Making Progress

My recommitment to the dissertation progress is going well this week. As planned I got up at 4:00 am and wrote for an hour. It really feels good starting the day having finished an hour's work on my dissertation. It's very motivating for coming back to spend an hour in the evening.

So this morning, I finished the section on Aum Shinkiyo. I've included it below for those who are interested. This evening, I began working on a definition of religious apocalypticism. I'll be sharing segments of that work as it comes together.

So, tomorrow my goal is another two hours of work, one in the morning and one in the evening. I will continue to build the definition of religious apocalypticism.

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Aum Shinkiyo and its leader, Shoko Asahara, gained the attention of the world in March 1995 when they released sarin gas into several Tokyo subway trains. According to Lifton (2003) Aum Shinrkiyo was a relatively small cultic group that acting upon its “vision of cosmic purification” (p. 57). The attack was not “apocalyptic” in its scope, killing only 12 persons. This limited loss of life occurred because Aum Shinkiyo knew Japanese authorities were closing in on the group, which caused the rushed execution of the attack. “The group’s plan had been to release enormous amounts of sarin later that year in order to create a major disaster and set in motion a series of catastrophic events and so fulfill its guru’s world-ending prophecies” (pp. 57, 58).

The cult was an eclectic mix of religious belief and practice. Its religious roots were Buddhist, but heavily influence by strains of early Tibetan Buddhism closely tied to Hinduism. In fact, Asahara, claimed Shiva, the Hindu world-destroying and restoring Hindu deity, as his personal god. Nevertheless, Asahara grounded his apocalyptic vision in the Christian concept of Armageddon. In addition, the group practiced high states of mystical experience often associated with New Age spirituality (pp 65, 66). Aum Shinkiyo’s aim was to be the sole survivors of an apocalyptic end of the world, who would “respiritualize a cleansed and vacant world” (p. 71).

Reference

Lifton, R. J. (2003). Superpower syndrome : America's apocalyptic confrontation with the world. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books.

When you can't sleep - Write!

Last night, I abruptly woke up and could not go back to sleep. So, I got up at spent two hours of quite writing time on my dissertation. This allowed me to meet my goal of 2 hours of writing time for today. Then, later this evening I did some reviewing, reading, and planning for my early morning writing tomorrow. In total, I spent 3.5 hours on my dissertation today.

For those of you interested in the content of my dissertation, here's what I wrote this morning.

Defining Apocalypticism

In constructing a definition of apocalypticism to guide this study, which embraces both the religious and secular expression apocalypticism, it is necessary to adopt a broad view of religious apocalypticism. While Christian apocalypticism is the most widely known form of apocalypticism in Western societies, apocalyptic thought both pre-dates Western civilization and extends beyond Western religious and cultural boundaries. Clifford (1998) traces the origins of apocalyptic thought to early Near Eastern cultures. The earliest extant literature is the Sumerian Lugal-e dating from the late third millennium (p. 7).

Seiwert (2000) documents the apocalyptic thought in the Chinese Daoist tradition beginning in the second century (CE). Then, an emergence of apocalyptic thought in Chinese Buddhism occurs in the fifth century. Siewert furthers our understanding of apocalypticism by underscoring its shared reference point with millenarianism, messianism, and eschatological speculation i.e. future events (p. 5). For Siewert, apocalypticism, within Chinese Buddhism, “denotes interpretations of history that predict and describe a catastrophic end of time” (p. 5).

Likewise, Peter Heine documents the messianic Islamic movement of the 18^th century in Haussaland (northern Nigeria). The leader of the movement, Sheikh Usman dan Fodio, was concerned about the corruption of Muslim religion in the area. Additionally, “there was a wide belief in the Muslim world that a Muslim world that a Mahdi would rise in the year 1200 Hidjra which corresponds to the year 1785/86 CE” (p. 70). Usman dan Fodio

Awaited the Mahdi to unravel the tangel of the times . . . He saw the world almost having run its course. Whatever reforms he might introduce . . . they were but a temporary expedient. Mankind had reached the point where it was not longer salvable by human agency . . . Hope lay only in the ultimate millennium . . . To prepare for the Mahdi was to play his appointed part in the divine order ( Hiskett cited in Heine, p. 73).

In this brief sampling of religious apocalypticism outside of the Christian tradition, we have observed its formation in the early Sumerian religious thought, its manifestation in medieval Chinese Buddhism, and it 18^th century manifestation among Muslims in Sub-Saharan Africa. The point, bearing reiteration here, is that apocalypticism in its religious expression far exceeds the boundaries of its Judeo-Christian expression. Lest one think this apocalyptic religious diversity is limited to the past, the Japanese Aum Shinrkyo offers an example from the late 20^th Century.

My writing plan for tomorrow morning is to write on Aum Shinrkyo.

References

Clifford, R. J. (1998). The roots of Apocalypticism in Near Eastern myth. In J. J. Collins (Ed.), The encyclopedia of apocalypticism (Vol. 1). New York: Continuum.

Heine, P. (2000). I am not the Mahdi, But . . . In A. I. Baumgarten (Ed.), Apocalyptic time. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

Seiwert, H. (2000). End of time and new time in medieval Chinese Buddhism. In A. I. Baumgarten (Ed.), Apocalyptic time. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

On Target with WR Time Tracker

I accomplished my writing goals for today. I was able to put in 5 hours of work on my dissertation. This allowed me to write about 4 pages of material, which is the most progress that I've made in several weeks.

I used WR Time Tracker, a free web-based project management application, to keep track of my progress through the day. You can have as many activities pertaining to your dissertation as you like and keep track of how much time you spend on those activities. A very nice feature is that it gives you a pie chart so you have a visual representation of how much time you spend on each activity (see screen shot to the left).

In addition, I detailed a proposed outline for finishing this section of my literature review. Here it is:

(1) Fukuyama review
(2) Define apocalypticism (2 branches)
(3) Pervasiveness of both branches
(4) Apocalyptic terror brings these branches together (first time in modern history to face this kind of threat - Kurth)
(5) Summary of sub-section
(6) Summary of section

Actually, I finished the Fukuyama review today. May goals for tomorrow are:

1) on hour of writing before work tomorrow. This means I'm up at 4:00 am.
2) in that our I will define the two branches of apocalypticism
3) tomorrow evening, I will spend on hour revising and planning my writing for the following day.

Perceptions of Apocalypticism in Contemporary Culture

This third sub-section of the first major topic in my literature review. It defines the concept of apocalypticism in contemporary culture through an exploration of the scholarly study of apocalypticism. It is this stream of scholarship that identifies (a) the historical and geo-cultural scope of apocalypticism and (b) the evidences of apocalypticism in contemporary culture. This section concludes with a discussion of the implications of apocalypticism in contemporary culture.

The following paragraph is the last paragraph I wrote in this section.

The American Interest magazine in 2006 assembled a diverse group of analysts, practitioners, policymakers and unconventional thinkers to consider why the future is so difficult to predict and how societies and governments might avoid the surprise of low probably, yet high impact events. One of the products of the conference is a collection of essays and discussions titled Blindside: How to Anticipate Forcing Events and Wild cards in Global Politics (Fukuyama, 2007).

The following comments state what I plan to work on tomorrow. I plan to spend at least 5 hrs on my dissertation tomorrow.

Here I want to talk about catastrophe and suffering and apocalypticsm found in Posner’s essay and then the possibility of moving toward uptopia in Easterbrook’s comments. This source is found in Ebrary.

I need another non-religious book here. There should be some discussion of the co-existence of the secular and religious apocalypticism. See quotes from Blumenberg in Apocalyptic Time and Peter Berger article in the online version of the American Interest. The books on political and religious terrorism also illustrate this. Then I can offer a working definition. Then proceed to a discussion of the pervasiveness of apocalypticism in contemporary culture.

Tune in tomorrow to for a report on what actually happened

Recommitting to the Process

I really do want to finish my dissertation, but I've made little progress in the past month. So, I have to change things up. Today, I signed up for The Secrets of Dissertation Success coaching site. It has valuable practical helps in various media forms and 2 email coaching sessions per month for a relatively low cost. Follow this link to find more.

Step two: I revised by time line as follows:

9-May	Graduation!!!
1-Apr	Revisions complete
15-Mar	Final Defense
1-Mar	Chapter 5 finished
1-Jan	Chapter 4 finished
1-Nov	Proposal Defended and Accepted
25-Sep	Chapter 3 finished
25-Jul	Chapter 2 finished
25-May	Recommit to process

Step 3: I have to make promises to myself that I can deliver on. I think I really need to invest 20 hours a week to meet the schedule above. So, that means 2 hours a day Monday through Friday and 10 hours over the weekend. I am going to try this, quick track of the time I am spending, and revise as necessary. I plan to write at least 1 hour before I go to work and I'll use an hour in the evening for reading and preparing my writing session for the next day.

Step 4: I'll journal my daily promises here and to monitor if I am keeping them.

True Confessions

Since my last major post entitled If You Keep Doing What You've Been Doing, You Will Keep Getting What You Have Been Getting, I haven't been following my own advice.

I started out well writing 200 words and rewarding myself. However, gradually, I drifted back into old habits and making little progress. You might say, I started doing what I had been doing and I got the same results that I had been getting. What went wrong?

1) My environment changed - slowly. Since January, may work load at work has gradually increased, and more recently, dramatically increased. I did not read the changes in my environment and make appropriate adjustments in my commitments to the dissertation process. Consequently, in order to deal with the increasing pressure at work - I allowed myself to drift back in to my old unproductive habits.

2) I did not regularly review my commitments i.e. writing 200 words and rewarding myself and writing in the mornings before work.

What do I plan to do about it?

1) recommit myself to my commitments and attempt to stay attentive to how to adopt them to my environment. I intend to start writing 200 words with a reward and writing again in the morning. However, I may need to adjust my morning writing to burst of a few days or 1 week. It is difficult, for me, to sustain weeks of getting up at 3:00 am to write.

2) Make a small change. I often find Nancy Wichard's blog Successful Writing Tips helpful in jump starting my writing process. In her post Three Quick Fixes to Jolt You into Action on Your Dissertation (see RSS feed in left column), she proposes putting a short cut on your desktop for your dissertation so it is only one click away. Well, I cleaned up my desktop so there are only 8 icons on my desktop (including my dissertation). Then I gave my dissertation a distinctive green arrow icon. The green arrow icon makes the dissertation easy to identify and the image, for me, symbolizes forward action - get going!

Points to Ponder
Has your environment been slowly or rapidly changing around you and causing you to drop your dissertation as you, perhaps unconsciously, attempt to navigate the changes? What do you need to do to adjust your commitment to your dissertation to your changing environment?

Thank You for Supporting this Blog!

I looked at my stats for this site for a first time in months. There have been over 650 unique visitors to this blog, many of whom appear to be returning on a regular basis. Thanks for supporting the Writing My Dissertation in 15 Minuets a Day blog. I'm delighted that people are apparently finding something useful here.

I'd really like to hear what you find most useful about this blog, so I can provide more of that content. So, feel free to leave a comment.

If You Keep Doing What You've Been Doing, You'll Keep Getting what You've Been Getting

It's been a long time since I made a post to this blog. That's because I've really been struggling with this dissertation. Even though I've been making steady progress, it has been extremely slow progress. So slow in fact, that it appears almost impossible that I will reach my goal of graduating in May.

In coaching teams, I have often use the phrase that titles this blog entry: If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting. It is truly insane to think that if you are not happy with the results you are getting in a certain project that you can get different results by continuing to do what you've been doing - or worse yet - by doing more of what you've been doing!

So, over the course of the past month I've been trying to change the way I do things in regard to this dissertation project. So, what did I change?

Well, I know that my mind is quicker and fresher in the morning, but I've been working on my dissertation in the evenings after work when I'm already spent. So, I changed the time I work on my dissertation. I get up two hours earlier in the morning and work on my dissertation before I go to work. The advantage is that by time I go to work, I know I've already made progress on the dissertation and that feels very good! I also go to bed two hours earlier in the evening.

However, it has not been enough. Even though, I was putting the time in first thing in the morning, which for me was a major step in the right direction - progress was still slow. Thankfully, yesterday I read one of the RSS feeds on this blog, What to do if you are not making the progress that you want. This article talks about setting reasonable goals and rewarding yourself for making those goals.

So, yesterday, I set the goal of writing at least 200 words daily - 6 days a week. This may not sound like much but the cumulative effect is astounding. If you calculate that 200 words is about 1 double spaced page of typed text then in about 6 months you have a 200 page dissertation, which is about the page range I expect for my work. Of course, this assumes everything you write is usable, which I am not naive enough to think that! However, if you look at it over the course of a year, writing 200 words 6 days a week, would give you double the amount of material you need for a 200 page dissertation. So, in that scenario you only need a 50% usability rate!

I tried it yesterday, and I felt like a made more progress in that one day, than I had in the past week. Of course, I wrote more than 200 words. However, I rewarded myself after the 200 the first two hundred words with a break to play my baroque recorder. After the second set of 200, I rewarded myself by doing some personal internet browsing.

I just finished my first 200 words for today, and my reward is spending some time posting to this blog - which I wanted to do for some time, but felt guilty for taking the time away from the dissertation that I was not making much progress on.

Feel like your not making progress? Read some of the RSS feeds on this page for some ideas on things you can change about how you are approaching the process. Ask yourself what can I change today? Then just do it - and keep changing as often as necessary!