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In my last #pandemicpost I asked \u2013\u00a0should you quit (go part time or pause) your PhD in this global pandemic?<\/a>\u00a0One month later, not to put too fine a point on it: the world is in pretty deep shit. Everyday life has not got back to anything resembling \u2018normal\u2019. There\u2019s a dawning realisation that we may be living this way for months, or even years. The conversation in my academic circles has moved from\u00a0the great online teaching pivot<\/a>, to the\u00a0messy realities of teaching from our homes<\/a>, to speculation about the scale and extent of job losses already suffered \u2013 and\u00a0those still to come<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just listening to the news in the morning feels like an emotional rollercoaster, fuelling more fear and doubt. This atmosphere can make it hard to get on with the complex, interrelated tasks necessary to completing a research project.\u00a0\u00a0Blogger Racheal Cayley wrote beautifully about\u00a0the difficulties of doing writing work in this time,<\/a>\u00a0but we also know intellectual work can be a solace in times of stress.\u00a0Unfortunately, like many PhD students and academics, I\u2019m finding it hard to just, well\u2026 get on with it. Specifically, it\u2019s difficult to achieve a\u00a0state of \u2018flow\u2019:<\/a>\u00a0the state of mind where you are so engaged with your work that you don\u2019t notice the passing of time. Flow is a lovely mental retreat from the pressures of the world. If you have decided that you will continue your PhD for now, finding a way towards flow can be good for your mental health as well as your project.<\/p>\n So how do you get your head back in the research game? How do we find our flow in a Covid infected world?<\/p>\n In her amazing book\u00a0The Unthinkable<\/em><\/a>, Amanda Ripley talks about how humans react to disaster situations. In a series of stories about hurricanes, floods, and tsunamis, Ripley details our physiological reactions to immediate danger and the effects of extreme stress on the body, particularly how we make decisions in a crisis.<\/p>\n One of the first reactions to an extreme situation, like a terrorist attack or a car crash, is denial: this can manifest as delayed reactions. People easily fall into a \u2018this can\u2019t be happening\u2019 thinking process, which leads to a \u2018normalcy bias\u2019: carrying on with normal behaviour that is now stupidly dangerous. People spending up to 40 minutes gathering their belongings from their desk and turning off their computer while the world trade centre collapsed \u00a0around them is a good example;\u00a0people gathering in huge numbers on Bondi Beach the weekend after the government told us to stay at home is another<\/a>. In fact, my friend\u00a0Mathan<\/a>, who suggested I read Ripley\u2019s book, pointed out that the \u2018selfish and stupid\u2019 accusations around people going to the beach are a good example of how we misunderstand the power of denial in the face of disaster. People going to the beach\u00a0is<\/strong>\u00a0normal, just not normal in a crisis. Many of those people were incapable of reacting to the changed world at that moment \u2013 they needed more time to adjust. Given time, people do adjust \u2013 the beaches have been deserted for weeks now \u2013 but some are slower than others.<\/p>\n When we see normal behaviour and label it stupid and dangerous \u2013 we are seeing denial in action. This insight helps us put a certain US politician\u2019s actions in perspective: he\u2019s just being his normal self, but in the context of a global disaster, \u00a0it looks even crazier than usual. However, \u00a0continuing \u2018normal now dangerous\u2019 behaviour is only one reaction to denial, according to Ripley.\u00a0Denial can also make us freeze in place, unable to see or hear properly and certainly unable to plan ahead or react appropriately. Denial accounts for many a political stuff up in rolling out Covid related restrictions and testing, which has landed some countries in deeper shit than others (Australia and NZ are faring very well at the moment, partly because we got to watch the effects of denial on other countries and took drastic action just in time).<\/p>\n So \u2013 in a crisis, trying to work \u2018normally\u2019, in essence, is a way of staying in denial. The physiological reaction to stress can affect our brains, so planning too far ahead might be dangerous and result in bad decisions. Work must look and feel different somehow. The first step towards a new kind of work is to accept the denial and work on achieving flow at a basic level. To start doing this, let\u2019s look at the next stage of Ripley\u2019s disaster script: deliberation.<\/p>\n Deliberation is where you start to try and make sense of what is happening around you and work out how to react appropriately. Ripley points out that we can still make very bad decisions when in the deliberation stage. Some of her tales of succumbing to \u2018group think\u2019 are frankly scary. In the context of academia, I think the most unhelpful reaction is to stay too long with fear of what will happen and grief about what has been lost. Fear and grief can lead to total\u00a0PhD paralysis where you can\u2019t work at all<\/a>.\u00a0Combatting PhD paralysis is relatively easy if you know how \u2013 and being able to snap yourself out of this frozen state is a critical professional skill, even when there is no pandemic.<\/p>\n First you need to understand what is happening when you freeze and find yourself unable to work. PhD students \u2013 and fully fledged academics for that matter \u2013 are particularly prone to getting\u00a0The Yips (a sudden loss ability to do something you are usually good at)\u00a0<\/a>because we are over-thinkers at the best of times. We need to cut ourselves some slack about this tendency. Many of us are\u00a0functional perfectionists<\/a>\u00a0who work in a highly competitive (and highly critical<\/a>) industry. Let\u2019s add to that\u00a0precarious working conditions<\/a>\u00a0(with an unhealthy dependency on\u00a0hope labour)\u00a0<\/a>and it really makes you wonder how any creative work gets done at all. Good on us for the massive amount we do despite these factors, but it does help explain why one of the most beloved posts on the Thesis Whisperer is\u00a0The Valley of Shit<\/a>. In that post I described the \u2018academically stuck\u2019 state of mind like this:<\/p>\n The Valley of Shit is that period of your PhD, however brief, when you lose perspective \u2013 and therefore confidence and belief in yourself. There are a few signs you are entering into the Valley of Shit. You can start to think your whole project is misconceived or that you do not have the ability to do it justice. Or you might seriously question if what you have done is good enough and start feeling like everything you have discovered is obvious, boring and unimportant. As you walk deeper into the Valley of Shit it becomes more and more difficult to work and you start seriously entertaining thoughts of quitting.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The advice I offered in that original post applies just as much to working on a research project in a pandemic: just keep walking.\u00a0By \u2018walking\u2019 I mean just keep doing stuff that moves your project along, even if it seems pointless, or you worry that you\u2019ll have to throw it out later.<\/p>\n Valleys \u2013 even Valleys of Deep Shit \u2013 are not pits, but they can feel like it if you don\u2019t move. The longer you stand in one place, the longer you have to keep smelling those towering walls of brown stuff around you. Start with some work \u2013 any work \u2013 and build from there. Pick the thing you like doing the most if you can. If you can\u2019t, then just do something else that\u2019s vaguely useful: organise your filing system; bring your reference manager up to date; tidy your desk; tag images; process data; make tables and diagrams. Social tasks also help: read a book and commune with the author; ring up a friend, chat about your findings and what you reckon they mean (your friend might be grateful Covid is off the conversational menu!)<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the vitally important thing: whatever work you end up doing, take the pressure of yourself for it to be good or even \u2018useful\u2019. No one is really watching, so who cares if what you write is bad? So what if you have to throw out a wrong data analysis? If your research work is not affecting \u00a0other vital life stuff, like feeding your family, putting a roof over your head or being there for the people you love, it does not really matter. Keeping on with the Walking is the only way we get to the other side.<\/p>\n But remember: work cannot be \u2018normal\u2019. That\u2019s denial thinking. So here\u2019s my hot take: to get into a flow state, make your work more pleasurable. What you need, as Joli Jensen pointed out in \u00a0Write no matter what!<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>is frequent, low stakes interaction with your work, which will make it feel like a safer space. One way to do this is indulge your curiosity \u2013 only read stuff that\u2019s genuinely interesting, not because it\u2019s \u2018good for the project\u2019. Deliberately do \u2018unproductive\u2019 things \u2013 even if they are really deferment strategies. A classic one is editing your writing before you finish a rough draft \u2013 which\u00a0I normally try to stop people doing<\/a>, but if it brings you joy right now, have at it!<\/p>\n And please \u2013 clear the space of people who are not helping you be chill with your flow (as Thesis Whisperer Jnr would say). If you have a supervisor who is basically ignoring you, don\u2019t take it too much to heart \u2013 \u00a0use it as license to do whatever you want. If you\u2019ve got a supervisor who is putting pressure on you to \u2018do something useful while you are sitting around the house\u2019, tell them you are doing \u2018productive\u2019 stuff and tell them to leave you alone while you\u2019re at it. Personally, I\u2019m spending all of Monday writing this blog post; ignoring my email and \u2018to do list\u2019. It feels naughty \u2013 and you know what? The elusive flow state has been here for hours and hours. I feel better than I have all month. Give yourself\u00a0permission to go rogue for awhile. It\u2019s fun.<\/p>\n