Falling in Love 15 Minutes a Day

In the early aughts, a friend told me about a book called ‘Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day’ by Jane Bolker. She was much farther along in the PhD program than I was. And, honestly, I hadn’t given much thought to my dissertation at that point. Not to the topic. Not to the prospectus. And, especially, not to the time commitment it would require of me. In other words, I had no real context for appraising this particular piece of advice. Or, really, the promise that it held: this idea that an incredibly long, complex project could be completed in the amount of time I might spend watching an episode of ‘The Brady Bunch.’

Later on, when I finally arrived at the dissertation phase, I went through the trouble of getting my hands on this book. It turns out that completing a dissertation within a reasonable amount of time — let’s say a few years — actually requires much more than fifteen minutes a day. And, in the book’s defense, it didn’t really promise that 15 minutes would be sufficient time to make meaningful progress towards the manuscript’s completion. Rather, the argument was that it would require a basic investment to be with the project on a daily basis. And, in other words, to commit to starting there. To spending those first painful 15 minutes finding your way into the day’s writing, no matter how fruitless they happened to be.

The assumption was, as I understand it at least, that writing — no matter how godawful it happened to be — would beget writing. The initial investment of time, this daily 15 minutes, would create the foundation of a relationship that would grow and, hopefully, flourish over time. A love affair between the writer and her dissertation. Reader, it happened to me. I managed to fall head over heels in love with my dissertation. Through this daily exercise of working, I mean writing, through the pain of doubt, uncertainty, and mixed-emotions, I found a way to befriend the project. Words, then paragraphs, and, finally, entire chapters followed. It came together through this act of daily communion. Together we made each other complete.

And, for that reason, I am hopeful that I can find my way into this second act of mine in 15 minutes a day as well. What comes after academic? Good question. I’ve been invited repeatedly in the past month to think of myself — and by extension my professional activity — as a series of verbs, rather than nouns. Nouns suggest a static status, whereas verbs allow for movement and unfolding. I will, therefore, be verbing, instead of nouning from this point forward. What are these verbs, be them infinitives or present participles, that start to sketch out this professionalized persona I’m taking on? All I can think to respond right now in this limited time available to me is: doing the work.

Here’s what I’m discovering about myself: I am more spirit than set of skills. I bring myself into different situations, contexts, settings, whatever you want to call them, and I contribute what I have to offer. If that sounds vague to you, I can assure you that you’re not alone. This might seem somewhat difficult to pin down because it flies in the face of our conventional ways of talking about professional activity. Typically, we DO. Or we ARE our title, fill in job description here. This system of ours isn’t really set up for the work of being.

Maybe the closest comparison I can make to my professional activity is my labor of love, mothering. It is socially acceptable for me to BE a mother and to spend my time, you know, mothering. But, when I take this same philosophy out in the world, things start to get confusing. What, for example, am I supposed to write down on my taxes when I’m asked to specify my profession? For the moment, I’ve been saying ‘Yoga Instructor.’ Which, for me, is a little problematic because it doesn’t quite capture the full spectrum of my professional engagements for which I receive compensation. I am instructing, yes. But I am doing many other things as well: challenging, inviting, complicating, creating, reframing, etc. Well, you get the point.

The challenge for me, well one of them, is to be in a state of constant motion in which I’m moving back and forth between this mothering and this acting (activity) as a professional. I will be honest and say that it can be frustrating because the flow gets interrupted as I switch roles. Maybe, for someone like me with a short attention span, this might in fact be a gift. When I was applying for college at Northwestern University early decision, I had a local interview with a Northwestern alum who worked for a law practice in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio. I met this lawyer at his office where he conducted my interview. The only recollection I have of our exchange is telling him that I was not cut out for an office job. I needed to be out in the field, I elaborated. I guess it made sense at the time since my intended major was anthropology. Not that I could spell it. Ha!

In retrospect, it occurred to me that my declaration or determination to avoid a sit-down, stationary gig probably came across as an insult to him. I can’t imagine him having given me a glowing letter of recommendation. Well, that probably accounts, to some degree at least, why I wasn’t admitted in this phase of the admission’s cycle — or any other, no less! Still, I think that what I said thirty years ago in that downtown office continues to ring true. I’m not office material. I lack the attention span needed to focus on the same project in the same place all day every day. I was made for movement.

And, maybe, that means that living my career in 15 minutes a day is, on some level, suited to my temperament. I tell myself it’s less about punching in or out every day, than recommitting to my purpose to pursue professionalism. There is something really pleasing to me about being in this state of pursuit. Being the pursuer. It implies an active démarche, as they say in French. It means ‘line of action’ or ‘maneuver.’ And, strangely, that idea of maneuvering fits or should I say captures what I’m trying to do in this professional pursuit of mine. I am moving in and out of structures (home and working world). I am weaving words and worlds out of the meaning I am generating in both as pursue a place…a space…to do my verbing.

And if 15 minutes a day is all I can get away with, I guess I’ll take it. I’ll sign up for the plan. Because, if that dissertation self-help book got it right the first time, the strategy might well hold true again. It’s the commitment that counts. The intention is everything. If there are not yet nouns to characterize how we can be multiple things at the same time, why let ourselves be captured by the laziness of this language? My job is to maneuver around the obstacles that language, with its need to name and, in doing so, to consign and constrict, puts in my path in order to thwart verbers like me.

Fifteen minutes a day is not much, but it’s enough time to chip away at old certainties. And to imagine new possibilities by communing with what is not yet here, but is already coming into being. The writer in me reminds the verber that this magic happens in these briefest of moments. It’s less a matter of time than a commitment to invite in the bursts of creativity that disrupt the ordinary and shift the status quo. One verb at a time.