in the DC area, I will be presenting my book at KramerBooks at 6:30pm on November 17, and at Politics and Prose at 1pm on November 21! A full list of my speaking engagements is here.

How much sleep do you need?

Many people are surprised to learn that I almost never use an alarm clock. I don’t use them because I cherish the feeling of being fully awake before I get out of bed. When I wake up and am ready to get out of bed, I can be sure that I have gotten a good night’s sleep and thus am ready to be at my best for the day.

I know many academics are not getting enough sleep. I also know many academics believe in research. Thus, I am writing this post to share with you some of the abundant research that I hope will convince you to get the sleep you need. If it’s 10pm and you are tired, it is a much better use of your time to go to sleep than to try and stay up all night in a fruitless attempt to catch up with your tasks. Once you have slept enough, you will be performing at a much higher cognitive level and will be more capable of accomplishing those tasks.

As I was perusing the Internet for research on the effects of sleeping habits, I came across this gem from the American Psychological Association.

“Many people are surprised to learn that researchers have discovered a single treatment that improves memory, increases people's ability to concentrate, strengthens the immune system and decreases people's risk of being killed in accidents. Sound too be good to be true? It gets even better. The treatment is completely free and has no side effects. Finally, most people consider the treatment highly enjoyable. Would you try it?”

The treatment the APA is suggesting is: getting an additional 60 to 90 minutes of sleep. Insofar as many people have a serious sleep debt – meaning they don’t get the requisite hours of sleep – spending additional time in the bed could be highly beneficial. The APA further reports that people who do not get enough sleep experience “pronounced cognitive and physiological deficits, including memory impairments, a reduced ability to make decisions and dramatic lapses in attention.”

Sleep experts generally believe that we need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep to be at our best. This research is particularly important for academics, as our cognitive ability and memory retention are exceedingly important traits for us.

The research also reveals that there is no magic number of hours of sleep. For some people, it might be as low as 6 and a half hours. For others, it may be a bit over 8 hours. I did not come across any studies that showed less than 6 hours or more than 9 hours to be effective. So, how do you tell if you are getting enough sleep?

You can tell you are getting enough sleep when

• You don’t need an alarm clock to wake up.
•  You wake up feeling alert.
•  It is not a struggle to get out of bed in the morning.
•  You are not feeling the urge to fall asleep in afternoon meetings.
• You are able to get through the afternoon without caffeinated beverages.
• You feel refreshed and awake during the day.

People who get enough sleep have been found to have lower mortality rates, and higher cognitive performance. One study with a large sample based on self-reported sleep patterns found that people who slept an average of 7 hours a night had the highest cognitive performance. Another study found that insufficient sleep is associated with higher risk for diabetes, stress, and cancer.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends the following ways to ensure you get a better night’s sleep:

• Going to bed around the same time every evening
•  Practicing a relaxing bedtime ritual such as meditating or stretching.
• Exercising daily.
• Avoid caffeine – especially in the latter part of the day.
• Turn off your electronics well before bedtime.
• Keep your electronic devices (laptop, ipad, iphone) out of the bedroom.

This webpage also has a comprehensive list of suggestions for getting your zzz's in.

You will know that you are getting enough sleep when you don’t feel tired or exhausted every day and when it is easy to get out of bed. You also should notice improved cognitive ability and memory retention once you begin to get enough sleep.

How to Develop a Daily Meditation Practice

If you want to become more creative, focused, and productive, meditation can be a great tool. Meditation will help you with focus, which will make you a more efficient writer. It will also help you to quiet your mind, which can help you access your creative potential.

There are many benefits to meditation, and no downsides I can think of, so I highly recommend you try it. This article, for example, tells us that meditation can make you happier, strengthen your brain, improve your focus, relieve stress, and make you more compassionate. And, this website says meditation helps with creativity, focus, and stress-reduction. For this reason, I incorporate meditation into every Creative Connections Retreat.



During the Creative Connections Retreat, we meditate together for ten to fifteen minutes each morning, just before writing. I love doing this, as it sets the intention for the day and allows us to check in with our mental state before we begin our writing.

When I get back home from the retreat, however, I often struggle with maintaining a daily meditation practice. One reason for this is that I am rarely in the house alone, and it is hard to find a good time to meditate when I won’t be interrupted. The main reason, nonetheless, is that I never made meditation a priority and thus never really figured out how to make it happen.

However, for the last two months, I have finally been able to maintain my daily meditation practice.

I think there are three reasons for this:

1. My daughter expressed interest in meditating and we have been doing it together;
2. I found an app I really like; and
3. I started small, with just ten minutes a day.

Meditating alongside my 11-year-old daughter has been fantastic. Just like writing, there is the accountability factor. We agreed to meditate each evening at 8pm, and if I forget, she reminds me, and vice-versa. Also, it is much easier for me to say to everyone else in the household: “We are going to meditate for 10 minutes” than “I am going to meditate alone.” I am sure they would leave me alone anyway, but I feel more comfortable making this request on behalf of both of us. Finally, I meditate not just because it is good for me but because I know it is good for my daughter as well. So, if you have been thinking about meditating but have not yet made it a daily practice, think about getting someone else in your house to do it with you.

The other factor that has made meditating become more of a habit for me is the headspace app. Some people like Zen meditation, which is silent, but I prefer guided meditation, where someone tells you what to do. I have been using headspace, an app that comes in a sequence, and each meditation gets a little harder, a little less guided, and focuses on different aspects of meditation. I like the fact that it seems to progress in a logical fashion. The app also gives you stats, telling you how many days in a row you have meditated, what your average meditation time is, and your total time meditating. I find these numbers motivating. There are many free apps on the Internet, and I encourage you to find one that works for you. There are also YouTube videos and audio recordings that could work for you.

The final factor is starting small. There is a fantastic free online course on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). I have started the course several times but never finished, in part because it requires a significant amount of time. I highly recommend you try this research-based, free course to get started with meditation. However, if you have trouble completing the course, I also recommend you try something a bit less intensive to start with.

I look forward to hearing how and why you incorporate meditation and mindfulness into your life.

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How to Develop a Daily Writing Habit

You have seen research that confirms that writing every day is the best way to become a productive academic. And, you want to be a productive academic, right? But, are you writing every day? Do you want to learn how to write every day? If so, this post is for you.

The basic trick to writing every day is to develop a writing habit. New habits take a long time to form. However, if you make yourself write every day, eventually it will become a habit. Once writing is a habit, it will become second nature to get up and write every day.

Developing this habit requires writing consistently. How do you do that?



During the Creative Connections Writing and Meditation Retreat, everyone writes for two and a half hours each morning together. Although the writing session starts early, everyone participates for several reasons. First of all, we are on a writing retreat, so everyone knows that writing is expected of them. Secondly, we write because everyone else is writing so that creates a bit of peer pressure. Thirdly, we write because we know we will have to share our work during the retreat, thus giving us an important deadline to meet.

You don’t have to be at a retreat, however, to incorporate these strategies into your life. Here are a few suggestions to get you on track to making writing a daily habit.

• Write at the same time every day. If you have your pick of times, choose the early morning. When you do something at the same time every day, you are more likely to form a habit. If you do it in the morning, you are less likely to let everything else you need to do get in the way.
• Treat your writing as you would any other appointment. Make an appointment with yourself every day to write. Show up to your appointment with yourself and decline any other invitations to do other things during that time.
• Incorporate some accountability. This can be to yourself, where you keep track of your writing on a spreadsheet. But, it is better if you are accountable to someone else, as a bit of peer pressure goes a long way.
• Write towards deadlines. If you don’t have any external deadlines, set deadlines for yourself. Aim to get your article finished by the end of the month. Or, set a deadline for a draft of each book chapter you are writing.
• Develop an expectation for yourself that you will write every day. If you want to become a writer, if you want to publish, if you want to finish your dissertation, you have to write. So, expect yourself to write.

I hope these strategies help you become a daily writer if you are not already. Let me know of any challenges you face to becoming a daily writer in the comments section. Also, let me know what strategies are working for you.

Seven Strategies That Will Make You More Creative, Focused, and Productive

Would you like to become more creative, more focused, more relaxed, and more productive? Did you know research shows there are specific habits you can develop that will enhance your ability to be all of these things?



There are many myths prevalent in academia that make it difficult for many of us to imagine we can be creative, focused, relaxed, and productive. These myths include: “Some people are geniuses;” “the only way to be successful is to work all the time;” “some people are gifted writers;” “I can only write when I feel inspired;” and “a balanced life is impossible when you are on the tenure track.” These myths are counterproductive and prevent many academics from reaching their full potential.

Instead of believing in these myths, I believe that anyone can become a great writer by practicing their writing; that you can be successful and have a life too; and that there are specific strategies you can learn that will help you tap into your creativity.

Developing new ideas, which is at the core of academia, requires being creative. Your ability to tap into your creative potential is severely limited when you are frazzled, stressed, and overworked. Thus, although it might seem contradictory, being productive requires setting limits on how much you work.

I am sure you can think of a few writers you admire for their craft. I am also sure that those writers did not just wake up one day with the ability to write. Instead, they developed that skill over many years. The good news is that you can do that too. You can develop the ability to write clearly and convincingly, by practicing and honing your writing skills.

There are many strategies you can learn that will help you to become less stressed, more creative, and more productive. Seven of my favorite strategies include:

• Daily writing
• Unplugging
• Spending time in nature
• Meditation and mindfulness
• Getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep
• Getting regular exercise
• Connecting to others via conversation about your work

I incorporate all of these strategies into the Creative Connections writing retreat I co-facilitate a couple of times a year. However, anyone can incorporate these strategies into their daily life. Over the next few weeks, I will discuss each of these strategies. I will explain their benefits as well as give you suggestions for how you can incorporate them into your life.

I look forward to sharing with you some of my ideas about how to be more creative, productive, focused, and relaxed.

If you would like to receive these posts in your inbox, you can Subscribe to Get a Life, PhD by Email.