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Should you think about your reader in your writing process?

What’s the best way to think about your reader when you’re in the middle of your writing process? Should you think about your reader? And if you should, how might you go about doing that?

My short answer is: it depends.

It depends a lot on the type of writing you are doing.

To explain more about what I mean, I’ll address how you might think about your reader in two contexts: 1) in professional writing, and 2) in creative writing.

Professional writing

When I say “professional writing,” I don’t mean writing as your profession. I mean writing in professional contexts, which pretty much applies to anyone who has any kind of profession. If you are writing to clients and colleagues, if you are writing to communicate as part of your work, then you are writing in professional contexts.

To boil it down, professional writing is about being direct and clear. Because of this, I usually think of my reader often.

I tend to think very regularly about things like: what the reader’s experience might be in relationship to the topic, how much knowledge they bring, and their potential perspective. I think about how much extra context I might need to include in what I’m writing, among other things. So, the reader is very much at the front of my thinking as I’m going through the professional writing process.

Creative Writing

With creative writing you are trying to create a different kind of relationship with your reader through what you are producing. You may be engaging them intellectually, but also potentially emotionally. You are likely using different devices, such as metaphor, alliteration, narrative or dramatic structure, among others. Your relationship with your future reader may not necessarily be so direct as it is in professional writing. There may be a kind of playfulness, experimentation and uncertainty with you creative writing process as well.

Given these contexts, I tend to try not to think about my reader, especially early in my process when I’m in that playful, exploratory stage. In the early stages I am usually still figuring things out about what I am even writing.

What can you think about, if not your reader?

I recommend three things.

The first is the material. That could be the ideas, the feelings, the context, the particular historical moment, any social issues, cultural values, political slant, political critique, among many other contexts.

Especially early in your creative process, you may not know all of the pieces yet. You might just have an inkling, or you may have a taste. Perhaps you are working with an image that is starting off your exploration. Ultimately, there could be a lot of uncertainty, so you want to focus on a rich exploration and any additional research to better understand how different contexts might or might not link together.

The second thing you want to consider is yourself. Pay attention to yourself and your relationship to the material, to the social issues, to the historical context, to the cultural values, to those feelings, and your own response to ideas and feelings, among other pieces.

The third thing you want to attend to is the form. Is this poetry? Is this a short story? A novel? A play? The form will have certain structures that can help you, and that you can push against and play around with. You want to be aware of those conventions so you can engage with them well and strategically, and so you can ultimately engage your reader or audience through your project.

So those three things: the material, yourself, and the form.

I think there can almost be a danger in thinking about the reader too early because there is the risk you will start to contrive your writing towards your preconceived ideas of what you think your reader might want. This has the potential to take away from your focus on the material and contexts of what you are writing, as well as the form you are working within.

You need to be focusing on what the project needs.

David Bowie famously said that, when he was creating, he would not play to the gallery. He was not creating for other people. He was creating for himself and to understand his own relationship with the world; his own relationship to social issues and cultural values, among other aspects.

When I hear something like that from someone who is really good at their craft, I pay attention.

I took it to mean that he doesn’t necessarily think about his audience at the forefront of his creative process. Rather he’s using his own life experience as a frame to be able to interpret.

That said, I am not opposed to challenging that idea just a little bit. At some point you, as the creator, can start to think about your audience. This happens when you start to think about questions like: what’s the best way to craft this story? What is going to resonate in a strong way?

Indirectly, these are questions about your audience and your reader.

But what’s important about those questions is that they don’t become about giving the reader exactly what you think they might want. You can use those questions to think critically about crafting a really good piece of writing.

You can check out my YouTube video: What about your reader?

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Sometimes ‘less is more’ when designing a good presentation

I was chatting with a former student recently about giving a guest lecture. As a new grad student, he was in the throes of preparing to give his first and was asking for advice (so exciting!).

My big overarching message to him:

Less is more.

For reals.

I see a whole lotta “more is more” out there in the world, and let me tell you, it really isn’t. More is often way too much. Crafting a good presentation isn’t an all you can eat buffet (which can be awesome!). It’s about helping people learn and engage, which is a different kind of value than being stuffed.

Your audience really needs “just enough” information to understand the big ideas or main skills that you are trying to engage them with. In a lecture or presentation especially, there is only so much information a person can take in. So while you might be super excited to share All The Things (“look at all those exciting WEEDS!”), your audience is often just trying to wrap their brains around what you’re even talking about. This is especially true if you are speaking across disciplines or industries, or to audiences that are newer to your topic.

How do you make sure you are giving “just enough” as part of designing a good presentation? Here are some ideas:

Focus on the change you hope will happen for your audience through your presentation. What do you hope they’ll take away? Where do you hope they’ll end up? Think high level, and keep it high – use descriptions, examples and details ONLY to highlight those higher level aims.
Build in pauses. If you are using PowerPoint, add a 5-10 second pause after each slide change to give people the chance to look before you start speaking again. Sometimes I literally write into my speaking notes “sip water here” so the audience has a moment to breathe and reflect on what I just said.
Use different types of strategies to engage your audience rather than just giving information, like a traditional lecture. Tell a story, ask them a question or two, discuss something visual (chart, image, whatever is relevant!). This will also slow you down.
Write your presentation to an approximate word count – this is especially useful if you are newer to presenting. How do you figure out the number of words? Set your timer for one minute, and start reading a page or two of text aloud at a nice, conversational pace (read: chill). When the timer goes off, count the number of words and write it down (highlight what you’ve read on your screen and use the “word count” feature to help you!). Repeat this several times with different text, and take the average of the word count totals. Then multiply your average “spoken words per minute” by the number of minutes you have to present to find the approximate word count for your presentation (so, if you speak approximately 150 per minute, and you have a 10 minute presentation, you should write a presentation that is approximately 1500 words).
Build your presentation for less time than you have been allotted. You’ve been told you have 45 minutes? Create a 40 minute lecture.
When you have a good draft, practice and time yourself. Edit accordingly.

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Some Thoughts on Leaving Academia

Possibilities on The Other Side

I get a lot of questions from folks considering leaving academia about what work will be like on The Other Side. The crux of what they seem to be asking is: “Will I continue to be independent? Will I have agency?”

When I was contemplating leaving, these were some of my biggest fears too.

Academia was actually the second stage of my career. I had worked as an independent artist and creative entrepreneur before turning to academia, so I had an inkling that my skills and contributions from that part of my life would likely be of use. But my sovereignty as a creative and a thinker was important to me, and imagining what work might be like on the outside left me worried that I would be constrained by the 9-5 life.

For some perspective, I was burning out in academia.

You’ve likely heard it before:

Very mixed past academic work experiences that were peppered with great colleagues, a good deal of meaningful research and teaching, and some truly exploitive and demoralizing experiences fueled by gaslighting that overtook the good stuff
Unsustainable and fluctuating income and employment (by the time I left I had landed a contract, part-time non-tenure track role, that I bolstered with additional research and writing contracts – these contracts followed a pandemic-induced 18-month period of unemployment after a dismaying postdoc)
And a professional future which looked even more bleak given the state of higher education at the time (which is now, in 2025, looking even worse), despite accolades, accomplishments, and very hard work over most of my professional career.

I won’t dwell on the decision-making other than to say that, practically speaking, I knew I had to leave.

Yes, it felt existential – cue Billie Eilish “What was I made for?”

Once I was resolved, I had to find my path out. I reflected not just on what I could do and where I could go, but what work would look like and what that would mean for my life. In academia, I was used to having a fair amount of agency in terms of how I structured my days, my comings and goings, how I formulated my research and designed my teaching. Wouldn’t a “regular job” be confining? I’d just be doing someone else’s bidding, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t it be… boring?

Now that I’m on The Other Side, I’ve found that the answer is “kinda,” but also “not really.” I also now reflect that academia wasn’t nearly as independent as I perceived.

Teaching/work schedules, funding body priorities, institutional values/priorities, organizational expectations about in-person or hybrid work, the particular contract shaping your role – these and more affect the kind of agency you as an individual worker have in your workplace. This is true in academia as much as it is outside.

At the time of writing this post, I have been working for my current employer for approximately 17 months – my provincial government in Canada. In my role, I have both some agency and also some limitations (as to be expected).

Sure, I work approximately 9-5, but I’ll emphasize the word “approximately.” I have the flexibility to start a little later or earlier depending on what’s going on in my life. As long as I’m putting in the time, attending all my meetings, available when my manager needs me, and getting the work done, my manager generally doesn’t hover. My employer requires that I be in the office three days a week, but I can choose which days I’m in or not. Plus, when my laptop shuts at the end of the day, I don’t touch it until morning.

Of course, not all workplaces on the outside are like this, but this has been my experience so far.

Is the work deeply meaningful and fulfilling all the time? Nope. Is it sometimes meaningful, do I work with excellent colleagues, have a steady income, and feel like I’m contributing to something decent in a way that is sustainable for my life? Very much so.

All of this to say, I am finding my way.

My current full-time job has offered me an important step to a more sustainable life. It’s opened up space in different ways: I worked with a therapist to help me process my grief and career transition, I’ve picked up hobbies, I workout 5 days a week, I have started a newsletter which is fueled by my program of research and teaching, specifically about building creative and humanity-centred lives and workplaces, and I’ve started to take on some writing and thought leadership strategy clients.

To return to my colleagues’ initial query, “Will I have agency?” My answer is Yes.

Why writing in one sitting can overwhelm you

(but you have options!)

Imagine trying to cook a full-course meal in one go—without prepping ingredients, measuring anything, or even turning on the stove first. Overwhelming, right?

The same can be said for writing.

Maybe you know that writing is an awesome and powerful thing, but you also kind of dread it. And maybe you think sitting down in one go and writing as much as you can all at once will lessen the pain… (believe me, I’ve done it!)

But this approach can backfire. It usually makes things harder.

Why?

It’s relying on sheer will to get the project done. In reality, writing takes several interrelated stages. Not planning for those stages, or at minimum not being aware of them, can leave you feeling like you have to hunker down, power through, and hope that words will fly out of your fingers on the keyboard. Not an effective strategy!

You can improve your writing! Understanding the three-stages of writing can help you organize yourself: your process, your time, your energy, and your technique.

These three-stages can be applied to any writing process – from writing a professional email, to writing your newest opus. Each stage will look different depending on the form, but the same overarching stages still apply.

Stage 1 – Information Gathering / Research

What are you writing about? Take time to collect some information to include in your writing.

The type information you collect is going to look different depending on the form of your project. Collecting data that you will publish in a peer-reviewed scientific journal is going to look very different from noticing and documenting personal experiences that will inform your poetry. But ultimately these different approaches are all types of “research.”

Stage 2 – Writing / Analysis

This is the stage most of us associate with writing (aka “sitting down and plunking words into the keyboard”). I like to think of this stage more broadly as “analysis”.

Why?

Writing is analysis. This means you are making sense of the information you’ve gathered and shaping it into your writing project so others will engage with the ideas. Selecting language, or putting words to the information, is one part of the work. But you also need to consider how the ideas will be organized, how the project will be structured so the ideas and material will be received by your reader/audience.

But more than that, this stage takes place beyond sitting at your computer and typing – and this is why I like to think of this stage more broadly as “analysis.” You’ll make connections between ideas in the strangest of places, away from your keyboard. Like in the grocery line, walking your kids to school, making dinner, etc. Suddenly you have an idea, or you see a link! This kind of thinking or processing “counts” as analysis.

When this happens, jot the idea in your notebook, or take a voice note. You can come back to it when you’re sitting at your computer, and the analysis will continue, as you continue to put words to the ideas.

Stage 3 – Feedback

The last stage is feedback. Is this resonating with people? Is it making sense to them? Is it engaging them in the ways that you’re hoping it’s going to engage?

You can act as your own “feedback provider” – meaning that you can step away from your writing, and return to it with fresh eyes. This way you can try to read your draft as someone new would read it (and adapt your writing based on what you are seeing/reading). But for some projects, particularly longer ones, you will likely want to get feedback from another person at different stages of your process.

You want to think carefully about who you ask for feedback. You’ll need someone who can provide good, rich feedback and help your work become stronger. But you also want to think about how they provide that feedback. Lots of people, frankly, aren’t that great at the “how” part. They might know about their own response. But they may not be strong at crafting their thoughts in ways that will help you learn and grow, and that will help you apply those ideas to your project.

Some additional thoughts

Of course, these three stages are not quite so linear in practice. You don’t do all of your research at once, put a little bow around it when the stage is done, and move on to your writing stage.

But even though the process isn’t that neat, it’s still helpful to think about these overarching stages as a reference point. So when you’re in the middle of your writing and you do become overwhelmed or tired, you’ve have a framework to help guide you.

For example, maybe you’ve been working on a particular section for a long time and it’s starting to feel frustrating and overwhelming. You can take a step back, and look at these stages to help orient yourself. You can ask: “Where am I in these three stages?”

Maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed because you feel too close to what you’ve been writing. It would be helpful to revisit the research that you did, and dive into that material again, to see it in a new way.

Or maybe you realize that you don’t have enough information to proceed, and you’re frustrated because you don’t have enough “fuel.” You decide to go back to that research stage to collect more information, do a little bit more digging and exploring.

Or maybe you’re feeling frustrated and tired because you’ve taken your writing as far as you can, but you also know it’s not done. You decide you need some feedback, so that you can return to writing with some different perspectives.

Hopefully this gives you a sense that, while the process isn’t linear, understanding these different stages can help you improve your writing by planning and orienting yourself in the midst of your writing.

Was this useful? You might like my freebie ‘The Writing Roadmap: A Simple 3-Stage Guide to Clarify Your Process’.

Also, check out my YouTube video: Overwhelmed by Writing? Try This Instead!

Building Better Habits: it’s not all about you

The idea of developing good habits is de rigueur these days.

Personally, I am a “general” fan of personal habits. I like some good predictability and structure in my days. I brush my teeth every morning, I get outside every day, I eat my veggies. Habits help me free up my thinking for more pressing issues, like helping my kiddo with math homework, and tackling climate change.

With that said, I have some issues with the gleeful embrace of micro-managing one’s habits in the quest for increased productivity, and/or for increased individual wealth and success. But that critique is for another blog post entirely. This post is about shifting our thinking about habits socially and collectively.

One of the top books these days touting the awesomeness of habits is Atomic Habits, by James Clear. I’ve just started reading it, and it’s been a useful read so far. Notice I said useful, and not totally amazing. While Clear does provide some very accessible and convincing advice about why healthy/productive habits are “good” and how to develop them well, what grates me about this book is its almost exclusive focus on individuals.

“Uuumm, Julia,” you might be thinking, “did you not just cite some individual habits that you, yourself, practice every day? How can individual habits be a problem?” YES! Of course, individuals have habits, and individuals can develop more useful habits so we can each live a fulfilling life in whatever way works for each of us.

Most “helpful” (or self-help) books focus on how we can each individually do things differently to help ourselves, as individuals, be “better” or “more successful.” Clear’s book is no exception.

But I’m more interested to think about each of our individual actions put together make up our collective world. Like, when we each hop in our car to drive to the store (as an individual behaviour, or practice), collectively we are contributing to increased pollution, and lowering our collective demand for accessible public transit, or other sustainable modes of transportation like bike lanes.

Here’s an example from Atomic Habits that got me thinking.

Clear discusses a Japanese safety practice in their rail system called Pointing-and-Calling (p. 63). Truthfully my dudes, I’m married to a transit nerd, so I was actually aware of this practice already… (taking public transit as a family is often wonderfully and woefully embarrassing for our children).

Before a train departs a station, each staff member points at and calls out a series of things, and having identified each detail aloud (like, pointing at the timetable when the train will depart, and stating the exact, current time), will call out “all clear!” once satisfied all the details are safe (or stop the train from leaving if there is a problem). It’s a practice each individual does to bring unconscious patterns and events to a conscious level. It’s easier to see if there is a problem when you are using all your senses (see it, hear it, touch it, etc), and vocalizing it; you can do something about the problem if you see it in the first place.

Frankly, I do this at home in the mornings, as we are all trying to get out the door (“Keys!” [pats pocket], “Wallet!” [checks bag]).

Clear uses this Japanese railway example to highlight how unconscious behaviours individually need conscious attention as part of improving individual habits. It’s harder to develop a better habit, if you don’t see how current habits might be problems. But what Clear misses from the railway example is that the individual actions of these staff members are for the collective good. To make their system safer, so other individuals within the system can be safe. In the Japanese rail system, cultural values have helped them organize a process where each individual must act, do things, use their senses in combination with their voices, in order to help everyone else. (other rail systems have taken up similar practices, by the way… it is pretty cool!).

Here’s another example, albeit totally different.

I took my younger kiddo to see the Barbie movie with her friend. I loved this film (so many things to love about it).

The filmmakers powerfully use story to make the patterns and habits of patriarchal society transparent. Sometimes it’s hard to see patriarchy as a problem because we are so enmeshed with it; it’s almost like the air we breathe. But through the story, we experience (meaning: we sense and feel) different ways patriarchal systems/structures turn Barbie and other women into objects, don’t value emotions alongside rational thought, create processes and ways of interacting that help men thrive, along with other things. We see how certain values are enacted and repeated by individuals to create a particular culture where men are uplifted, and women, non-binary and trans folks are not. Characters in the film eventually come to articulate different ways that women and others are oppressed in a patriarchal society (for example, saying: “It is literally impossible to be a woman… Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong,” and “But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful” and “I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us” among other gems), and some characters are actually “deprogrammed” from the patriarchy (which was one of my kiddo’s favourite parts!).

This combination of engaging our senses and feelings and thoughts through the story, and through the characters using their voices to articulate what they experience, is very powerful for all of us to see patriarchy as a problem. The point is not for individuals to develop better individual habits in their own bubbles, to thrive on their own. By creating better individual habits (like, offering compassion to ourselves and others, slowing down and considering relationships among different parts of life in decision making, seeing how small daily actions affect our world and adjusting them accordingly, among so many), we can also create better systems and processes for everyone’s benefit. By seeing the problem, we can do something about it collectively.

Design a session that will knock their socks off

You’ve been invited to give a guest lecture/workshop/presentation (yay!) but the prospect causes you to break into sweats (ack!).

The good news is that people think highly of you and value your expertise – they have invited you to share your awesomeness! And the other good news is that you don’t have to cram all your knowledge into that 30/45/60-ish minute session to keep people engaged and help them learn stuff. You really don’t.

In this post, I’ll share a few things that I use in my own teaching and facilitation to help you think through how to design an awesome session, whether it’s a hands-on workshop, a guest lecture or a keynote presentation.

First, it’s helpful to think about these six things.

Your topic. This might seem obvious – yes, of course you’re going to do your session on a topic – but, someimes it can be deceptively hard to select. You can think about what your expertise is, and what the particular audience might learn from you.

Your audience. Of course, you can’t know for certain the exact people in your audience, but you can imagine them. You can think about age/generation, career status (e.g. early, mid, seasoned), field or profession, culture, geography, and your own alignments or differences with your audience, among other things. For example, I often work with people in healthcare – as an artist I need to think about potential differences in how we work, and some assumptions I might be making about terms or processes. Having a sense of who your audience is will help you make decisions about your session.

The form. Whether you are giving a keynote, workshop, guest lecture, on-line, in person, etc., thinking about the form can help you think about how you want to engage people in different ways (more below on strategies!). It’s helpful to pay attention to what people expect from the form (a keynote is different from a hands-on workshop, for example), but you can also use or disrupt expectations in different ways.

Change or transformation. As you think about the change you hope your audience will go through, consider where you anticipate your audience is starting from related to your topic, and where do you want them to end up? Your session becomes about that in-between part. How will you engage them so that they move through some kind of transformation, ending up in a different place?

Your session might be about building practical skills, or it might be about ideas and thinking differently, but thinking about a “starting place,” an “ending place,” and the change you hope will take place, still applies regardless.

Strategies: how will you get there? It can be useful to brainstorm a whole bunch of different ways to engage people – a lot more than you will actually use – as part of thinking through what might be strongest. The specific strategies you select depend on all the other different factors – your topic, the audience, the form, etc. As you think about strategies, you can continue to return to: what is the change you anticipate this particular audience might go through?

Time frame. Whatever the amount of time you have, try to plan for less. Give yourself a buffer. If you have 45 minutes, then plan for 40. It’s also useful to leave time at the end of your session for questions, or a wrap-up – and if you have more time than you anticipate, you can have a longer discussion, or even just end early (and everyone will love you!). Whatever you do, stay within your allotted time. For reals. I’ve included some strategies below for how you can design your session to help you stay on time.

And actually – I’ve developed a free, downloadable tip-sheet that covers these ideas and will help you design your session further. You can find it here.

Next, you’ll want to put these ideas into your session.

Now that you’ve started on these different aspects, you need to pull it all together. Below are some ideas about structure.

I think of this as a Sandwich.

Introduction: your first piece of bread, or the bottom of the bun. How are you going to introduce this topic to this particular audience? You can, of course, just state your topic and learning objectives at the start of your session. Depending on the audience, spelling it out can work really well. But you don’t have to do that.

Maybe you are doing a hands-on workshop, and your topic has to do with helping people become more aware of their own bodies and emotions while they are working. If your audience is dancers, you could start with a meditation and a physical warm up, and then, after these activities, articulate the aims of your workshop. But if you are working with physicians, you will probably want to introduce the same topic in a different way, maybe through a story, or by introducing yourself and your expertise. Your introduction should give your specific audience a sense of the topic, but also a sense of the kind of strategies you will be using throughout your session. It’s like a sample of what the rest of your sandwich will taste like.

Your content and strategies: the meat and veggies. These are the various selected strategies you will use to engage people with your topic, thinking about the change you hope your audience will go through.

I plan my sessions into chunks of time, and allot a different strategy for each chunk. For example, for 5 minutes I will share a story, for 7-8 minutes people will break into groups and share their own stories, then we will return to the larger group for 10-12 minutes – etc.

This “chunking” is useful for a couple of reasons.

You can clearly see whether your activities align with your aims. What are the actual strategies you plan to use, how much time have you allotted for each, and will these strategies help this audience move through change you are hoping for? Let’s return to the example of helping people become more aware of their bodies and emotions while working. If you notice that the strategies you’ve chosen only involve people talking, you will want to revise what you are doing to include activities where people are engaging and paying attention to their bodies (such as breathing exercises).

It can help you keep on time when you come to facilitate the session. If something goes awry during the session, and you find that you’re short 10 minutes (“the wrong room was booked, no one can find the key, oh they chaos!”), then you can easily look at the structure of your session and adapt quickly. It’s easier to pull out a section on the fly, and much easier to adapt in the moment, when you have planned your session into smaller chunks of time.

Whatever you do, remember that more is not necessarily better. Be sure to build in pauses, or breaks, so people have time and space to process.

Conclusion: the top of your bun. You can help people digest your metaphorical sandwich, including what the session has been about, or what their transformation has been. Hopefully, your audience will continue to process the material after they leave your session, and apply it out in the world. Through your conclusion, you can help them transition what they’ve learned.

As a few ideas, you could field some questions, or invite people to have discussions amongst themselves and then open it up to the larger group, or if you’re short on time, simply make a statement like: “We don’t have time for a discussion, but these are the things that I’m hoping that you will take away with you…”

Also, you can leave your contact information. This invites people to continue the connection after your session. It’s almost like continuing a conversation.

Be sure not to sell your conclusion short – sometimes that processing time can be just as important, if not more important, than the bulk of your session where you share information.

In case you missed it, here’s my free, downloadable tip sheet!

Calling it Quits?

Some thoughts on decision-making, grit and knowing when to quit

Quitting often gets a bad rap. We usually associate greatness with grit, stick-to-it-iveness, persistence. And of course, grit can be useful. But we often overlook the importance of knowing when and how to shift gears and steer towards a new path.

Public thinker and former professional poker player Annie Duke talks about how we need to associate quitting with greatness more often, and that we should also quit more often. I heard Duke in her interview with Dr. Maya Shankar on A Slight Change of Plans, and her latest book is Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away.

Duke points to her successes in poker to highlight the importance of quitting. In many ways, poker is about knowing when to fold. How to assess a situation as best you can, and decide amidst uncertainty. But due to our cultural bias against quitting, we often assume it is a form of cowardice, or even failure. Our cultural narrative upholds people who persevere as heroes, often beyond mental wellbeing.

Duke’s other example is climbing Mount Everest (aka Chomolungma, as Tibetans call it, or the Nepali, Sagarmatha). She tells about Rob Hall, a New Zealand mountaineer, who died in 1996 along with a fellow guide and two clients as they were ascending the summit. Duke talks about how climbers will set “turn-around times” – the team agrees in advance that proceeding beyond an agreed-upon point, beyond a certain time, will be too risky, and if they don’t reach it by that set time they will turn around. According to Duke, Hall and other members of the team broke the set turn-around time, which resulted in tragedy.

Why would Hall and others persist, despite the turn-around time? Duke cites the strength of those forces that propel us to continue, even in the face of sensibility. You can listen to the podcast here for more scoop on this story.

To be clear, quitting doesn’t mean giving up.

It just means giving up the direction in which you have been moving up to that point. Quitting can free us to pursue other options that were previously limited – if you don’t climb a mountain, you can take a cooking class, go to the beach, hang out with your family!

So, why don’t we quit more often?

Duke cites a couple of reasons:

Regret is a strong deterrent – even the thought of potential, future regret. We might think “But I’ve come this far! I’ve worked so hard! What if I regret it?” Our investments, and even our identity, might be wrapped up with that path. But continuing to stay on the same path is also a kind of “decision.” I’ve certainly heard more than one person say, after deciding to quit something they were miserable with, “I just wish I’d done it sooner…

Grit or persistence can get bound up with our sense of competence – that our past decisions were good ones, therefore we must continue to pursue this path. However, Duke insists that we often make perfectly fine decisions, based on thoughtful, sound information. But as time passes, contexts change, or we ourselves change in what we want or need. It is absolutely OK to change course.

Here’s another example.

Artist and YouTuber Louise Stigell shared why she planned to quit Instagram through this video. She discussed how using IG:

Made her feel bad. She didn’t like the app itself – it wasn’t pleasurable to use, but she also felt manipulated, overwhelmed, and scattered by the experience. I quote: “I feel shitty when I’m on Instagram.”

Didn’t help her grow her art business. The “thankless time sucking grind” of developing strategy and regularly posting had not resulted in any substantial growth in her audience or buyers. She found that she was twisting herself and her work to try to please the IG algorithm, which didn’t result in business growth.

Made her feel she had to conform, and move away from art-making, which is the purpose of her work. IG prefers short-form, “eye-ball-grabbing” content as a game. If you’re not willing to perform by those rules, you are not going to have a chance compared to folks who play the IG game.

Instagram was working for Stigell for a while – as a visual artist, it made sense to use IG as a visually-oriented platform to connect with audiences. This was initially a sound decision.

But it became apparent that the cost of using IG was too much – bad feelings of manipulation and overwhelm, plus lost time, and few business gains. So, she decided to quit, and pursue other avenues, including YouTube which provides more of what she is looking for. Her decision to quit was based on her feelings (wanting to feel good), and also the practicalities of running a business (no significant gain from the effort made).

In thinking about quitting, I’m heartened by Duke’s suggestion about the power of the word unless – I will do “X”, unless… Almost like your own, personal “turn-around time.” I will climb this mountain, unless the weather turns bad. I will use this social media app, unless it becomes a burden (e.g. makes me feel terrible, and doesn’t grow my business). I will pursue this career path, unless I cannot find lucrative work in a particular timeframe.

In decision-making I am reminded of something a yoga mentor shared with me:

Do what keeps you soft.

Does this thing I am pursuing move me in a way that feels good? Is this path making me become emotionally hard, or fixed to the point of rigidity? Or is this path hard because it’s not viable, and I can’t afford rent, or I have to choose between vegetables and transit? We all have material needs, and this is part of what can “keep us soft” (meaning, live a sustainable life).

Do what keeps you soft. It’s OK to quit.

Burnout is not an individual problem: it’s cultural

The way we think and talk about burnout needs to change.

As individuals we feel it. And we often think the solutions need to be individual too (more resilience training, anyone?). But it will take a cultural shift to really address burnout, and create sustainable workplaces that are integrated and even connected parts within our lives.

I have been reading ‘The End of Burnout’ by Jonathan Malesic. Part of what I am appreciating is how Malesic defines burnout as a disconnect between expectations of work (your own, or broader expectations of what you ‘should’ be getting out of working as your life’s purpose), and what the work is actually like. He says this disconnect can lead to feelings of cynicism, disengagement, and general uselessness and disconnection. He is a former academic, and left his job because of burnout.

But a big part of what Malesic emphasizes is how the solution for burnout is usually discussed as taking place within individuals.

Things like: how you need to reconnect with your passion for work, or the values of your work, or how you need to develop tools for resilience, or how you can practice self-care. And, please don’t get me wrong here: when done for your personhood, not because you will be more “productive,” self-care can be a political act. But what Malesic is saying is that this focus on individuals is mis-placed. The solution needs to be collective.

Burnout is a cultural problem.

Here’s an example.

One of my besties sent me a text. It reads: “I was commenting to a coworker this week “ok, so I’ve identified how I feel as burnout… now what? All the stuff I read is not helpful. I can’t just “cut back on work” and “carve out more quiet time”… I feel like I need to just not do anything for like a year!”

And then another: “I feel like I need something that’s “just a job” so I don’t care about it… but then how do I find the motivation to DO it for the majority of my waking life… ugh.”

My friend has identified 2 things.

Most burnout rhetoric is telling them they need to change themselves to avoid and navigate burnout. Stuff like saying no to certain things at work, or carving out more personal “me” time. But this isn’t helpful nor what they need. What my friend suggests is that they need a complete break in order to recalibrate. The current ways of doing things are just too much – they need a really, really long time away to even begin to feel balanced.

A possible solution could be getting “just a job” that they don’t care about. Something they can go to and be paid for, but don’t have much investment in. But this leaves them wondering how this will be sustainable in the long run, given work is where they spend the majority of their waking life. With the “just a job” scenario, it’s possible there would be no connection.

But here’s the crux of the issue: we are assuming the solution needs to be individual.

The problems are 1) the structures of work are not sustainable (granted my friend didn’t go into the details of what those structures are in their text), and all the suggested individual adaptations like carving out more “me time” or working to be resilient are not helpful, and 2) they seek some kind of meaning where they spend the greatest part of their day, even, or especially, if it’s not a grand life purpose.

An individual shouldn’t be changing their expectations around aspiring to have some kind of meaning or connection in their work, and to work in a sustainable way. It should not be a radical thought to aspire for dignity.

The problem is cultural, and so the solution needs to be collective.

We need to re-think the place and meaning of work in our lives, and then we need to build different structures to reflect those values.

**Hey! There are affiliate links in this post for products that I’ve used and loved! Thank you supporting me!

Arts & Culture must be central in Canada’s COVID reality

COVID-19 has brought incredible social unrest and change, as well as personal disillusionment, and feelings of overwhelm. Many of us feel like we’re lurching from one task to the next, drowning in overwhelming inequities exposed by COVID and the realities of juggling multiple-roles and tasks simultaneously. This is why, my friends, arts and culture must be central to a COVID-world and as part of Canada’s recovery.

The arts not only provide us all with space to consider complex social issues, but they are also important to do just for the heck of it. Now, more than ever, we all need to be reminded of why we are alive, and that we are not just vehicles of productivity that eat, sleep and work.

Others have made this argument before me. Earlier in the pandemic, Amanda Parris brilliantly advocated that it is artists who are getting us through COVID and the arts need to be a national priority. Not only do I agree, but I think arts and culture need to lead us and will help us build a better world.

In Canada we like to measure value through economic impact. StatsCan reports that the GDP of culture industries ($59 billion) is larger than the agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting industries combined ($39 billion), as well as accommodation and food services ($46 billion), and utilities ($46 billion). However, this emphasis on economics entirely misses the point. I would even say it’s part of what’s gotten us in this pickle in the first place (to put it lightly).

Connecting with culture and engaging with art are important beyond the obvious economic impacts. This pandemic has brought tremendous social change and restructuring – things like new work-home environments, different reliance on technology across sectors, as well as policies and procedures in a range of environments (like long term care, education and healthcare). This collapsing and re-structuring has revealed troublesome inequities deeply embedded within our systems (related to race, class, age, gender, etc.). It’s no surprise that individuals report burnout and mental health stresses at alarming rates.

The arts can provide spaces to grapple with social change and ethical issues. For example: what DO we think and feel about seniors living in long-term care and current policies in place? Or how can stories of Queer people and BIPOC continue to expose inequities and provide creative imaginings for the future? (there are countless examples, but you can find a small handful here, here and here). But, frankly, it’s important for individuals to ‘just do’ art for the sake of it. We need to remind ourselves that we can imagine and play, that we can be in the world without “producing” (money); that we are human beings.

Research supports this too. As an example from my research about therapeutic clowns (yes, clowns!), my team and I found that disabled kids play with clowns in hospitals not to become “more productive adults” in the future; They play to feel and be in the world, to have agency, to imagine and be silly, and that this is important for their mental health.

Similarly, the research-based documentary ‘Music is Life’ which was filmed at The Dotsa Bitove Wellness Academy (led by Drs Christine Jonas-Simpson, Pia Kontos and Sherry Dupuis), shares that the reasons that people with dementia make music are not what you might think. Making music isn’t about “curing dementia” or “improving memory”; the point is to do it just for fun (who knew!), and to share with each other and contribute to the world in creative ways.

We all deserve to be in the world in these ways, and as a society we need to build strong policies and systems that support this. This centering on the arts and culture must happen alongside and integrated with the re-structuring of labour, workplace, economic, education, and health care policy in a post-COVID Canada. Research from Canada Council for the Arts tells us that virtually all Canadians participate in the arts and deeply value those experiences. Our policies, such as the ways artists and arts workers are supported and how all of us must continue to access the arts in a range of ways, must reflect this. This valuing of the arts and culture must be prioritized and lead us into the future.

If COVID is showing us how the emphasis on the constant need for productivity has failed us, we need to dedicate time and energy (and also craft our policies) to just being-in-the-world, imagining alternatives, daydreaming, playing, and relishing in something just for the heck of it.

Start knitting, sing in the shower, press leaves, dance to the radio, lazily read a book, experiment with that family recipe, watch a play on-line – do it badly, do it brilliantly, whatever. We are more than the sum of our parts; we are sensing, emotional, feeling, creative and imaginative human beings. THIS is how we guide our kids; THIS is how we support our seniors; THIS is how we build a better world.

**An earlier version of this post was published on my first blog, The Curiouser PhD in October 2020

**Also! There are affiliate links in this post for products that I’ve used and loved! Thank you supporting me!