How to do Research III: The Literature Review, Part B.

How do you "review" the literature?

I've served as Chair on over 25 dissertations, and I've written many articles for "scholarly" publications, so I think I know how to review literature. A review of literature doesn't necessarily mean a "critical" review, that is it doesn't mean you have to criticize the studies you are describing. If a study has serious flaws, you would mention that, but many if not most articles in journals are reporting on studies that are basically sound, if they weren't they wouldn't have been accepted for publication. When I write a literature review, what is expected is that I report on the studies that came before the one I'm presenting or that led me to want to do the study I've done. "The literature" means in essence, the published results of studies in a given area. To review the literature means to write a readable summary of published research reports related to my study. Its that simple.

Please, don't write detail after detail and after detail

Students often begin the literature review, thinking they are supposed to write details about the studies they're describing, and they start listing the number of subjects in the study, all the measures used, the demographics of the study, one right after the other --almost like they are summarizing methods sections of prior research reports. This is not what I want to read, nor what I write, when I'm summarizing a body of studies, that is "the literature." Instead, what is more appropriate, is to write about the essence of a study, to report on the main findings, and only include details as much as is needed to provide the story of the study. Think about a body of research on a topic that has been "hot" for a decade, and I am doing research on some different aspect of the topic. Perhaps there are fifty studies that are relevant to the current study being presented in the dissertation or journal article. No one wants to read details about fifty studies. What we want to know is the basic findings of these studies, and we want to read this material after it has been organized coherently, so it is relatively easy to read. We want the author to figure out and present the conclusions from the mass of data presented in numerous research reports. If the findings of the studies on the topic are contradictory, that is more important than findings from any one study. We want to know right off that the literature presents contradictory findings. This tells us that the data found in all these studies suggests different conclusions, and therefore there is not yet a consistent and coherent understanding of whatever it is that is being studied. Perhaps our study will provide some new slant that will clear up areas of confusion, perhaps it will just add more to the mix. The point here is that we want to know the conclusions we can come to, even if it is only to say we don't yet have a clear conclusion. This all forms the background for presenting our own current study. Thus the literature review presents the story of a body of research.

Learning how to read studies is not the same as writing the literature review

In trying to teach students how to read literature, professors often come up with a fairly complex structure that they hope will help students focus on the details of an article, thereby be able to understand the study being described. This is useful for learning to read research articles, however it is not a model for describing prior research in a literature review. To use the model of the 50 studies done around a given topic --in preparing to write the literature review, it is fine to tear each study apart into this complex structure. This might ensure that you know what a study is about, what was done, and what was found. But in writing about the study, you only need to summarize what was found, what was concluded by the study. On occasion you might provide a detail, for example if a study was unusually large, you might refer to that .."In a large multisite study of treatment for unipolar depression" provides the picture of a very large, or substantial study and suggests that one should probably pay attention to the conclusions. This is obviously different from writing "in a study of 98 subjects diagnosed with unipolar depression..." although you could get away with this phrasing, provided you don't repeat that level of detail for one study after the other.

The literature review is the story of a body of research

When you write the literature review, you are transmitting the story of the relevant research. You are saving readers a whole lot of time and trouble by summarizing prior studies and then presenting some conclusions. If you keep the concept of a story or a series of stories in mind, you are more likely to write something that is lively and readable. There are limits of course because academic writing is by nature, likely to be, at least, slightly, boring. However, as you have found a topic interesting enough to conduct a study of your own about it, you have a good chance of presenting an interesting background story in your presentation of the literature. An essential feature of an outstanding literature is that it is interesting -- the author has managed to report on many sources of data, in and of itself rather dry, and has woven it all together with important conclusions, thereby lifting it out of the realm of tedium and into something that is almost light and interesting. That is the kind of lit review I want to read, and the kind I hope I know how to write.

I love New York (I do)

I don't know how I've survived this long without an introduction to reality TV, probably because I never watch TV, that is until I discovered I could download pilot shows from ITunes, and scan it in the middle of the night so it didn't inconvenience me --and the next thing I knew I was hooked on "Gossip Girl" and then "Grey's Anatomy" and finally disaster hit, I fell into something called "At Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" and I was gone. Well that was nothing. Last week a client, upon hearing of my affection for Tila Tequila, said "You've seen nothing yet, you're really going to love "I love New York."

Stop.

36 hours later:
I have watched Year One and Year Two (up to now) non-stop, no breaks except for 40 minutes of Kundalini yoga and food intermittently.

I am so irritated, none of these second season guys are in any way good enough for New York. She doesn't like any of them, she feels the pressure of the time limit of the show, and the lousy characters they selected for the second season. She's still hot for Chance and who can blame her, Chance and his brother are intelligent, smart, come close to her high intelligence unlike the rest of the choices. New York is rather brilliant. Why did the producers pick out idiots to pair her up with? What's with her mother? Her mother can't stand Chance. He has fits of hysterics all the time. But he's not violent like "Buddha," he's just prone to hysterics. He would freak out if anyone got really violent. He poses. She's as hysterical as Chance, so what's the big deal. Why should she have to pretend to get into these second season losers? She can't stand them, and she's right. She's trying to get into the best of them, but in no way are they good enough. And as for last season's "winner" -what a turkey he turned out to be, upset because of New York's comments about his mom. OK so New York is not always the most political woman, so what. What did he expect anyway?

So what are the writers/producers going to do? I know nothing about reality TV, and it would have been better if I had remained in the dark. I have however, formed a strong opinion, namely that if the characters selected to be on the show this year suck, she should not have to settle on any of them. Surely the producers are not morons and will not force her to carry on with this charade.

I have been kidnapped by reality TV, and will continue posting on this heady topics. Whomever was reading for academic edification, read no more. My brain has been highjacked.

If you have ANY spare time, I recommend "I love New York." I have no spare time and I wouldn't miss a minute of New York. Finally a woman we can identify with. Just imagine if she turned her attention to real politics, psychology, academia.

How to Do Research III: The Literature Review, Part A.

The Background: Reading, thinking and writing
Writing a literature review for a dissertation or publication is difficult, only because it involves long stints of careful and sometime tedious reading and then shorter stints of consistent writing. From my perspective, preparing for, and producing a literature review is the only "difficult" part of doing research. It is an essential component of the dissertation and/or a scholarly or academic publication and at various moments, its not a whole lot of fun. It means in essence, knowing what is in the academic literature about your topic, knowing what studies have been done prior to your own, thoroughly reading the literature related to your own research, and then finding a way to write an organized report on "the literature" for others to read. Covering the literature can be deadly boring because scientific writing has traditionally been so archain, obtuse, and obfuscating, and therefore difficult to read. Writing it up coherently may at times be mind-bending but once you are solidly into it, its never as bad as feared. I may sweat over the literature review part of a paper, (and there's a chance that you will too), but only because I am easily bored, prone to restlessness, and the amount of reading required is not great for the restless. However in the end, its just a job like any other job, with an orderly series of steps to completion. Once you make up your mind to do it, you just dive in and do it. For some reason it brings out the most serious procrastination. We stall, we hesitate, put it off, find a million other things to do. But as I said, once you decide to do it, its just like any other job.

Overcoming inertia: How to deal with procrastination
There is a simple, across-task method of overcoming procrastination called the "ten-minute dash" (for me this originated with Merlin Mann although I don't know if he was the first anti-procrastination dasher http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/procrastination-hack-1025). The secret here is acknowledging that you can do anything for ten minutes, no matter how boring or difficult it might be. Get a timer, set it for ten minutes, and GO. Take whatever part of the job you're doing, and work as hard as possible until the timer goes off at ten minutes. Stop, do whatever you want to do (surf the web, look at TV, get something to eat) for 2 minutes, and then set the timer for another ten minute dash. If you're like many people, once you get over that initial inertia, you'll keep on task and want to keep going. At worst, make yourself do another ten minute dashes in a half hour, or sometime relatively soon. If you do this on and off all day, through the weekend, you'll get quite a bit done, and you'll have overcome the inertia. Another method, perhaps a precursor to the ten minute dash, is "time boxing" described by Steve Pavlina http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2004/10/timeboxing/. Here, when you have something that you're procrastinating, it seems to stretch endlessly in front of you, you block out a period of time in which you can make a dent in it. For example you block out 30 or 40 minutes during which you'll begin some part of the work of the literature review, without planning to finish any specific piece of it. Like the ten minute dash, it gets you over that inertia. Personally, I like the speed of the ten minute dash, it works for me. The time box is usually a bit longer and if I am seriously procrastinating, it seems like too much.

What is a literature review?
Before we get to the "how to do it," its a good idea to have a clear picture of what the literature review is. To put it simply, its an organized written review of all the studies, articles, summaries, that came before your study. The lit review is your presentation to your readers of everything that you know about the studies, the articles, the theories, the history, of the constructs that were done earlier, before you got interested in your topic. Its a summary of all the work done before your work. Its literally, a review of the literature preceding whatever you are going to do to add to the literature. Keep this in mind as you proceed. You have readers. They don't know much about your topic. Pretend you are talking to your readers, and tell them everything that you know, that you have gained from reading the literature. They don't want to read all that stuff that you are being forced to read, you are doing it for them. This is definitely not magic, or particularly difficult in concept. Think of someone who might be interested in your topic and start writing after you have done the reading or while you're reading. If you have trouble writing when you think it is something "formal" write it as if you're writing an email. Talk to you audience.

How to gather the literature
I recommend starting with whatever seems to be easiest to tackle. If I am approaching a relatively new topic, I like to begin with popular books if there are any out there. A well written popular book on a scientific topic is relatively painless to read, and has within it, either in a reference section or within the text itself, leads to the most important studies already conducted, that you will need to refer to in your literature review. So start with popular books. While you're reading, make lists of all the experiments, studies, articles, other books, mentioned. Don't skip by references without listing them, thinking you'll remember to go back to them without reminders. You won't, and you'll be missing some of the best leads you can find. If you don't want to write everything down, xerox the reference pages and then mark with colored marker all the references that you know you should have in your literature review. You'll go back to these shortly.

Heading into Google Scholar
Then head to Google Scholar, or if you prefer, PsychInfo or another professional data base. Personally, I prefer Google Scholar because it draws from data bases across disciplines. I'm a psychologist and any phenomena I'm investigating has, in one way or another, been approached by biologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists as well as psychologists. Using Google Scholar I'm likely to find references across a wide range of fields and data bases, which serves me well. I suggest starting with an obvious combination of words that describes in some way, the topic you are studying. I study self-conscious emotions, and specifically, I'm an expert in empathy-based guilt. So I begin with "guilt" and "empathy" and then "empathy and guilt." This connects to "altruism" so that gets thrown in both by itself and in combination with the other words. Very quickly I have found numerous articles that look interesting. Many are immediately available on line, and if not, at least the abstracts are available instantly. I print out page after page of abstracts, lists of articles, and more abstracts. I put in more words, and go at it again. I may leave Google Scholar and go into PsychInfo, or the APA wider data bases, and go at the whole thing again. I end up with a huge pile of pages of references, and abstracts.

How to start reading: Skim abstracts like you read gossip in the Enquirer
This part is fun. I hole up and skim abstracts. For me this part feels some like reading the Enquirer, which I happen to enjoy. There are these brief summaries of a study, like bits of gossip. I read rapidly and get completely absorbed in whatever I'm reading. Abstracts are usually succinct and to the point. I always have colored highlighters with me as I do this, and mark clearly the articles/abstracts that may be related to my topic. Through this process, I discover at least a reasonable number of articles that are connected to my topic. I then go back into a data base that I have access to (meaning that I will have access to the PDF of whole articles), and I begin to go after the articles that have grabbed my attention when I read the abstract. I gather large piles of articles in this way.

The next step is to return to the lists of references that I located in popular books, and I search for the the abstracts or whole articles in the same manner. If an article looks relevant from the abstract, go for the gold, the PDF of the whole article. Add these to the piles of article you obtained from your search in Google Scholar or whatever data base you have been using. Your pile of articles is by now, growing. Make no effort to organize at this point, go back and forth between data bases, when you get bored working in one format, move to another. The goal here is to get as much as you can. Its rather like the brainstorming state of a project. You don't need to be critical or highly selective, you are aiming for quantity; quality comes later.

Beginning to read:
At this point (there may have been many ten minute dashes, many blocks of time, and days or weeks gone by) I try to select out what seem to be summary-type articles that include rather extensive literature reviews themselves. Now the more difficult task begins, and stalling or procrastinating is again a problem. Pull in the ten minute dash to get yourself to start reading one of those thick and often difficult articles, that review all the work that has already been done. Read slowly and carefully, sometimes it is helpful to outline as you read, as it forces you to pay attention by being an active reader. This will pay off in the end, as it begins to make you an "expert" in your field of study. Mark all the studies noted that have high relevance to your topic. At the end of an article, pour over the references at the end. There you will find numerous articles that you somehow missed when you did your initial search in Google Scholar or Psych Info etc. Go back to your search engine, and go after those articles, they belong in your growing piles that may by now, be taking over your desk, your couch, the whole floor. Read another one of those thick summary articles that are in themselves extensive lit reviews, in the same rather tedious but conscientious manner. Again, pour through the references and grab anything that you missed earlier. Find the references, get them in PDF format, print them out, and add them to the piles. By the time you've done this three or four times, without knowing exactly when it happened, you're beginning to become an "expert."

Organize the piles: Getting ready to write
The next phase may be the most mentally challenging, as it involves figuring out how to organize the material you're going to review so its comprehensive and coherent. Sometimes its by topic, sometimes it may be historically sequential. Meaning, in what order were the studies done, where did the field begin, what were the first studies conducted relevant to the one you're going to do. I have also organized lit reviews by method of study --theoretical papers go in one pile and are approached together, empirical studies in another. Finding the links between sections of your review is difficult but again none of it is magic, no one has ownership of "the right way" and you may as well be confident that however you decide to organize the material is the best. Intellectual confidence goes a long way here. If you lack confidence, fall back on the old "fake it till you make it" and pretend you have it. If you are in the position of having to write a literature review, you are already at the top of your area. In fact, by the time you have the job of writing a literature review, you are in the top of your field in education and experience. Most people never dream of writing a lit review, so if its a task in front of you, you have every reason to feel confident and competent. You had to do something academically impressive in order to get to that position in the first place, so slide into feeling like you belong there. Take over and be your own boss.

Give yourself permission to be the expert you already are
Taking the reins here may be the ultimate secret to writing the literature review. At some point, as you keep gathering and reading more and more articles, you begin to note the same references cited over and over. This is a sign that you have really covered the terrain, you know a whole lot about the field, and you have become an expert. Expertise in activities like building a house, putting in and fixing plumbing, sewing a suit, filling cavities, repairing a heart valve, conducting an exposure and response prevention therapy, all require carrying out a process numerous times until the necessary actions become automatic. Writing a literature review requires a set of sequential steps over and over; searching for literature, printing it out (or xeroxing it in a library), reading it and noting whatever is important in your head or somewhere on paper, organizing numerous articles you've read in some coherent manner, and finally telling the story in written form. By the time you have to write a lit review you've already mastered most of the specific steps involved, they're already automatic. You know how to look for articles, you know how to read, you know how to take notes (maybe) or at least you know how to make lists, you know how to think about an outline or how to organize thoughts. Its easier than mastering other tasks that consist of things you don't already know how to do. If you give yourself permission to be the expert you already are and just dive into extensive reading and a little thinking, you're already there.

Kundalini Yoga and the Kumbh Mela

For the past month or so I've been watching movies about Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, and yoga. Perhaps its because I challenged myself late in October to run a fitness/yoga experiment, by practicing kundalini yoga every day. I've been successful thus far and it feels good, not earthshaking, but good. For those of you who don't know what kundalini yoga is, its considered the most "ancient" form of yoga that was entirely secret until an Indian named Yogi Bjahan brought it to the US in the 1970s with a plan to train teachers of kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga focuses on the breath (which can be slow, or can be fast panting known as "breath of fire), chanting mantras, and positions that I at least find easier than the positions in many other types of yoga. This kind of yoga had never been seen except by the masters themselves, and the students of master practitioners. The first time I saw it was on a DVD by "Anna and Ravi" two famous kudalini yoga teachers/masters. I fell in love with it immediately which was a surprise because I had never liked all the other schools of yoga. I called this my "rock and roll yoga." I was however, sporadic in my practice until now, when I have successfully doing it for a half an hour or 45 minutes every day.

Last night I watched two movies about a huge event that take place in India every 12 years, a Hindu the Allahabad Kumbh Mela. In 2001, it was particularly important. Not only was it 12 years after the one before, but it was the last Kumbh Mela in a 12 year cycle, an event that occurs every 144 years. About 70 million people came to worship, many taking long pilgramages on foot from every corner of India and beyond. The Dalai Lama was there, Andy Weil was there, captured on the movies I watched. I have never seen anything quite like the Kumbh mela. At some point, a day marked to be the day everyone gets in the Ganges River, all 70 million head towards the Ganges to immerse themselves in the water. There is an overwhelming feeling of joy, conveyed by the participants as they splash in the river, some seeming to be engaged in an almost child-like water play. One group of well over 100 were yogis who have taken a vow to live out their lives completely naked; they ran en mass into the River.

Watching 70 million people --even on a DVD-- was a strange experience. I had never seen anything quite like it. The noise made by so many was like a background roar and almost deafening. When looking at the shots from higher up (I don't know if the filmmakers got these by helicopters, or there there were a few tall enough buildings) it appeared as if there were a massive ant colony swarming below. I had seen scenes of crowds in India, and it was that scene magnified by a million.

Everyone stayed in one or another encampment, all of which ran into each other, so from above it looked as if it were one long encampment centered in tents. Scenes of cooking included food being prepared in gargantuan pots, whatever it took to feed 70 million worshipers. Although the festival is a Hindu tradition, there were obviously Buddhist monks attending, along with tourists from various nationalities and ethnicities. Announcements were made by loudspeaker, though with the loud roar of 70 million people it was hard to imagine how anyone ever heard it. Clearly it did because one announcement called out to the people about a lost child, and then showed the mother and child being reunited. I would be surprised if there weren't many lost children, it was so vast and it seemed like people were literally body to body, like the subway in New York City at the worst rush hours. As I watched I thought if I ever attended the Kumbh Mela with my husband I would have us somehow tied together. To get out of there took a whole day of walking, or so someone who was followed through her experience there, reported to us, the viewers.

Both films did a remarkable job of capturing the Kumbh Mela, and I recommend them to everyone, to catch a glimpse of this extraordinary human experience. I wouldn't recommend one over the other; I think by watching both of them back to back, I got more of a picture of the Kumbh Mela. So try to rent #1) Kumbh Mela: The Songs of the River and 2) A Day in the Light. I don't know if they were particularly attractive to me, in the midst of this study of Tibetan Buddhism that I seem to be doing while getting myself to practice kundalini yoga every day, or if they would just be inherently fascinating to anyone, but you can always just give them a try.

Supply and Demand: What Happens When We Can't Afford Oil?

A friend just forwarded an article from the New York Times, November 9th, "This time it's supply and demand." The rise of the price of oil is attributed to the rise in demand, initiated by the rapid growth of China and India. I think the anxiety behind this and other articles is that we have probably capped in our world wide supply of oil, not just the current growth in demand for oil by developing nations. While I have not heard that announced officially, I have heard that we will have reached the cap on oil potential within the next two years, however I suspect that has happened already. Meaning, we --the global we, everyone-- will never again be able to produce as much oil as we do currently, and this is taking into account world wide capacity. Demand for oil will grow exponentially, but the world's supply is on a downward march, there will be less and less oil available for consumption. This then is a real crisis, perhaps the first real crisis we have experienced in our lifetime, and here "our" refers to the "us" in the United States. Other countries have experienced real crisis before, but we haven't. I have wondered for years what it would be like to live here in my house in Noe Valley, San Francisco, when we have to grow as much as possible of our vegetables in our backyards and when we have to turn off the heat, and the air conditioning as well. We are lucky here in the Bay Area, we have a mild climate year round, we can survive easily without such fine climate control. I have already begun "practicing" water conservation, when I take a shower I only keep the water running briefly. I turn it off as I soap up my hair and turn it back on to rinse myself off. I find myself day dreaming, planning, my vegetable garden that will take over the yard. I want to talk about my fantasy with my husband and adult child who share he house with me. Most of the things I daydream about turn out take place. I should make clear that this is not a horror show I'm running in my head, its quite alright. Its rather the same as now, only some of our activities have changed. We're all somewhat stronger and healthier and could hardly consider the changes to be "hardships."

Ridiculous as this sounds, it seems likely that we are going to all be facing changes in our basic economic organization, although how soon or how abrupt these changes will come is unknown. How will we be able to commute long distances when the price of gas will drive us out of our cars, and public transportation is limited? What will my obsession with organization mean in a new form of social and economic organization? What happens to the perfect GTD lifestyle without a car? I daydream more about getting some kind of generator to use when supply of electricity becomes less reliable. I worry more about access to my keyboard than I do about food.

I promised many months ago to put up my "after" GTD picture, guess I need to get the camera out after I finish my weekly review, still a weak point in my GTD program. At least kundalini yoga requires nothing but internal energy. But I sure like to do it accompanied by that music with Sanskrit mantras, electricity dependent. Is everyone else quietly thinking about what things will be like when...

Schizophrenia: Genetics and...

For those who have read my prior posts, you already know that I am quite certain that serious mental disorders are biological in origin, with some of the bio components resting in genetics, and some in other environmental physical factors (i.e., not really "psychological" or psychological alone). A study presented in Nature this week (Nature Oct 26, 2007, pp. 576-577) discusses the impact of the maternal placental environment. It appears that when monozygotic twins share a placenta, the concordance rate is quite a bit higher than when they each have their own placenta. Furthermore, there is an impact of maternal infection, with a significantly higher rate of schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders in adult offspring, when pregnancy occurred in the midst of a flu epidemic. This has been confirmed with animal models. The article concludes with "..Although a genetic element clearly contributes to schizophrenia and other mental disorders, the maternal-fetal environment must also be taken into account. Environment can alter genetic outcome, and vice versa..." p 577.

Bullied by Diversity

For almost a month now I've not been posting because I've been actively censoring myself. Now I'm getting restless, the end of inhibition is at hand. I am tired of being bullied by "diversity."

I'm a psychologist who practices from what is called a "bio-psycho-social" perspective. That means exactly what it says, namely, when I think about anything psychological, be it a patient who has a problem, a construct I'm studying (for example survivor guilt), a review of some type of psychopathology, I first think "bio." What does biology have to do with this problem/person/disease entity? Biological factors are operating in everything, and I have to have them in mind, in order to move on to other levels of organization. If one of my clients tells me she's gotten depressed recently, I have to consider physical illness such as a thyroid malfunctioning, and I think about whether or not her depression might lift more quickly and effectively if she started a regime of anti-depressants, while also being engaged in a cognitive behavioral treatment of depression, in addition to some general supportive therapy. This then, is the "biological" part of the picture. It more elaborate than that, if someone has many depressed people in the family, they are likely to inherit genes that are vulnerable to depression.

Somewhere in the equation, as important as the biology of her mood state, I question her social situation and standing in her community. If someone is being put down by a boss, a close friend or family member, their likely to experience that awful sensation "my heart crashed." Then, the person gets depressed and forgets when and under what circumstances, the depression started. By tracing back their mood to the precipitating event, well its helpful. Often the dark mood passes. We need one another for limbic regulation --meaning in order to have well regulated comfortable state of being, we need other people being nice to us. If a person has been treated badly for much of his or her life, she might be used to being dysregulated, and might do little or nothing to surround herself with more supportive "regulating" people. She might engage in "self-sabotaging
behavior. If someone feels guilty about being better off than siblings or parents, she might feel she doesn't deserve to be happy, and if she is happy she will be making a loved one feel inadequate, simply by comparison. While there is of course a biological component to this, it falls more into the realm of what I call "psychological."

Finally, if someone is being put down because of group membership, namely gender, class, race, ethnicity, this too leads to a state of dysregulation, and I consider this to be the "social" component to the problem. Or should I say more accurately, the "socio-economic-political.' Here is where we can authentically take into account what people are calling diversity. Diversity may be a central issue, but no more so than is the bio or psycho component to a person's problems or sense of well being.

The diversity Nazis are being Nazis, rather like what happened in Germany. Only they are not promoting the "arian" race, but "minority" races, or really, some minority races. They are suggesting that the issue of diversity should be the most important issue over all other factors. Everyone is afraid to offer a different opinion, at risk of being called a racist or sexist. Everywhere I turn, there are people along with big organizations with a great deal of clout, pushing diversity, giving credence to a frightening trend in our culture. I am seeing people who deserve to be treated with respect, being ground down and harmed by the diversity police. Is the issue really about diversity, or is diversity becoming a bullying tactic, used in ugly political fights? Everyone is afraid of the diversity police, people are being silenced. Reverse racism is everywhere. The problem of male supremacy goes unmentioned. Diversity is not really about diversity, its about some kind of "payback" and therefore, its about oppressing yet another group of people.

Portrait of David Allen & GTD from Wired Magazine

I just read a fascinating article about David Allen, author and founder of the organization movement, Getting Things Done (GTD) that appeared this week in the geek-oriented magazine, Wired.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-10/ff_allen?currentPage=all#
I can't say I was surprised to read of Allen's difficult past, or early years of adulthood, and nor was I surprised that there is some kind of "spiritual" underpinnings to Allen's yearnings. Allen and his methods appeal to me for some reason, and although I can't exactly put words to it, I feel I'm half-way there in implementing GTD. When family teases me about my new "cult" membership, I shrug and acknowledge there is some truth to the accusation. But I don't care. I'm sitting in my office and its almost the orderly environment I'm aiming for. I was looking for a chapter of the book I'm writing the other day, and didn't find it right away in a small stack of papers waiting to be processed. I knew it would take no more than two minutes to find the right place to hold the chapters awaiting editing, or input from someone who specializes in a chapter's content. I knew where the glitch in my system occurred, why I couldn't locate the item in 60 seconds or less. This is so far ahead of where I was six months ago, there's no comparison.

What is the spiritual element in GTD? I think the quest for order as a knowledge worker is undeniable. So much of what I do in a day is internally motivated and driven. No one is insisting that I conduct a study, or write up an article reporting on a study I've conducted. I have no CEO driving the ship. I think many knowledge workers are in the same situation, even if they're functioning within a company. I remember reading something that Drucker wrote about the new work environment, where everyone is an entrepreneur. If we are all steering our own ship, that leaves us without the natural mode of organization offered by social hierarchies. Accepting Allen's GTD gives us a "road map" as he calls it, and what person, floating around, working in a socially unstructured environment, wouldn't grasp onto an overarching plan by which to make decisions? I really don't care if I've fallen into a cult-like movement, in fact I'm ready for a refresher course and I wish Allen would plan another stop in the Bay Area.

I recommend to anyone who is interested in GTD, read this article from Wired.

How to do Research II: What is a Dissertation, what are the pieces of it?

A dissertation is: 1) a long paper, focused on a topic of interest; 2) a review of "the literature" or studies that have been done on this topic in the past; 3) a project or something you actively do, to give you "data" about some aspect of your topic; 4) a write up of what you have done, written so carefully that anyone can read your dissertation and replicate your study 5) a written analysis of what your data tells you, or your "results" 6) a final essay on what your results mean, in the big picture of your topic. If you think of your dissertation as a long paper that includes these six concrete sections, you'll have an overview of the project.
The dissertation project: The "doing" part of the dissertation
Students tend to get frightened by #3, that is by the very idea of actually doing something, that will give them data. In fact this is the easiest part of the dissertation, its just doing research. We all do research all the time. If we're planning to go out for dinner with some friends we make a list in our minds of possible restaurants to go to. We might look up on the Internet one or two that we haven't heard much about. We might ask the friends we're going out with what they feel like eating. In this way we collect some different types of data, and then, based on time, energy, interest, preferences, mood, we make a decision. To decide on the restaurant we've done some research. We do the same thing when we're figuring out what movie to go to, or where to go on vacation, or what classes to take in a semester in school. Doing research for the dissertation is no harder. It might involve more steps, it might take longer, but the process is basically the same.

Doing your project
This part of the dissertation is the easiest and often the most fun. To help you on your way in terms of figuring out what you are going to do, what question you are going to pose and what methods you are going to use to find answers to your questions, it is wise to have a group that you meet with regularly. This is what happens in research groups, and is called the "lab meeting." Everyone fills everyone else in on what they've done that week, what ideas they've had, what they've read, who they talked to, where they're at in the research process. Lab meetings are fun. There is no "right" or "wrong" in a brainstorming session. There is certainly nothing to be afraid of in this part of the dissertation process. What you are going to do doesn't need to be remarkably creative. It often is just another tiny step in finding something out about a topic. Students tend to think they have to do something that is earth shaking, when all they have to do is study one small piece of a big problem. The smaller the objective of the dissertation, the more doable it tends to be. In figuring out what you are going to do, make it small, make it concrete, something you can visualize, imagine in detail.

Think of Outcomes (What is the desired outcome?) Think of Next Action (What is the next action?)
Early in the dissertation its time to start thinking in terms of "Desired Outcome" and "Next Action." What is the desired outcome of your project: Its a completed dissertation (as the large outcome), and at each step of the way, you have many desired outcomes. If you consider the desired outcome at each step of the way, you are then able to break what you need to do down into very concrete and doable "next actions." Learning to think of desired outcomes and next actions will make the whole process move smoothly and continuously. Instead of freaking out about the enormity of the whole dissertation, you will begin to think in a much more concrete and doable framework. Each week you can ask yourself 'what is the desired outcome" for the week. From there you consider "what is the next action" to lead you to your desired outcome. Your brain is a great information processing and planning machine. Whether or not you deliberately try to consider the next actions, once you establish a desired outcome for a piece of the project, or for a period of time, you will automatically begin to consider what might be your next actions.

From Lifehack: How to read like a scholar

Lifehack has a great blog today, for students about how to read like a scholar. Its one of those blogs that is good enough to repeat here, given that my students are struggling with this right now, as they begin to work on their dissertations.
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/advice-for-students-how-to-read-like-a-scholar.html
So here it is:
Reading as an academic exercise involves not just gleaning the content form a book or essay but engaging with it. We read not just to learn some new set of facts but also to learn how facts are put together to form an argument, to learn what kinds of arguments are acceptable in our chosen disciplines, and to prompt us towards further research. Reading of this sort raises as many questions as it answers, or more.

While reading, students should keep the following questions in mind:

• What is the author trying to say? This seems obvious, but it seems to be a stumbling block for many students. I’m convinced that the failure to ask this simple question is what leads students to avoid reading, to feel that reading is a chore or, worse, busy-work. Remember, authors — academic or otherwise — aren’t in the business of writing just to bore students; there’s something important they want to communicate. Granted, not all writing communicates well, but regardless of the writer’s skill, if a professor assigned a reading, it’s because there’s something there worth knowing about.
• How does the author say what they’re trying to say? What evidence do they use? What style of argument are they making? How are they positioning themselves? You’d be surprised how many people read an essay about, say, infanticide (the killing of newborn children) and assume the author is advocating this practice instead of simply describing it. These readers totally misread the author’s position.
• Why is the author’s point important? If you can figure out why the author felt he or she needed to write the article or book in your hands, you’re a good way towards figuring out what they’re trying to say. What contribution does the work make to the author’s discipline, to our understanding of society or the world? What problems are they trying to solve?
• Do you agree or disagree with the author? Why? Just because something’s in print doesn’t make it right. As a student, it is essential that you read critically, with an eye towards inconsistencies in an author’s argument or evidence. Are there other explanations for the data they present? Is the author’s interpretation colored by his or her religion, professional background, political orientation, or social position? Note: far too many students seem to think that criticizing style is a good substitute for critiquing substance. It’s not. A lot of academic writing is stilted, difficult (sometimes deliberately so), or just plain bad; this does not mean that the ideas are not good.
• How does this work connect with other works? What’s new about it (or, if it’s an older work, what was new when it was published)? What disciplinary debates is the author engaging? How does this work build on, or refute, earlier works by other authors? How does it fit with the author’s other work? What other work is the one you’re reading like?
• What is the social context of the work? Always consider the historical moment in which a work was created. What kind of person wrote it, and for what kind of audience? What historical events shaped the author’s perceptions and ideas? How was their world different from yours, and how was it similar?

These questions should be on your mind even if you can’t read the whole book. It’s a sad fact of college life that not everything that is assigned can be given the same level of attention. In grad school, for instance, I was regularly charged with reading three (or more) hefty books a week, plus supporting essays and commentaries — while carrying out my own research at the same time. This is not humanly possible. You have to learn to prioritize reading, and to approach it systematically to make sure you get as much as possible out of whatever amount of reading you can manage.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Skim the book. Examine the table of contents to get a feeling for the structure and main points of the book. Flip through the chapters, skimming the first few paragraphs of each, and then the section headings. Check the index for any topics you feel are especially important. Then, if you have time;
2. Read the Introduction and conclusion. Most of the author’s theoretical position will be laid out in the introduction, along with at least a summary of the chapters and sections within. The conclusion revisits much of these points, and usually gives a good overview of the data or other evidence. Sometimes the conclusion is not marked as such; in this case, read the last chapter. Then, if you have time;
3. Dip in. Read the chapters that seem most relevant or interesting. Get a sense for what the author is trying to accomplish. Flip through the rest of the book and look more closely at anything that catches your eye. Then, if you have time;
4. Finish the book. Read the whole thing. If you know you’ll have time, skip 1 - 3 and just read, cover to cover.

Obviously it’s best to read the whole book; you’ll miss a lot reading anything less. But given the choice between not reading at all and skimming to at least get a taste of what you’re missing, I say, go for skimming. And try to keep yourself better organized in the future so that you don’t shortchange your entire education.

How to do Research: Part I

The mystique of research
This is the first of a series on how to do research. Research carries with it a mystique, a vague reputation that it is very hard to do and that you have to be super smart to do it. Reality check here: Research is easier than most things that psychologists do, if you make a mistake its only some numbers and no one gets hurt, you can apologize and correct it. In clinical work if you make a mistake a client might get hurt, there are human lives involved in the endeavor. Research has no such hidden disasters, consequences are small and something anyone can deal with.

Finding a topic: Gathering data about interests
Research begins with ideas about topics, or research begins with topic. How do you find your research topic? You find your topic by being honest with yourself. One of the many myths about research is that you shouldn't’t do anything that is “too close to home” or of great personal interest. This is dead wrong. Most of the great scientists in our field have began with something of personal interest. Seligman began studying depression because his father lapsed into a terrible depression after he had a stroke. Sternberg from Yale had been studying intelligence. Then his marriage broke up and he fell in love with someone. Suddenly his research focus shifted to love. You need to choose a topic of great personal interest. Choosing a topic because you think it will be easy or convenient will never work. Choosing a topic because it is someone else’s interest will never work. I recommend that you walk around for a few months with a small notebook in your pocket. Whenever you find yourself thinking about something of interest, or worrying about something of interest, write it down in your notebook. When you go to a bookstore and you think no one is looking, where do you go? When you go to Amazon and you’re browsing, where do you go, what books are you looking at? When you’re browsing on the interest and time flies by without a trace, where are you anyway, what topic or ideas are you researching? Write these all down in your notebook, and you’re well on your way to coming up with a research topic.

Making a list
Read and re-read the topics you’ve identified. Type them all up on a giant list. If you dare, bring them up in a group and see what discussion ensues. A topic that starts a big conversation is likely to be one you’re interested in. The conversation follows from the excitement you have generated. If you bring up a topic and there is no response, chances are you aren’t really excited by it yourself, and doing research on it will be like pulling teeth.

Go back to your list of topics, and select the ones that most excite you. Remember not to worry about methods, or convenience. Methods will follow after you have studied your topic for a while, and will be derived from you research question, but that is still a way off.

A list of what excites you
Make a smaller list of topics that most excite you. Then go to Google Scholar and put in one of your favorites, use several combinations of words and see what comes up. Print it out. Get the articles that are easily available online. Go through your school’s library/Internet system to get access to the full text of those not readily available. Skim the abstracts of the articles you have. Pay attention to your heart as you skim them –are you instantly bored, or do you want to go back to Google Scholar to search for more articles?

Move on to the next topic on your “most exciting” list, and repeat this process. Do this a few more times, and pay attention to how your experience with each topic feels. Through this process you will discover the topic you want to study.

Early to Rise..Its become a habit

I woke up at 4AM this morning, without an alarm clock or wake up call. I've been doing this for about 30 days. Finally I think its becoming a habit. When I awake now I go right into my office. I leave my computer in my office in the evening, so that I have to go to my office (out of bed) when I awaken in the morning. I used to take my computer to bed, which meant that I stayed in bed with it in the morning. Now I am forced to go to my office. My first action is to check my email to see if anything important has come in. I respond to any emails I have to answer. Then I write. Sometimes my writing is focused on the book I'm writing "How to help almost anyone: A psychotherapy Primer" and sometimes on something else; an article, this blog, a letter, notes for my wiki, etc. The point is that I am using the early morning hours for writing. I have been writing every day since 1970, this is a very old and well-established habit. Writing early in the morning is a brand new habit. It far surpasses writing in the evening. Checking my email and writing early in the morning have become my morning scaffold.

I have once again followed David Seah and joined a gym. Its luxurious, and includes a "junior Olympic swimming pool." I am swimming, and suddenly remembering how much I love swimming. As a child I fell in a pool at age 3, and began to swim naturally. Swimming was my favorite activity as a child. I am swimming again, it feels wonderful. However it takes too long to get to the club, work out, and drive home to go every day. I am alternating days in the gym with Kundalini Yoga so I do some physical activity every day. This is the habit I am working on now, for the rest of September and the first half of October. I am doing the Seinfeld trick of marking each day I do my new habit on a calendar, hung up on the bulletin board behind my bed. Tracking progress on a new habit makes it concrete, tangible. Making things tangible is how to make things work. Be concrete about everything you do, and you will make progress.

MCEP (Mandatory Continuing Education for Psychologists): Rereading a Great Book

What You Can Change...And What You Can't
It's license renewal time, and to renew I had to take courses to make sure I'm keeping up with my field. I admit, I love continuing education. It gives me an excuse to read some psychology and to attend meetings/workshops/classes that I want to go to but wouldn't allow myself the luxury if I didn't have it as "mandatory." Those who have followed my ongoing story might remember I attended a great three day conference on "learning and the brain" which allotted me 19.5 units of my 36 mandated units. The past month I've done "online" courses, and I loved most of them. Most recently I took a course in Marty Seligman's book, What you can change...And what you can't. I read this years ago and loved it, and reading it again was even better. Seligman may have his weaknesses, like being a salesman at moments. But the story he's selling is spectacular, music to my ears. He's the daddy of "positive psychology," and before that new school in my field, he was the scientist and then popularizer of "learned helplessness" and "Learned Optimism." Seligman's basic message is that how we explain things that happen to us, or our "attributional style" defines how we feel about ourselves and the world. If we explain negative events and experiences as our own fault, likely to effect everything in our lives, and likely to go on forever (or for a long time anyway we're pessimistic and likely to be prone to depression. If we explain positive events as due to something outside of ourselves (someone else, luck, chance), unlikely to have much of an effect on our lives, and likely to be short lived, we're pessimists. If however, we take credit for good things that happen, if we think the good thing will have a powerful effect and that it will go on for a long time or even forever, we're optimists. Seligman focused primarily on how we explain negative events and the link these explanations have to depression. In research carried out in my lab we found out that how we explain positive events is equally important to depression proneness. If I can't take credit for some terrific event or experience, I'm in trouble, I'm at high risk for depression. Seligman's theory of attributional (or explanatory) style is, bottom line, a gem of a psychological theory and one that has been of use to me in understanding our psychology.

In this short and easy-read book, Seligman talks to us about the problems we can fix, and those we are stuck with. He chases after major myths in psychology (and in the whole culture) and lays them out starkly --there is no way to miss his message.
Experiences in childhood do not cause psychological problems
Weight is based on genetics, not psychology
Dieting backfires, if you diet, you'll gain it all back more easily each time
No treatment for alcoholism/addiction is better than a natural course of recovery
Childhood experiences are not correlated with proneness to problems with alcohol or other drugs
Obsessive compulsive disorder can't be effectively treated by talk therapy alone
Sex abuse is not necessarily the source of psychological problems
Sexual identification and orientation are not up for change
Sexual preferences show up in first adolescent experiences and rarely change later
Seligman holds on to the fundamental significance of a person's biology, while promoting psychotherapies that help change those pathogenic beliefs that are changeable. There's hardly a line in the book that misses the mark, and that isn't grounded in psychological science. He first published it in 1993, and its still right on almost all accounts, 14 years later. How many books can claim that?

The beauty of continuing education is that we are able to get credit for sitting around reading something like "What you can change...and what you can't..." It reminds me of how much I love to read in my chosen field, and that I have a passion for psychology. We get so ground down with the tasks we have to do, the nitty gritty of our daily lives. I thought "oh no, I have to get my MCEP units this month, my license has to be renewed by September 30th" forgetting that this was a chance to have some fun. I think I might extend this and take "just one more" online course...

Fascinating Interview: "Green Guilt"

Linkedin
I received an E-mail last week, "Someone in Linkedin wants to contact you." For those of you who don't know what "linked in" is --its some kind of connection service that I joined a while ago. I read that a blogger, Matt Cornell, had put out to the universe a question about "How do you start a consulting service"? Having developed my thoughts about how to start a private practice (in my case, a psychotherapy practice) I felt like writing a response to the question, and this meant joining Linkedin. It was an investment, something like $2oo, more than I should spend, but I was too curious too just forget it. I joined, having no idea of what it was. It turned out to be a service that connects people. Linked in went through my address book, and told me every person who was there who was also a member of Linkedin. I then was given the option of being able to invite anyone on that list to become one of my Linkedin connections. I invited everyone I felt comfortable inviting. From there it showed me everyone who my connection was also connected to, and of course it turned out to include many many people. It is built on the idea of degrees of connection, or whatever that is called. It is based on the theory that everyone is only six degrees away from connecting to what should be very distant other people. So if I know 50 people (for example) and each one of them knows 50 other people, I can get to those other people relatively other easily. And of course those 2nd degree of connection also know 50 other people, and this is then a rapidly growing chain of connections --its an exponentially growing list of connections. I was instantly intrigued by the possibilities of Linkedin, and I was glad I had moved on my impulse to join the Linkedin fraternity (or sorority), although what use it would ever be for me remained unknown.

Then, on the first day of my large class last spring, a young man who was a student in the class came over to me at the break and said "I saw you on Linkedin and invited you to become one of my connections." I then remembered getting an invitation from someone I didn't know. I had accepted the invitation, still having no idea of who the person was. Mystery solved. I have continued to get invitations to be people's connection in Linkedin, and the list of spiraling connections continues to grow. However how this might be useful to me had not shown itself until this past week when this E-mail arrived in my in-box, saying that someone wanted to get in touch with me.

A USA Reporter on "Green Guilt"
I responded and this took me to a message from a reporter at USA Today, Janet Kornblum. She was writing an article about "Green Guilt" or the guilt that many of us are experiencing when we feel that we are failing to be "green" enough. As a member of Linkedin, she had done a search there, using the term "psychologist" and "guilt." I don't often write about my life as a scientist here, but in my professional life I have been conducting research on guilt for over a decade. So Janet's search brought her right to my doorstep. She wanted to interview me on the topic, and I accepted her invitation. People often complain about what the press does to them, but I have generally had good experiences with the press, and so I didn't hesitate in accepting Janet's invitation, I thought it would be fun. It was.

How to change public attitude
We had a great conversation about the guilt many of us feel about our various environmentally wasteful habits. We branched out to discuss how one changes public opinion about social issues. I discussed the change we have all seen in attitudes about smoking (for example); it used to be considered cool and "adult" to smoke. Today smokers feel like junkies, sneaking their cigarettes in back alleys so to to speak. It used to be considered cool to beat your wife if she "misbehaved." When police officers were called out to deal with a domestic violence situation, they would take the guy out to walk around the block and express their sympathy for them, living with such a difficult woman. Today batterers get arrested. Public attitudes have changed, domestic violence is a punishable crime. Women who are being beaten don't always keep it such a secret, and this all is the result of the women's movement and a massive national campaign put on by the Family Violence Prevention Fund, centered in San Francisco. Public attitudes have changed dramatically, much as attitudes about smoking have changed. And so it goes with environmental issues; a focus on the environment used to be the baby of a fringe group in our society. Today it is increasingly everyone's baby. The result thus far is a growing massive public movement and awareness of global warming and the tenuous state of our planet. Some months ago I wrote a blog about global warming, while feeling guilty about my own horrendous overuse of paper. I have plenty of green guilt and I had fun talking to Janet about the issue.

Guilt-induction is not an effective vehicle of social change
Making people feel guilty about a social issue is not an effective strategy for promoting change. Those so-called trainings based on making European Americans feel guilty about "white privilege" in order to decrease racism are doomed to failure. When people are made to feel guilty, the effect is to raise their defenses. Defensive people can't hear about other's experiences. Raising defensiveness is a terrible strategy for anything. This has to be as true about environmental issues, as it is for overcoming racism or sexism.

How guilty are we feeling as a nation about polluting the environment and using up natural resources? I used to think there were no private solutions to public problems. I still believe this, but with less conviction. It may be that if enough of us were environmentally conscious and were willing to act on our belief, there might be a small dent in the massive damage we are doing to the environment. But how great would that be, if nothing bigger happens? Probably very limited. Most people have no disretionary income. They don't have the personal resources to buy the part-electric car which is so expensive. Most of us don't have the money to buy or rent a home in the city, so instead we have to live in the suburbs where housing is cheaper, and commute to work in the city, adding to the environmental burden. How much good is it for us to recycle? What does it mean to the environment for large numbers of people to recycle? How is our garbage adding to global warming? What effect is our recyling our household garbage having on the larger environment? I don't have an answer to these questions. I suspect that things we are able to do as private individuals are relatively ineffective in saving our planet from the bigger effects of a basically non-sustainable economic organization. How many of us are feeling guilty for the fact that the United States uses more energy than any other nation?

A Mind Experiment about Guilt: What are the benefits and what are the shadows?
What is the benefit of feeling guilty about how we live? Does feeling guilty really change behavior? There are various types and degrees of guilt. Some kinds of guilt allow us to live in social groups peacefully. Here's a mind experiment. Imagine that someone has harmed you. Then imagine that the person who harmed you feels guilty about it. Next imagine that someone has harmed you and feels no guilt about it. Now imagine in what condition you could or would forgive the person. In the first condition, when the person feels guilt about harming you, there's a good chance you would be forgiving. But in the second condition, when the person who harmed you feels no guilt about it, you'd be far less likely to forgive them. Guilt is an essential ingredient in the process of forgiving. This is the positive function of guilt. But ruminative guilt, or guilt for imaginary crimes, is connected with depression. Too much guilt is inhibiting and life destroying. What about the environment? Does it make sense for me to feel guilty about my use of paper? I don't have the answer to this one, but if someone reading this has some ideas about it, please leave a comment.

Labor Day Evening

The Sopranos
I've been watching the Sopranos with family for weeks now. The last few days we moved on to Year 5 (and yes we've gone all the way from week 1, year one) and today I decided I'm out of the playing. In year 4 an edge of gratuitous violence crept in, and I wasn't just sickened, I got bored. That means, I suppose, it made me too anxious and I couldn't stand it any more. Year 5 is even worse. So I bow out. I think my household made a decision to move with me, and in the name of togetherness, we're moving on to watching House (which I have never seen). The oddest thing is that I never watch TV, but for a month or two over the past 15 years. I had an Ex-File summer the way this has been the Soprano season. I ordered Bones to take a look at it while I'm at it, I think it might be related to the X-Files in style. Or maybe its time I get back to work. Being a knowledge worker feels like an expressed aversion to labor. It's difficult to remember that teaching writing, continual reading of the scientific press are their own form of labor.

Labor Day: The Weekly Review

The Weekly Review
Yesterday I finally did my first complete weekly review. The "Weekly Review" as its called by the GTD people, is a time set aside to empty inboxes, gather in one place and enter into a data base all those index cards, circa notebook items, Molskine notebook items, and misc data from my computer (that's yet another data "collection" point.) Then, I print out my calendars from last week and the two weeks ahead of me, print out my "next action" list that I keep on Vitalist (www.vitalist.com) , print out my "tickler list," the "waiting for list," topping this off with a complete list of projects. I keep my list of "maybe/someday" in Vitalist, as I like to review it weekly to see if there is anything I want to get too soon, or even now. With everything now in hard copy, I read through it all. This way I keep abreast of what I am supposed to be doing, what I am in fact doing, and what I don't want to be doing yet. I also followed Allen's 2 minute rule. When I ran into anything in my in-boxes that I could deal with (meaning actually do) in 2 minutes or less, I did it right then and there, as soon as I ran into it. By mid-day my office was about as organized and efficient as I have ever seen it. Its time for another picture, the "After" picture of my work space.

Now that I've done the weekly review thoroughly I think I can keep it up weekly. What stopped me until yesterday was the amount of "stuff" that had gathered in my two wooden "in-baskets." I was afraid of the "stuff." I started the review at 6AM which left me plenty of time, no matter how long it took. I followed David Allen's recommendation to deal with only 1 piece of paper at a time, and deal with it then and there (throw out, file in references, file in ticker file for dealing with later (whatever day I file it in, in the tickler file). As I went, I added next action items to lists on Vitalist so I wouldn't forget any piece of paper representing an activity that I put into the tickler, references, "to read" folder, etc. I am almost there, I almost have a mind like water, the promised outcome of following the GTD method of life organization.

The difference GTD has made in my life is astounding. After planning things for years, I am finally getting them done, even while spending much more time on the "defining" of work phase of my work process. I never thought I would enjoy organizing so much. Allen suggests keeping your inbox and next action lists attractive, and I have done this. When my to do list on Vitalist begins to look stale, with ambiguous items, or otherwise overwhelming, I freshen items up, delete them, throw them into the Maybe/Someday category. As those of you who read this blog know, it has taken from March 1st to now to really get into this process as thoroughly as I have --six months to carry out a thorough weekly review, in fact six months to really understand the week review, what it means, and that I can do it.

How can I take this into my clinical work and my teaching?
I am thinking about how I can bring this method into my clinical work, with clients or into my teaching when students don't ask for it? I have many clients who are upset about their lack of organization. I quietly mutter about GTD, but if they don't immediately pick up on it, I drop it. Most of my students in most of my classes and seminars over the years have struggled with poor organization skills. Last year I tried to bring GTD into my seminar and failed. The students simply weren't interested. School begins next week, maybe I'll give it another try. I think that implementing GTD, if only for the dissertation process, might yield terrific results. Since my seminar is for third year doctoral students who are beginning to work on their dissertations, I wish they'd give me a chance to teach them GTD. Its only by teaching does one really get to know anything, any skill, any area of knowledge. If I can be "doing GTD" anyone can and I'm ready to begin passing it on.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet and the APA

The Dalai Lama
Yesterday I watched a run of movies about the life of the Dalai Lama and his escape from Tibet to India where he remains as Tibet continues to be destroyed by the Chinese. I had heard from Paul Ekman, a famous emotion researcher, about his remarkable experience when he was in the presence of the Dalai Lama. He felt peace for the first time in his life. His proneness to anger dissippated, and when he returned to the United States, he continued to be an altered person. It was three months before his temper returned, and I think he then went into some type of Buddhist training, although I am not certain about that. I heard about a man who was cooking for the Dalai Lama when he was in San Francisco, and he too reported that being in the presence of the Dalai Lama was a remarkable, life enhancing experience. There is something in this story that brings a lesson to all of us, as the tales of global warming become more realistic every day, and we see that the effects are already upon us. I do Kundalini Yoga, but I keep lapsing in my program. The mind training involved in this simple practice is something I need, and the question I pose to myself is: Why do I turn my back on my practice for weeks at a time? When should I be doing my practice, what time of the day? Will it make a difference if I build that into my "scaffold" that a wrote about a few weeks ago? I am still constructing it, I've made great progress, but a Yoga practice is not yet in it. I think I could take some hints from Steve Pavlina who said something about getting on your running shoes as the way to get yourself running. Pulling out my yoga mat at the same time every day, then putting on my yoga pants might be the simple answer to my dilemma. There is something in the practice of monks and yogis that effects the brain as studied by fMRI. What are we all waiting for?

The American Psychological Association and Atrocities

Last week the APA convention was held in San Francisco, so it was easy for me to attend. I only went for two half days, one to present a poster describing some of my research, and the second to register and attend a few meetings. I went to hear Phil Zimbardo and as usual his session was worth discussion. Zimbardo has been campaigning for some years now, in defense of our soldiers involved in torture in Iraq and Guantanamo. Zimbardo was the scientist who carried out the famous Stanford Prison study. The study selected normal healthy, well adjusted Stanford students for participation. Some were to be "prisoners" and some were to be "prison guards." Zimbardo had thought that dispositional differences between the prisoners and guards would determine their behavior in the course of the study. What happened instead was that the prison guards got carried away, thaqnks to the conditions of the study, and began to exert such cruelty upon the prisoners that the study had to be stopped after only five days. Zimbardo and the research team concluded from this study that normal healthy, non sociopathic people will turn into perpetrators of absolute evil given the right conditions. He said "You think you know yourself, and you think you know the people near to you, but you don't. You have no way to know what you will do under certain conditions." He spoke of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo conditions, the orders from the authorities, everyone going along with it, secrecy, all producing a situation in which ordinarily kind people became evil. Could this happen in a community in which everyone engaged in a Buddhist practice? I think not. As a country became Buddhist over the past thousand years, all prior tribal warring stopped and a blanket of peace came over the land we know as Tibet. It was the migration of hundreds of thousands of Chinese that turned Tibet into a blood bath. The pictures from the news showing the atrocities committed against the monks remind me of Abu Ghraib.

I used to think "there are no private solutions" and perhaps its true, there aren't. However, why ignore a private solution when one becomes obvious, just for some old political principle. A daily yoga practice belongs on my morning scaffold. I can do a 30 day experiment. I wake up at 5:30 every morning now, automatically, what started as a 30 day experiment became a wonderful new habit. I'll report back on how it goes.

A quiet Sunday morning

This will be a short one. I've been experimenting with rising early again, as part of the bigger experiment, creating a scaffold for my day. I set my alarm for 4:30 each morning, get up when it goes off, and first deal with email. I'm going through it as fast as possible. If something requires action I'm following the GTD 2 minute rule. Meaning if I can deal with it in 2 minutes, I do. If not but I have to do something with it, it goes into the "action" folder on my desk top and I enter it into the next action list in Vitalist (www.vitalist.com). This means I am clearing out my inbox very quickly, and nothing is forgotten. When my email inbox is dealt with, and this takes about 40 minutes to an hour, I start writing. I have several projects going on, and I get to choose what I'm writing according to how I'm feeling. This goes on until 10 or 11, when I begin making phone calls on my next action list. So I think I might be developing the morning routine or scaffolding. I have my fingers crossed that I can keep this up. There's not question about it, having those early morning hours for writing is precious.

8/2/07 Wanted: Morning & Evening Scaffold on Which to Construct the Day

The scaffold might be emerging..
Last week I wrote about plans to build a "scaffold" to help structure my life as a home-office information worker. Zen Habits just wrote a rather inspiring post about the same, speaking of a morning and evening routine http://zenhabits.net/2007/08/tips-to-establish-a-morning-evening-routine-with-an-august-challenge/.

I’ve written before about how morning and evening routines can create some sense of sanity and calm in your life.These are two habits that you can start today that will make a big improvement in your day.

Now, because of different things that have come up in my life, I’ve fallen a bit out of my routines. I’ve also been changing them over the last few months as my needs have changed.

So, this month, my August Challenge (read more about the Challenge below) will be to focus on re-establishing my daily routines, refined and simplified.

This week has been unusual in that I have a family member sick in the hospital and I'm one of the family responsible for frequent visits etc., so my days are scheduled somewhat differently. Nevertheless it has seemed to me to be the perfect time to build my scaffold, meaning, to build a scaffold that I do every day and that will help me get oriented to the day of work, and then the orientation to winding down, whatever that will be. So here is what I've come to so far: I've only been developing a routine in the evening, the mornings are still full of random email checks, reading my favorite bloggers, and other disorienting activities.

Building my routine...
I have to work on the mornings, and that is my commitment to myself in August. I'll put it up here when I've figured it out. My evenings however, are taking shape. Around 9PM I do Kundalini Yoga, at least 20 minutes and often more like 40 or 50 minutes. Then I shower, or take a bubble bath. This is something I hadn't done in years, and I don't know if I'll keep it up, but it seemed like a good idea this week. In fact last night I even lit candles in the bathroom and meditated while lounging in the tub. Next comes a cold shower, and drying off, getting into sleep clothes. Finally I talk to my husband, sometimes watch a movie (the movie part is entirely out of character, just thought I would try it right now, catch up on the culture a bit since I'm on break from teaching). The biggest change is what follows, I don't fall into 4 or 5 hours of web searching, crawling. Instead I only allow myself only an hour on the computer, and then I review my next action list, my project list, loosely plan the next day. Finally I read, no more computer. I am falling asleep earlier this way, and I am quite relaxed by the time I fall asleep. This seems to me, to be the scaffold for the evening, if only I keep it up for the whole month. And now, its time to build the morning scaffold which thus far seems more difficult. Maybe writing this here will inspire me to get moving, and next week I'll be able to write about the morning routine.

July 20, 2007: Creating a Scaffold

Steve Pavlina wrote a terrific post for someone like me, working at home and wasting far too much time reading email and surfing the web. http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/07/how-to-create-a-personal-productivity-scaffold/
The whole day can go by with little accomplished when I end up reading favorite blogs all day, in between hits of "catching up" with my email. Sure I've kept my inbox to 0 but that can't be the whole of my day. I want to get over this bad habit, replace it with better habits. Steven is the big "30 days to form a habit" man (I don't know where he really got that data, that 30 days in a row is what it takes to form a habit). But he maintains that in order to form a new habit, first it is wise to have what he calls a day's "scaffold" in place. This, he says, will help me stop the nonproductive use of my time. Steve reports that the way he has managed the email-surfing-email problem was to create a scaffold, a structure or edifice to hold the beginning and the end of his work day. With a highly structured beginning, he is able to the proceed to be productive in the ways he wants all through the day. His beginning includes a simple review of the day, a short period of journaling, meditating and a few other activities that he does somewhat by a checklist. His whole "morning scaffold" takes an hour, from 8 to 9. Now I know from other Pavlini posts that he has already gone out and run or lifted weights or whatever else his current exercise programs consists of, and that he does this every day. He failed to include that in his description of his "scaffold" or morning routine, and this is an important emission. If I were getting up at 5 everyday, running for 45 minutes, eating breakfast, I would be ready for a sold scaffold by 8, and it would be a whole new me. I tried getting up early for a few weeks, and it fell apart, I couldn't keep it up, I simply got too tired. Right now I am trying to establish a daily Kundalini yoga habit.

I like the idea of establishing a "scaffold" for my day in my at home office. I'll let you know how I progress; I'll work on it over the weekend when things are varied (family demands) from my usual patterns.

"15 Ways to Use a Wiki:" And --How I use my own Wiki..

A great post on Web Worker Daily: (http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/07/13/15-productive-uses-for-a-wiki/ ) by Leo Babauta, provides a detailed list of ideas for how to use a personal wiki.

"A few of the things that are emerging about web workers is that 1) we do just about everything online; 2) we want to be able to access it from any computer, anywhere; and 3) it’s hard to organize all the stuff we use and do, in our work and personal lives.

But online organization dozen’t have to be complicated. There are many tools for organizing all our stuff, of course, but one of the simplest is the wiki.

We’re all familiar with wikis, of course — Wikipedia being the most famous example, but many other useful wikis abound on the Internet. But one of the most productive forms of wikis is the personal wiki, which you can create at any number of sites."

"Once you’ve got your personal wiki set up.. this post lists "15 ways to use a wiki productively, web worker style, beginning with a to-do list."

I still can't say what exactly a "wiki" is except it is a place where I do some heavy personal planning, complaining, whining, and writing up my goal statements and I do it fast. So a wiki is fast. I have mine on the zoho site http://wiki.zoho.com/HomePage.html/ meaning I didn't have to know anything to get it going, and I still don't know anything to keep it there, always available when I log in to my Zoho Wiki . Zoho (http://www.zoho.com/) is a very cool service offering online documents that take and provide ms compatible files, a project planning program, a personal wiki service, and many other options. I like it. I've been using my wiki there for a few months. I also use BackPack (www.Backpackit.com) for some of my listmaking which I could do entirely on my zoho wiki, but I love the aesthetics of Backpack, its ajaxy feel. I like the big fonts, the way the lists look. So I use that for lists that I return to, but I use my wiki for sudden jerky planning that I'm not likely to use again. I date the entries, so lets say its a planning diary that maybe I won't ever look at again. I write down a sudden commitment to FOCUS because I've been unfocused for hours at a time, or I write down an evening's plan, that doesn't belong on my Vitalist "to do list" because its too spur of the moment, its intended to get me up off my ass, to begin a day or evening of ten minute dashes. My wiki is a tool, part of the process that I sometimes need in my working, its only for process for that matter. I don't use it for storing for the future but for motivating me, organizing my spinning around mind, to get going right now.

I love my wiki
I recommend a wiki for everyone. It can be shared, or very private. If you want to get started, go to http://www.zoho.com/ and start your own wiki, free, fast and effective. There are many other sites providing free wiki service, this happens to be the only one I've tried, so I don't know about recommending anything else. I love my wiki, its the way I get inspired when my enthusiasm and spirit is drifting downward. And I have a record of my process, not that I look at it again. This one is for me, not history.