390: Low Energy Writing Strategies: How to Keep Writing with Limited Capacity

390: Low-Energy Writing Strategies: How to Keep Writing with Limited Capacity

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Dra Yvette Martinez-Vu: This week, I worked with several one-on-one and group coaching clients who have hard deadlines on some pretty major projects, but they're working with very little energy. If you don't know this already, I work with college students, graduate students, and full-time working professionals. Some of them are working on a dissertation or a thesis or a prospectus or an incomplete, or maybe they have a major report that's due at work.

In many cases, they know what to do. They have a general sense of what's expected of them, but they may be sleep deprived. They might be caregiving after children or elderly parents. They're traveling or moving, or they're dealing with chronic illness, disability, burnout, or an unusually demanding season, both at work and at home.

And sometimes several of these things are happening at once. This prompted me to want to address the topic for today, which [00:01:00] is about what do you do when you have a major project that's due and you're having to get it done with less than ideal circumstances and very little energy? I'm gonna share several strategies for writing when you have energy that is low, and I'm gonna share some real scenarios that I've encountered with clients. So let's get into it.

Welcome to the award-winning Grad School Femtoring Podcast, the place where first-generation BIPOC students and professionals can listen in on inclusive grad school stories and gain practical tools for sustainable success. This is Doctora Yvette Martinez-Vu, a certified coach, consultant, author, and speaker.

I will be serving as your femtor, providing you with insider knowledge to help you thrive in [00:02:00] grad school and beyond.

Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, Doctora Yvette. Today, we're talking about low energy writing strategies, and let's jump straight in because I have several to share. I think it's about 10 that I'm gonna be sharing. And the first one is to start with the capacity that you have instead of starting with your to-do list.

I found that a lot of times when an individual start their workday, they'll ask themselves, "Well, what do I need to get done today, or this week, or this month?" And the first thing that they do is they jump to their to-do list. But when you're working with limited energy, I want you to add another question to that.

I want you to start with, what capacity do I have available today or right now? Those are two completely different things. You might have five things that need to get [00:03:00] done today, but only enough cognitive capacity for one of them. Maybe you have two hours available, but you can only really focus for one of those hours.

Maybe you have a full day blocked off for writing, but you can already tell your brain is telling you that deep analytical work is not going to happen. Your calendar can say how much time you have, but your capacity is gonna tell you the kind of work that you can realistically get done. And so before you begin, you want to check in by asking yourself, on a scale of one to 10, how much mental and/or physical energy do I have today?

And similarly, on a scale of one to 10, how much can I focus today? And if you selected between one and four for those answers, you can assume that today is a low capacity day. That might mean choosing a simpler, familiar, or rote task. If you were between five and seven, then today might be a medium capacity day, [00:04:00] and maybe today you can outline, you can organize, you can summarize, or you could revise some work.

And if your answer was between eight and 10, then today might be a high capacity day for you, where you can draft, analyze, synthesize, or make some harder decisions about your project.

Now let's jump into the second strategy, which is to sort out your work according to the amount of energy it requires.

So I started talking about this with the first strategy around starting with your capacity. You want to think about the types of tasks that you can get done based on the amount of energy they require. Let's say you're writing a thesis. A high energy task might include synthesizing several studies, drafting a new section of your lit review.

A medium energy task might be revising something you've already written, and then a low energy task might mean adding some citations, organizing your references, rereading a section, formatting [00:05:00] headings, or leaving comments about what you need to do next. And the same principle works outside of academic work too.

Maybe you're writing a report for work, and the high energy task would mean analyzing your findings and determining your recommendations. Medium energy work might mean turning an existing outline into bullet points, and low energy work might involve formatting a graph, organizing your notes, or proofreading something that you've already written.

Now you have a couple of options, and that's why I want you to do this work of differentiating between what requires what type of energy from your project, so that way when you're sitting down with a low energy day, you don't have to figure out how to force yourself to do a high energy task. You can instead match the task to the energy you have.

The third strategy is to find the beginning and end before worrying about [00:06:00] everything that happens in the middle.

And this strategy actually came up during a group coaching call. What was going on is that I was coaching someone through a project that needs to be completed over about 10 weeks. And when this person started talking through everything involved, one of the first things we did was have them identify where the project begins and also where it ends.

And for that, we needed to figure out, okay, what's the actual tangible outcome that's required for this project to be complete? And once we knew those two things, we could work backward. And this is something you can do with any major project. If you're working on a chapter of a book, where does this begin?

What needs to exist for this draft to be considered complete? If you're writing a proposal, what needs to be submitted? If you're working on a report, what sections need to exist in the final document? You don't need to know [00:07:00] every single step, but you do need to have enough information to know where you're starting and to know where you're ending.

And sometimes having that gives you enough for you to have a general sense of where you're heading next.

Strategy four is to turn the long-term project into a short-term project. Let's say something is due in several months. It is likely hard for you to wrap your mind around what to do when. So in this case, you want to break it down.

Turn it into a timeline. What needs to happen this week? What needs to happen next week? What can happen simultaneously? What depends on someone else? What has to happen before anything else can begin? And then you can also do this month by month. For example, when I work with graduate admissions clients, they usually begin by working on [00:08:00] a timeline together.

So they'll start working with me usually in the summer, sometimes in early fall, and they have December through February deadlines. When we're working on a timeline, we're listing out what they have to get done each month until the deadline. That way, they're not stressing out over all the things that they have to do and trying to do everything at once, and instead they can focus on the top three to four tasks that they know they have to complete this month.

The next strategy is helpful if you're especially struggling with your executive functioning skills.

You want to make the next action painfully specific, almost ridiculously specific. So instead of writing down on your planner that you need to work on a presentation, that's too broad. It requires too many decisions because then you gotta think about, "Where do I start? What slide should I work on? What does this slide need?

What research and [00:09:00] resources do I need? How long should I work?" Instead, write down an action that tells you exactly what to do, and a lot of my clients lately have been really enjoying doing this as a checklist. So for example, they'll start a checklist, and the first step is ... It's almost silly how easy it is.

It'll say something like, "Okay, step one, open a new blank presentation. Then create the title slide. Then add placeholder slides for each major section. Then copy the information you have available." That might mean copy your research questions into the research questions slide. That's a very different way to start than telling yourself more vaguely that you're just gonna work on a presentation.

And none of this actually requires you writing anything new yet, but you're creating the container first, and sometimes having that set structure or container is what can help you write. This [00:10:00] is why so many of us outline to begin with.

The next strategy is to start with what you know best, and this also came up when I was coaching someone recently.

They were preparing an important presentation under a tight deadline. They had already worked on some written material, but they hadn't turned it into slides yet. And instead of having them begin with the first slide and go through the presentation chronologically, I encouraged this individual to start with the work that they knew best.

So if, you know, you're working with limited energy, it can help by not focusing and starting on the hardest thing. Start with whatever offers you the least resistance. Maybe you already know your research questions, so you're gonna add that in. Maybe you feel pretty good about your methods, so you're gonna start there.

Maybe you already have a set number of findings that you know you're [00:11:00] gonna articulate in your presentation, so you're gonna write that down. Give yourself an entry point that feels relatively easeful or more approachable. And sometimes that little bit of progress will give you enough momentum so that then you can start to tackle the harder slides or the harder sections.

If you're feeling stuck in grad school or navigating a major professional transition, personalized coaching from a certified coach can make a meaningful difference. I offer one-on-one coaching for first gen and/or BIPOC graduate students and professionals who want structure and compassionate support while working toward important goals.

Together, we can create action plans that align with your capacity, your responsibilities, and your long-term vision. Clients often come to coaching when they are preparing for major milestones like qualifying exams, defending a proposal, finishing [00:12:00] dissertations, exploring new career paths, or building sustainable systems that work for them.

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The next strategy is to use previous work as a scaffold. You don't always have to start from scratch. Maybe you've worked on something similar before, and so you can figure out what you can reuse as a structure. Maybe you have an old presentation that can become a template. Maybe your organization has sample reports.

Maybe you've written a similar paper. Maybe someone in your program successfully completed this milestone and they're sharing what they did with you. [00:13:00] Recently, I worked with someone who was working on a project, and this project happened to have a lot in common with another project that they had worked on already.

And so instead of starting things from scratch, I could ask her, "Well, what worked last time? What was the structure like? Can you replicate that structure? What needs to change this time?" And so you're treating this previous work as your scaffold, so that way you're not constantly reinventing the wheel.

Reuse things when you can, have templates when you can, have samples when you can, because all of this can serve as an executive functioning strategy.

The next strategy is to reduce any unnecessary scope. And I see this happen a lot with folks who feel guilt and shame about their low energy and low capacity.

They feel so bad that they feel like they cannot produce good [00:14:00] quality work, and so they wanna overcompensate by trying to do more. And when you have low capacity, you really need to focus on prioritizing what is especially important because you probably don't have the time and energy to be adding more to your work.

You might be thinking, "Oh, I'll, I'll just add another source," or, "I just need to extend my analysis," or, "I just need to add another interview," and so forth. But instead of adding more, you should be asking yourself, "What is absolutely essential for me to meet my goal?" And if that's not essential, put it somewhere else.

Put it on a parking lot doc or put it in a maybe later doc because completing a project within your available capacity is better than not completing it at all because you've been focusing all of your time on trying to come up with this elaborate project that you can never finish. I'm getting frustrated right now because I see this happen time and time [00:15:00] again.

You're working on a deadline that's a hard deadline, and so you need to protect the essential work. Figure out what the required parameters are. What is essential? Is it a set number of pages? Is it a set number of sources? Is it a set number of sections? And that's what you need to focus on instead of adding to the work because you feel bad and because it's never going to be good enough.

The next strategy is to identify your highest priority sections.

Again, going back to the topic of prioritization, that is one of the biggest themes of today's episode, is that you need to figure out what is essential. Because you cannot give every part of your project equal attention, and so you don't. You need to figure out, okay, what sections are most important to complete?

What sections are most important that they be as solid as possible for my advisor or my [00:16:00] supervisor or my committee member or my editor or my audience? What do they care about most? What needs to be my strongest section? Where would additional energy have the greatest impact? And protect that. Protect your time and energy for those sections.

If you know you only have one good hour to focus today, maybe that hour goes to developing the main thing, which is the central argument, instead of formatting your references.

And then another strategy is to let other people help you. Let other people support your executive functioning. One of the great things that I've noticed about group coaching is how often someone will come into a session feeling overwhelmed, and then they leave feeling more clear about what they need to do, feeling grateful for the space because they've had an opportunity to say the stressful things out loud, and to get support in the process.[00:17:00]

And just so you have a sense of what group coaching looks like, in my own group coaching program, I do live coaching and at the end of that coaching call, I also open it up to feedback and suggestions from the group. So they're not just getting coaching from me, they're also getting feedback, suggestions, advice.

And so sometimes someone will say something out loud and someone else will notice some of the things that they're not noticing. They'll say, "Oh, based on what you said, it sounds like this is what you need to do first." Or, "It sounds like you have most of what you need to get this done." Or, "Could you structure this based on your last project that you talked about?"

This is where it's so helpful to be part of writing communities, writing groups, coaching, accountability partners, having a really helpful and supportive advisor, working with an editor, working [00:18:00] with helpful colleagues or other peer communities, because they don't just provide encouragement. Sometimes support can also reduce your cognitive load, and sometimes community can also be an executive functioning support. All right.

So I wanna close with one last strategy that addresses a really hard situation that y'all might be in right now. What happens when you have a hard deadline and an extension isn't available and high capacity moments never come? Yes, this happens. Yes, this is true. Yes, this is the story of my life, my client's life.

It's real. So what do you do then? At that point, you need to stop saving the hardest work for a future version of you with more energy that never comes. Instead, you need to consider how to complete this [00:19:00] high energy task with low capacity. That might look like you're turning your analysis into a series of questions that you answer one at a time.

That might look like speaking your ideas into a voice memo before you turn them into sentences. That might look like writing in bullet points. That might look like using an existing template. That might look like working alongside others. That might look like asking someone to help you with figuring out the sequence of steps you need to follow to get this done. And that also looks like deciding what the minimum acceptable version of the project requires.

And I know this is not easy, and I know this is not fun, but you need to figure out what absolutely has to be included for you to submit it and for it to be passable or good enough. And again, I want you to think about word counts, page limits, required sections, minimum number of [00:20:00] sources, you name it. You need parameters, and you need to know the minimum of what will be acceptable.

And you need to be okay with some portions of the project being brief or imperfect or less developed. And you need to be okay with sometimes there's some things that in an ideal world you would have loved to add that are nice to have but that you don't have time for right now.

So you might remove that right now, or you might remove it from your to-do list, or you might add it for when you revise this project later. This is writing triage. You need to make deliberate decisions about where your limited capacity will have the greatest impact. And yes, it's true that the final project might look different from what you originally imagined.

It might be less polished. It might be less ambitious, and I know there's grief, there's disappointment with that, [00:21:00] but it can still be complete and good enough to meet the deadline and to help you move on to the next thing. So I just wanna mention that. And I also wanna mention that sometimes low capacity for you might be temporary.

It might just be a busy season for you and for others, myself included, sometimes that low capacity is the norm. You might be living with chronic illnesses or disability, and this is your ongoing reality, and this is your new normal. And the goal is not to wait until you become this idealized version of yourself that has a lot more energy and capacity.

The goal is to develop ways of working that honors your current reality and to access support and to ask for accommodations and to get help whenever you can. And even if you're someone that has low capacity regularly, [00:22:00] please remember that there are ways for you to develop a version of a project that you can complete with your current circumstances, with your current capacity, with support, and with the time that you have.

So just to close things out, if you're working with limited capacity and limited energy right now, please know that you are required to make intentional choices about what you do and how you do it and what kind of support you need. Your progress might look smaller, slower, or less polished than others and how you originally envisioned, and yet it's still progress.

It still counts. Start with what you have. Match your tasks to the energy that you have. Break the work down. Reduce the scope wherever you can, and let other people help you. And if you'd like support applying these strategies to your own work, to your own [00:23:00] thesis, your own grad school application, your own career transition, or any other long-term project, please reach out so I can share more about my one-on-one and group coaching services.

We can work together to help you with clarifying your priorities, breaking things down, and making sure you have a flexible plan that you can follow. So you can learn more about my services through the link in the show notes. And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend, share it with a colleague, share it with anyone who might need to hear this message.

Thanks again for listening. That's it for today, and as always, I'll talk to you all next time.

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