Self-direction

Creating a writing habit

Writing is such an important part of being a researcher and the dread of writing or not being able to find the time to write, can nag away at us and take up time and space that we could be using for something else. This raises the question about whether writing is a resilience builder or a resilience drainer for you and what you might do about it? Senior academics talk about the importance of writing every day, writing regularly and having a sense of what they are writing now and planning to write in the future. Professor Sarah Moore, from the University of Limerick, talks about having a writing strategy for papers that is ‘one in my head, one on the desk, one out for review – one in, one on, one out’ and many have a practice that is about writing something, however small, every day.