Since it’s a new year, I’ve been having a bit of a reflective moment on my remaining work towards my dissertation and I’ve noticed what I think to be a bit of a pattern. I’m very good at working and am normally quite capable when in a group setting, but I really start to fail when it comes to anything individual. Most of my work this part semester feels like it’s the “keeping up appearances” version of content, and isn’t really anywhere close to where I feel I should be.

This isn’t the most ✨cv friendly✨ thing to really talk about (self-motivation, anyone?) but I feel like this near inability to actually put in effort without a large social motivator is something that at the very least needs mitigating. As much as a real solution to a general apathetic mood towards what a couple of years ago used to be a foundational pillar of my own identity, this project has a deadline and something substantial needs to land on a desk- or else.

I want to explore how having an “accountability partner/group” would work, reintroducing that social encouragement pressure to not be seen as slacking or failing. As much as I would prefer to not rely on a fear-based motivator for myself, it will probably work and I feel less inclined to make vague excuses towards them than I do my supervisor (sorry, Jeremy).

I’m also pretty drawn to the idea by some of @noopkat’s reasoning for streaming her open-source development- it gives her a reason to focus on the side-projects, if only for a couple of hours on a Sunday. Sadly, I’m fairly sure that I can’t get away with streaming my dissertation work (too much like collusion) but at least an offline version or something similar might have a comparable effect. I heard about the concept of an accountability partner in Alice Quinn Rose’s end of year summary stream, and since I know roughly how I work something similar might need to come into my productive life because whatever I have isn’t doing much right now.