Email Intrusions

There is this general notion that every email deserves a response. This idea seems to be present in the minds of senders and receivers of email. Why this should be so for solicitous email has me baffled. And I dont mean spam – solicitous email is not mass-mailed.

Is this also the case for snail mail? When we send someone a letter, do we unreasonably expect a guaranteed response? I am sure this is not so. Even when we write to family and close friends, we would love to get a nice letter back, but are not greatly offended when none transpires, nor do we really feel guilty about not replying. So then why have we developed this strange guilt that drives us to respond to all mail, even if just to say “thanks”?

I get a lot of email where someone tries to get me to do something I am not really interested in based on the recommendation of someone who knows me. Does such email deserve a response? I am very often guilted into responding because of the one-removed personal connection that has been invoked through the connection with the recommending friend. Lets call this the “personal ” hook.

Many times we respond because its Pavlovian. We are so used to reading and replying as if they are one and the same thing. With snail mail these two functions were never melded together into the same neurological response. But with email, we are progressively trained to do so. As the number of messages arriving rises with time (as all of us know it does), the urge to respond reaches a suffocating crescendo, and we just end up committing to something we would never have agreed to when faced with the calmer reading of a written letter. No other activity I can think of lulls us into a feeling of being productive while wasting time than replying to email. And the number of people trying to help you stay far away from what you really want to do appears to be growing.

Solicitous email is like the vicious dog that latches on to your ankle and does not let go until you do what it demands. Even when you possess that will power needed to put unresponded emails aside and get back to other things, you will eventually re-open email, only to be instantly reminded of all those emails you failed to deal with the first time around. Like ghosts of minutes ago, they rear their ugly heads, demanding your mind share like a petulant child in a tumult of tantrums. No wonder it evokes a response very different from snail mail. which when put aside, doesnt actively intrude, unless you remind yourself of it.

I have written in the past about how the only solution is vast rejections of email by reducing the frequency of attention to less than once a day. But that does not change the fact that solicitous email remains in one’s inbox and taunts you repeatedly. It will have its pound of flesh, no matter what. Here are some ideas for dealing with the problem.

1. If you dont want to respond immediately or ever, and dont have to (this should cover more than 3/4 of the email I get), then move the solicitous email out of the Inbox. I usually forward the email to another email account that I check only very infrequently. You can use a folder also. I’d name it “black hole”. Seems appropriate. You can even move it to a folder called “Urgent” – trust me, it will feel less urgent than the Inbox.
   
2. I get more than my fair share of “please help” emails. I have been burned trying to help too many times. One feels bad and guilty, despite knowing full well that you cannot do anything. Yet, I end up trying, thus wasting other people’s time in the process, and only prolonging the time it takes to respond in the negative, usually hours later and after many back-and-forth emails. Barring the rare exception, such emails are best euthanized.
   
3. Remember that solicitous emails are often mis-directed. Based on hearsay that you are the “one” most knowledgeable about the subject. Should you even reply explaining that you are a misfit, and completely unfit for the request? Probably not. Half the time when I write explaining a negative reply, I get another message in return completely changing the request to account for the reason for not engaging in the requested activity. So its best to lie low. Any response sets off a chain reaction that then eats up much more time than we can ever forecast. The best response is not “no”, it is no response.
   
4. But sometimes one should not just ignore messages, especially when you are aware that a non-response will be interpreted by the sender as a failure of transmission, resulting in new deluge of messages that you already deemed fit to expunge. Therefore, one might want to acknowledge the message in a non-committal manner. Then, ignore the repeat or follow-up requests.
   

Unsolicited email is like someone walking into your house to ask you for a favor without bothering to knock first. I believe the best response is not to lock one’s house, but to refuse to engage in dialogue.

Academic Teams

Academic history is replete with examples of great team work, leading to seminal breakthroughs. But some research partnerships (pairs) are very long-lasting. Its always made me curious as to what underlies these successful marathon work relationships. One such research pair comprised my Ph.D. committee and another resides in my department. So I have been priviliged to witness first-hand the workings of such teams. Here are some of the characteristics that appear to be common to these collaborations.

1. These partnerships are forged early in the career life-cycle. I am hard-pressed to think of pairs that came together well after both people had made their marks and completed seminal work. Of course, this raises the interesting question as to whether the individuals would have been more successful on their own rather than as a team. Who knows? The fact that they did eventually also make their individual marks does not resolve whether the initial burst of seminal work would have come were it not for teamwork.
   
2. The initial relationships are unlikely to have been based on the common research interest. Every team I know has some stronger non-research based reason for its existence. Its often times common alma maters, advisors, extra-curricular interests, nationality, vices, etc. But not similar personalities! Every team is something of an odd couple. Were it only research interests, most likely it would not have worked. Were it similar personalities, it would most certainly have been dead in the water.
   
3. Teams spend a lot of time in “bonding” activity, even when the relationship matures over time. Its easily postulated that with time, common interests develop, leading to the team spending more time outside of research, but with a feedback loop into the work relationship becoming better and better over time.
   
4. The skills of the team members appear to be complementary and are really poor substitutes for each other. Of course, this is how it should be. I have noticed work collaborations where people’s skills were similar, devolving into subtle disagreements about minor and highly similar points of view. In short, much ado about nothing. In complementary skills settings, each member remains the master of their domain, eliminating debilitating intra-team turf battles.
   
5. The stylistic differences of team partners is often quite obvious. For example,
   
   
   
   • Writing: pedantic versus light, humorous.
     
   • Orientation: Theoretical vs empirical.
     
   • Attention: Big picture vs detail-driven.
     
   • Audience: Academic oriented vs practitioner oriented.
     
   • Personality: Extroverted vs introverted. One a showman, the other lying low.
     
   • Training: oftentimes both team members come from very different original disciplines.
     
   
   
6. Strong teams overcome adversity and difficult periods. They stand together and solve unforeseen problems, and never indulge in the blaming of each other. Its a fair collective.
   
7. Good teams are always characterized by fairness in sharing work and balanced in taking credit. Such teams almost work too hard to be egalitarian within the team. But its this aspect of these teams that makes the team what it is. In some cases, this works so well that readers of their research area often believe that the team is but one person.
   
8. Good teams tend to have ideas generated by both members. Sometimes a paper is predominantly the idea of one, and sometimes its the other. The outsider may easily identify the work of each player in the team, but not which of the two had the original idea for the work. For instance, when one team mamber is a theorist and the other an empiricist, its easy to knwo who did what, but not necessarily easy to know where the idea came from. Hence, good teams are rarely the outcome of adisor/advisee relationships. They may start out that way, but their long-term existence is dependent on the source of intellectual ideas becoming blurred to the outside reader.
   
9. Good teams do not always work together with no break. Of course, there are exceptions. But teams do tend to go through periods of detachment, followed by renewed teamwork. Many times, the resuscitation of the team comes with their work taking on an entirelynew direction, which is also the hallmark of a good team. Its not usually stuck in the same rut.
   
10. Good teams retain individual style and identity. No matter how blurred together the joint work becomes, each member continues to work on other projects with others as well. This is the interesting thing about academia. Most of these team characteristics, might also apply to a good marriage. Except this last one, for whereas academic promiscuity might be enhancing to team worth, one would hardly claim this to be true of marriages.
    

Will we see more such partnerships as collaborations become easier with the enabling connectivityof the web? Or will the ability to work with anyone in fact make it less likely to work often with just one? Hard to say. There is something exciting about being in a team and fighting for limited journal space. And certainly, it is not the intellectual partnership but the sociology of it that is most intereresting.

Communication Compactness

Languages support communication. Hence, mathematics is a language, just as much as English is. Languages may be ordered in terms of their “compactness”, that is, how many characters/words are required to convey a single idea in the given language. In general mathematics is more compact than English. A single idea can often be transmitted in one formula, or theorem. This is very unlikely in the communication of non-mathematical ideas in English. You will no doubt point out various exceptions, and I will say that they only serve to prove my point. I am in short, being a little loose. I am speaking generally.

Compactness explains why journal articles in law and literature tend to run fifty to hundred pages, whereas those in social sciences such as economics are about 30 on average. And many in physics, mathematics and computer science run just 10. This is by no means a value judgment, all I am doing is trying to elucidate this idea of compactness. Compactification of intellectual communication does not mean its all good. When communication becomes too compact, the quality and clarity of the communication suffers, resulting in lowering the value of the communication.

On the other hand, compact communication reduces the sheer physical size of the communique, meaning that it more likely to be read fully. I suspect that fewer people read the longer journal articles properly, and more people read the short ones. One way to test this hypothesis is to do so indirectly – see whether shorter articles tend to have more citations than longer ones, after controlling for quality somehow. I suspect someone will eventually run this research idea through the data.

Should academics in the field of literature seek to make communication more compact? Should they write fewer books and more short articles? I think not. In their case, the message is the medium, and many times, longer communiques are far more aesthetic. Likewise, in mathematics, artful compactification of theorem and proof is also highly aesthetic. In the end, depending on field, one has different trade-offs of clarity, size of communique, and aesthetics.

Compactness is obviously not a new idea, it is an obvious relative of the ideas in Information Theory (Claude Shannon) and Algorithmic Information Theory (Gregory Chaitin).

In my own field of finance, the size of journal articles appears to be growing. We are generating immense bloat in many journals. So, is there some way to determine what an optimal compactness is for research communication in any field? This may be a useful question because the answer enables us to ascertain what page limits might be imposed by journals in the field. But more important, readers will be able to get the most from the journals they read, by not reading too much or too little. I am going to leave this thought out there, just in case someone does come up with some way to determine what on average, optimal compactness should be. And in the name of compactness, I will stop here.

Method Supreme

Today was the penultimate class in my new course titled “Quantitative Business Models” (QBM) which comprises a collection of topics about the use of quant models used in various business settings. We studies topics ranging from optimizing portfolios to estimating systems using neural networks. The entire course is an eclectic collection of topics that do not fit inside any other course, nor do they form a meaningful thread in this course itself, apart from the common feature that all topics required somewhat advanced quantitative work.

The course was a list of topics I really wanted to learn about, and in my own selfish way, I realized that teaching was an easy way to pre-commit to my learning. I made this clear at the outset of the course, and warned folks that they were taking a big risk here. Since no one listens to me anyway, about twenty-five students remained, and I am immensely grateful. It has been one of my best teaching experiences ever. And certainly one of the best learning ones too. I hope it was as good for my students.

I think I have learned from experience that the courses I like the most are the ones where the teacher learns as much if not more than the students. When its a 2-way street, its not more an effort. This course was really hard in terms of the new things that needed to be learned before teaching, and I am sure it was hard on the students too, since they needed to come up to speed in gaining a pretty big new skill set, mainly from using a lot of mathematics, and translating that into working code using a widely used open-source econometrics/matrix language. But with feedback going both ways, it felt like no work, and all satisfaction. Last week I was away at a conference, and I missed the class.

On a more important note, this class did something else for me. At a time when education is being dumbed down, and in particular, as business education gets really soft, this course was like the last bastion of an age in which rigorous thought trumped fluffy verbiage. As buzzwords fill up the heads of business students, the chance to teach cleaner technique and eschew jargon felt like a breath of fresh air. In contrast to teaching how to sell snake oil, it was a relief to teach pure mechanics, and show that one can optimize a business decision in the old-fashioned way, that is, by thinking hard about a problem, and then applying apposite technique. Like in all business decisions, there comes a time when one needs to make a judgment call, but taking the analysis as far as it can go is an important pre-requisite that we must not lose sight of. Teaching QBM renewed my faith in the idea that there is hope left for the idea that business in schools may become a hard science, especially when it certainly seems to be heading that way in the real world.

I usually teach derivatives, and since these are zero-sum contracts, one always ends up feeling that a good derivatives trade is a scam perpetrated by the quantitatively adept on the mathematically inept. Or, one ends up teaching where arbitrages might be detected and how to profit from them. Maybe all of finance as a discipline seems tainted with this issue. So for a change, it was nice to teach QBM, where the purity of the techniques was given most play, rather than the “free lunch” aspect. It was more about the journey (technique) than the destination (making profit). Good method is its own reward.

Of course, this is just my view. Researchers fall into two broad types, those that enjoy the story and the others that enjoy the method. I fall into the latter group. A good story is what sells papers, but a good method still needs some story to go with it. Happily, this is not the case with the teaching side of QBM – the method tells its own story through the applications we looked at, but these stories never detracted from the pure enjoyment of the creativity embedded in these models. How I envy the people who first thought them up! If it is so much fun teaching this, how much more fun it must have been to discover these creative ideas. I am sure that in this class of more than twenty students, there is some chance that one of them will develop a whale of a good idea, what in the Valley we term a “killer app”.

Teaching method has another valuable feature – it trains the mind to think rigorously. It does not teach you what to say, but what to do. Actions speak louder than words, and the models are all about action. Action that is generalizable to other domains, because a thought process knows no boundaries. Its hands-on learning, and brings the satisfaction of learning by doing. In my case, learning by teaching. Today evening, as the class presented their projects, I kept on learning. For this gift, I am immensely grateful to all in class.

Complaining for Control

I have an incredible set of students this term – not one has complained about anything, its remarkable. Especially given the fact that the course is untried, untested, and certainly not smooth sailing. Most faculty can safely say that this is a rare event. By standards of academe, this is an even rarer event – we academics complain more than most!

This leads one to think about why people complain at all. This class has certainly not done so, and I do not see them any worse for it. But maybe we need to stop and define “complaint”: A complaint is an explicit expression of dissatisfaction, justified or not, with or without the hope of some benefit. Granted, many times complaints are justified, but I wonder if they are always the best means to an end. My students chose to participate in improving the course and counteracted deficiencies by means of constructive suggestions, rather than complaints.

It looks like in all situations, when things need improvement, we stand at this fork in the road: to complain or not to complain, to seek constructive thought or not, these are the choices. People opt for complaint when they feel they have no control over the situation, and of course, the act of complaining offers a vestige of control, or the illusion of it. People who are in control or comfortable with their situation, no matter how hopeless, feel no need to complain, and try to find some channel for improvement. Actively seeking control only serves to relinquish it; letting go in fact leaves one more in control. Just the zen of it I guess.

It is precisely for this reason that organizations provide complaint boxes, or in our case, teacher feedback forms. By providing the illusion of control, organizations in fact retain it. A grieved person feels in control when stuffing an inert box (vigorously no doubt), or blackening circles on a scantron form. What if these outlets did not exist? Feedback would have to be more personal, direct, and I believe, more constructive. We need fewer outlet valves, and more channels of straightforward communication.

People complain when out of control because it psychologically places the blame for missing equanimity elsewhere (this is not to say that the fault is theirs). It is a perfectly natural defense mechanism, but certainly not a source of solutions (which constructive criticism potentially is). In hard courses, students complain about teachers. Faculty complain about Deans. Faculty complain about students. Faculty complain about information technology, about editors and referees. Its just awful – faculty complain a lot – we have too much time for this. Instead we just need to do our best, enjoy what we do, and stop complaining about what others do and don’t do.

Okay, so maybe you don’t complain much yourself, but are surrounded by people who do. What is the solution? Complain about them? No. Ignore them? No. Then what? I don’t think I know a good answer, but here are some ideas to stem the complaint scourge.

First, try not to complain yourself. Try to remember that for every complaint, there is a constructive idea out there as well. If there is one thing I learnt from my recent class, this lesson is it. Just because others complain does not mean you have to.

Second, try to remember that complaints feed on themselves. Never respond to a complaint with another one. Escalating complaining is a groupthink recipe for a total loss of control. So, ignoring complaints may be good after all, but then it may lead to a repeat complaint, more vigorous and more out of control. Responding constructively ignores the complaint in a positive manner. Redirection of the complainant’s energy into a solution trumps simply absorbing or deflecting it. Even in cases of blatant complaining, it is not that hard to see the little constructive element in it. Treat every complaint as a useful suggestion.

Third, pre-empt complaints by conscribing the environment to minimize their occurrence. This does not mean creating the perfect environment in which there is no cause for complaint, that is simply a pipe dream. But suggesting that complaints are not welcome is a good starting point. Make it clear that valuable criticism (constructive) is okay, but destructive criticism (complaint) is not. Do away with complaint boxes. Complaining is really a supply side problem!

Fourth, if complaints arise from an illusion of control, then removing the need for control cuts off complaints at the spigot. If we all individually realize that we are not the center of the universe, then complaints would diminish drastically. Ego and complaint are happy bedfellows. Do your bit by exercising personal humility, irrespective of others.

Finally, get a sense of humor, and supersize that to get a life. Funny people don’t complain too much, at least the ones I know! They are too busy having fun, and relinquishing control, they have no need for complaints. If you can laugh at yourself, trust me, you will have no need to complain about others.

People who complain spend a lot of time telling others what to do, and end up not learning from them. Lucky me, I got a class that taught me this lesson about life. I hope I really did learn something, well, I am sure I did – I had good teachers. Here’s to having this much fun again.

Learning for the Sake of It

One spends so much time learning for the sake of it, only to die, not taking learning with us. So what’s the point? Why do we learn things that do not add to our material needs? Why are we not totally bottom-line oriented like animals? (I am out on a limb here – I am not sure if my definition of learning does not encompass all sentient beings).

I guess there are two types of learning: (a) Learning for a purpose, and (b) learning out of curiosity. One might easily re-classify that as learning for conscious reasons versus learning for uncontrollable ones. The former usually plays out in colleges and schools, the latter in the theater of life. I am going to argue that the only real learning is that which comes from curiosity. Formal learning in the classroom is only useful if it kindles curiosity.

You are going to object vociferously and say that learning to add numbers is certainly real learning. You may not do it out of curiosity, but still, you did learn something that can be used to carry out several other tasks. But did you stoke your curiosity when learning this to ask deeper questions about the task of addition, such as – “What is number?” – “How can I do this faster?” and so on. If you did not, you did not really understand what you learnt, and hence, it was not real learning.

Now you will say to me, can you please define “real learning”? Sure, here it is. Definition: Real learning is that which helps you learn more. You learn more when you get curious about various phenomena. So if you took that math class, hated it, and did not ever want to do math any more, did you really learn anything? Do you think you will remember and use the math you managed to pass your exams with? I doubt it. Real learning is empty in itself, its just the trigger to seek more. False learning, seemingly full of content and purpose, is sound and fury signifying nothing, for it leads nowhere.

Real learning is innately visceral. Imagine the toddler sticking his fingers into a power socket, and receiving a (non-fatal) shock. Did he learn from his curiosity? Sure? Did he “know” that he learnt something? I would argue yes. Has it ever deterred toddlers from exercising their curiosity? Hardly. Mistakes are just the feedback mechanism in true learning. Taking responsibility for one’s mistakes is meta-learning!

Surprise is an incredibly powerful learning mechanism. I find that sometimes students vocalize the surprise when that eureka moment occurs in class. Such moments only happen when the student approaches learning with curiosity. Curiosity sets you up for an expected result, and then delivers another. Its the contrast that burns the idea deep into your brain. And it works in reverse too. Not knowing what to expect makes you curious, and motivates learning. Learning comes from an exploration of the unexpected.

Learning by curiosity can only be done in your own personal style. Formal learning is done in the teacher’s way, and can only suit you up to a point. Therefore, the only thing a good teacher needs to do is to kindle curiosity in the subject, provide some perspective, and then let the student loose to explore at will.

There are two polarized classroom styles, Lecture or Socratic. The latter, where the teacher gets the student to learn by asking questions formalizes curiosity. the lecture method works too, but places the burden of curiosity on the student. Which one is preferred depends deeply on one’s view of where the responsibility for learning lies, with the teacher or the student? Why not mix them up, and get the best of both worlds?

Our educational system is becoming more and more an arena of formal learning, and not one that fosters curiosity. Students are taking their curiosity to the internet, and leaving it behind in their dorm rooms before coming to class. We are multiplying the number of degrees and certifications, but not training people to think and question. Students are punching the clock of boredom in an insane rush to get a piece of paper that entitles them to search for a better job or salary. We are measuring learning with the grading system, and not with our imagination. Who is better off – the student who diligently jumped through all the hoops and got an A, or the student who got so involved with some aspect of the class, that he spent hours tinkering with the ideas, but did not then finish his homework, only to get a B? I think the evidence of real learning is whether the student can do independent research based on what he/she learnt, because you can never do that unless you are curious. Thats why I like to assign end term class presentations, and they always turn out great, especially in substance and not in form.

Most of all, if a student worries too much about the bottom-line of the class, to his career and job, or the grade, then its just meaningless learning for a purpose, and is not real learning. No student should come to class until its out of curiosity, just for the sake of it. So I say to you, come to class only if you have no real reason to do so!

One Thing at a Time

Successful academics (in terms of quality and quantity of output) fall into two categories, those that work on one thing at a time, and those that are seasoned multi-taskers. Many academics are neither – many check out from active research after burn out. Then there are some that are simply awesome, and are able to keep churning out great work with little effort, in seemingly no time at all.

After a decade of casual observation, totally uninformed by any framework whatsoever, I believe that the “one-thingers” do, by and large, generate higher quality work. This seems somewhat obvious I suppose. Sadly though, I remain in the set of struggling “multi-taskers” who on average, do well on quantity, but may produce less seminal work. Given that there is a wide range of styles, my polarized classification is surely dissatisfactory. But like any taxonomy, it supports analysis.

Doing one thing at a time is a luxury, but an important one (I am in the camp that sort of feels that most luxuries are frivolous, and am told frequently by my spouse that I am wrong many times over on this; usually I am wrong only slightly!). So when I use the words Important Luxury, it is not to be taken lightly. Doing one thing at a time is a societal plus. I used to get up every morning and make a longish to-do list, planning to get more than one research project worked on, along with a plethora of little admin things. I am now experimenting with just doing one research related activity all morning, nothing else. Only when this is done do I stop and make a list for the rest of the day, when I plan no tasks that really need quiet and focus. So far, this has been working like a charm. There are two reasons for this. One, it keeps me away from debilitating and fruitless administrative chores and detail, which one can easily lapse into in the multi-tasking mode, and then suddenly find that the day is gone, and nothing really valuable was done. Two, by not making The List, there is nothing in my mind calling me to rush through my research writing, which needs complete absorption in a timeless manner. I feel already that the quality of work has been much better, and the satisfaction from it at a different level altogether.

Less is more. Multi-tasking actually causes me to pollute the environment with a lot of rushed output that the world can do well without. Hence, doing one thing at a time directly helps in filtering out bad work in two ways. One, it calls up the needed patience to greatly improve rough work. I call this “sculpting time”. Two, having time to look carefully at irredeemably low quality work brings forth the resolve to euthanize it. Lets call this “killing time”. Never mind what happens, its all good.

In the end, its a zen approach. Devote exclusive time to one single thing, and be immersed in it. Be one with it. Thus, it is never painful – all time is well spent. The undivided mind works miracles, and academic work demands it. There is no other way. Singularity wins.

Loving Writing

What makes writing a labor of love? Appropriate to discuss this on Valentine’s day I suppose! Following up on my writer’s block article, here are eleven things that keep me writing:

1. Read a lot of books, mainly non-fiction.
   
2. Write a little bit every day, stay in touch, stay in form. Its an imperative, not a choice.
   
3. If you get stuck, handwrite first, it usually releases word-processing block.
   
4. Keep a chunk of time free for writing, free from people and email.
   
5. Write at a time of the day that ensures emotional calm for you, usually before doing anything else.
   
6. Always have two to three favorite writing places, such that at least one is always accessible.
   
7. Use good writing instruments, they make a bigger difference than one would perceive.
   
8. When word processing, make the pages look aesthetically pleasing, and if this means ignoring journal guidelines, go right ahead!
   
9. Make outlines before word-processing – sometimes very detailed, at other times sketchy, as required.
   
10. Beware of administrative work – it is the disease that impedes writing, while making you feel like you are justifying your existence. Administration is anathema to academia. If you find yourself doing too much, start worrying deeply about your writing.
    
11. Be creative and have fun in the process.
    

Writer’s Block

I was recently asked to talk about my strategies for successful writing. I write a reasonable amount, both for academic purposes as well as for fun, but I have never felt like characterizing my writing as “successful”. I write best when I feel the urge, but I write often because I have to. Maybe the first type is successful to me, the other one is not.

In an academic setting successful writing probably means writing that leads to eventual publication. I am definitely not good at this. My co-authors will tell you that my writing stinks. Many of them tell me to refrain from writing the final version of the paper – I am too likely to take risks with the writing, whereas sanitized, safe writing seems to work better. I don’t do play-it-safe writing. Its often been said that one should write papers not to get them accepted, but to prevent them from getting rejected. I hate that idea.

Nevertheless, I have learned various ways to write even when I do not feel like it, simply because I have found that I need it for my sustenance. Its an essential part of life, and I think especially so for an academic. Here are some typical things that help me write and more important, glean real enjoyment from it.

1. I write best soon after I read well. I read a lot, and buy a lot of books. In a good month I will often buy twenty or more books, and obviously they will not all be read. There are some people who do guilt when they start a book and then cannot finish it, and it blocks them up from reading more. I got over this a long time ago. Since I really need to read good writing so as to inspire me to write, I keep a constant supply of books nearby (mainly bedside) and this does help me immensely. This comprises mainly non-fiction, but I think good fiction does just as well. In short, reading well leads to writing well. Even if it feels like there is no time to read, one must make time. Its the only way to be a writer. I recall reading extensively a while back a series of books on how to write science fiction and the one theme that ran through all the books was that one had to read a lot of science fiction to be able to know what good writing in that area means.
   
2. I do have some favorite books that I read more than once that deal with writing itself. First, let me tell you about two remarkable essays that my son guided me to. Both are titled “Why I write” – one by George Orwell mentions ego needs, the need to express oneself and the need to change one’s environment. I find I share these goals to varying degrees, but they are all there. Mainly I write for myself – therein lies the key – writing is in the end a selfish personal hobby, and why not? The second essay is by Joan Didion, who mentioned that she writes so that she may know herself, and this resonated with me too. We are here and not here at the same time, and when I write, I truly feel all here. Its wonderful. Didion pointed out that the intonation of the title of the essay is a series of monosyllabic “I”s (why I write) – a fair indication of how self-centered this pursuit it.
   
3. Other books. Isaac Asimov has been a great inspiration. I have this book of his short stories titled “Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection” which contains three parts and the third is on writing. Did you know he almost never wrote a second draft, he was that good. Of course, I read this a while ago, and told myself, if Asimov can do this why can’t I? This has been for many years a constant source of frustration to my co-authors! Another book that has greatly inspired me is titled “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” by (guess who?) – Stephen King. And you thought he only wrote grisly stories! This is a wonderful book. I have also greatly enjoyed “The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work : A Collection from the Washington Post Book World” by Marie Arana. Her interviews and personal reflections of well known people and writers show how differently people write and come to the craft. It seems that almost all writers there appear to have discovered their muse at a time of hardship, and in many ways for me this is true as well. Writing is a refuge, be it writing for work or pleasure.
   
4. What? Writing is just an expression of creative spirit. I do not think of writing as very different from doing mathematics, or writing program code. Just as there is some difference but more similarity in reading prose or a book on mathematics. Writing is in many ways the lazy person’s way of being creative, which explains a lot about me I suppose.
   
5. How? – Implements. Pen. Desktop. Laptop. I use all of them. But I write best when I handwrite out things first, either in short form or complete paragraphs, depending on my mood. If I write at a desk I usually use a fountain pen. If in bed, a pencil. Then I transcribe to computer. My best writing has always been handwritten first. I tend to handwrite much less for research writing, which explains why that tends to be my worst efforts. Ideas flow faster and more coherently when handwriting. Thought flows nicely from the tip of a pen. I spend an exorbitant amount of money on good writing instruments but it pays off in the immense enjoyment from writing with them.
   
6. When? Usually in the early mornings. My best days are when I rise early like 4 or 5am and then just write, not watching the clock and definitely not doing anything else, especially not email. I avoid all distractions by not going in to work. I keep emotionally relaxed by taking a meditation break. And I definitely avoid obviously gratifying interruptions like administrative work, which make one feel useful even while being quite useless.
   
7. When I don’t find work-writing working, I do fun writing instead. Its like keeping fit, daily exercise is best. When the usual rigorous workout is impossible, one should not miss out on a light one. Thats what fun writing is. Think of fun writing as cross-training.
   
8. Good writing has been repeatedly defined as re-writing. I find it very hard to throw away even one word once its out there! I try but it does not help, each child is as favored as the other. But some prose just needs to be euthanized, and I am getting only a little better at this. So, it pays to develop a sentimental detachment at times from writing thats been done already.
   
9. Writer’s block is often not really that. Its sometimes location staleness. You cannot write because you are in a location of poor energy. So the simplest thing to do is just move to another location, and this works very well for me. As a child, I used to carry around a little exercise book in which I would write my views of the world. I would walk from my parent’s home to an embassy library a mile from home and write there. I must have filled more than twenty such notebooks a year and my mother kept some of them even when I went to college. I remember how happy I felt when a female friend read one of them, and it was nice to have someone else relive those moments, and enjoy them too. But I digress – my point was that when you get stuck in one place, just move to another. I have some favorite coffee shops in Berkeley and Oakland where there is a quiet buzz that really works for me. I also drive down to the sea (I grew up on the ocean) and write there, or up at Grizzly peak in the hills atop Berkeley. Location is everything – you have to tap into the energy where it flows in sync with you.
   
10. Be prepared. You never know when the muse comes calling. I carry a notebook in my bag always, and write things down when I get the urge. There is a favorite black exercise book form that works for me. I also carry sometimes a smaller blue plastic-covered ring binder book to jot down notes. But I rarely use a writing pad, unless its for class notes. Instead, at home, I have two to three clipboards with used computer paper, where I write on the unused side. One is on my desk, one at my beside, and the other at large. Being lazy, I keep things handy, for sometimes the ideas one jots down may not be worth retrieving pen and paper for unless they are just there.
    
11. Electronics. I have developed another recent method of keeping ideas. When I think I might later write a blog about something, and just need to write down the title of the idea, I use a web-based stickies program called “Webnote” – its free, just google it, and you can use it right away too. The beauty of it is that you can access your electronic stickies no matter what computer you are using. Also I often attend talks and things, and when I am there it just releases ideas, many times having nothing to do with the talk itself. So I write them down and then scan them in when I come home. I am a PDF rat – I keep thousands of PDFs with all sorts of things, and have devised an elaborate file naming convention so I can quickly list anything similar. Using a Mac helps. But I store everything on servers in my office, so that they are accessible to me anywhere in the world. Finally, I use a phone with a nice keyboard so that I may email notes to myself for writing up later.
    
12. Proof-reading. Do it – a lot. I am very bad at this. But whenever I have been patient enough it has been most enjoyable experience and made me proud of my work. Sitting and reading one’s own work and getting thrilled with it is such an incredible act of self-indulgence, everyone must try it!
    
13. Read non-fiction. I am convinced that all good writers must be avid readers of non-fiction. When I have read biographies of fiction writers I have found that they inevitably read a lot of non-fiction. I think this is because great writers are innately curious people and often write to understand things better, and therefore will be drawn to non-fiction just as they would to fiction. Reading non-fiction to me is like leading multiple real lives, and it lets me borrow freely from one life into the other. It makes my writing fun and wild.
    
14. Finally, the most important reason I write is to have fun. Write for fun, even with research writing. Too much research writing seems aimed at desultory, dry exposition, sanitized to death. Just recently I got a paper accepted in a good journal that had taken me five years to find a home for. It encountered rejections along the way, some of them characterized by an absence of humor too painful to describe. But the paper is about computers understanding human conversations, and my early versions of the paper contained an introduction that was pure fiction, about computers running the world’s financial system, and the only role of humans being to inject randomness now and then to make life interesting. To me this was the most beautiful science fiction beginning to any paper I had written, except that every referee report categorically demanded immediate expungment of my energetic preface. Not willing to give in (sentimental attachment reigning strong), I moved it from preface to epilogue, eliciting no change in response. The final version contains no trace of that prose whatsoever, but I had so much fun with it, that it made the paper one of my favorites despite the repeated rejections. Maybe I will one day write that introduction into a science fiction story and publish it as such, but the academic paper still sings to me with that prose even though no one else will hear it. But thats just the point, you have to have fun writing, for yourself, not for publication.
    

Fighting Burnout

Every intense profession is characterized by burnout. Not only professions, but any activity repeated long enough without balance. It could be marriage, friendship, hobbies, anything routine. But in academics the evidence is naked – tapering off of publication records, dissatisfactions with meetings, rampant cynicism, and stoppage of personal growth.

To be an academic is to be charged with pushing the frontiers of knowledge. This is the purest form of academe. But developing new research is also accompanied by conveying it through seminars and teaching. All of this with very little feedback, especially of the positive sort, tends to kill off enthusiasm faster than an icicle in the middle of the desert.

How we deal with burnout is critical, yet it is least discussed in all of the verbiage that clutters academia. There is little I have been able to uncover in terms of structured writing that deals with this issue at all. So, here, lets break it down into the following: (a) What is burnout? (b) its symptoms, (c) its causes, and (d) the antidotes.

(a) Definition: Simply put, “burnout” is the sudden inability to function at one’s level of expectations. Note that this implies a state of disfunction preceded necessarily by a period of functionality. Hence, it is a transition into this state that characterizes it. You cannot be born burnt out already! Of course, having very high expectations increases the chances of burnout, but being ambitious may delay its onset as well. One way to avoid burnout is to have low personal expectations, or to manage one’s expectations over time. We do this well in other aspects of our lives, especially the physical. Sportsmen never expect to be at peak form once they get older, and work through this in a sensible manner.

(b) Symptoms: The onset of academic burnout is often sudden but can also be gradual. If writing the first draft of a paper (let alone a revision) feels like filling out a tax return, then its likely to be a case of burnout. Here are some obvious noticeable things that I catalogued from seeing many friends and colleagues who complain of burnout.

• The inability to develop new ideas and follow through on them. Not for want of trying, but despite one’s best efforts, one cannot seem to get “flow”.
  
• Increasing failure to participate fully in collaborative projects. Sometimes we find it easier to work on our own ideas and sometimes it is in fact easier to work on others’ ideas. But letting down co-authors, and doing guilt about this, yet being unable to break the rut characterizes burnout.
  
• Growing cynicism about the value of one’s own research and others in the field.
  
• A gnawing feeling of being out of date. Feeling like a relic and a dinosaur and being worrying about being left behind.
  
• Complaining excessively about editors and referees.
  
• Unwillingness to attend seminars, talks, and conferences. Disengagement from the profession, avoidance of situations that are overtly academic. Feeling less like an academic, more of an outsider.
  
• Increasingly targeting lesser journals and avoiding aiming for top publications. This is especially an issue after tenure when the researcher does have the luxury to aim for nothing but the best.
  
• Growing lack of concern for students and the process of teaching.
  
• Substituting other teaching and administrative tasks for research. While this may seem to contradict the previous observation, it is actually complementary. Many of us, needing to feel that we are working still, overinvest in teaching even when the enjoyment is not there, just because we are afraid to try research in case we fail yet again. Administrative work is an even easier palliative. Being a good academic does not exclude administrative work, but to replace research with it is the beginning of the end.
  

(c) Causes: There are many routes to burnout, it is such a widespread phenomenon that no one cause explains it all. How we envy those that have never experienced it, they seem to chug on writing and enjoying research like the original glow never wore off.

• Life imbalances – believe it or not, spending too much time on research to the exclusion of all else is the prime cause. One needs to devote time to the other things in life like family, getting exercise, other reading, hobbies and social engagements, etc. Burnout seems to be more in fields in which the intensity of social deprivation is highest, such as mathematics. Burnout there happens early and to many.
  
• Overplaying the game – hitting the bottom line in terms of publications but not paying enough attention to the intrinsic enjoyment of good, satisfying work. Choosing projects that are in fashion, not ones that are of interest, is a killer. Focusing too much on the publish or perish paradigm. Not working on one’s own ideas enough.
  
• Difficulties in other aspects of life that leave little emotional energy for quality research. Stress kills research even faster than it kills you.
  
• Not varying one’s research sufficiently. Many folks have a single bag of tricks and use them too much. Sure – its easier and comforting to call upon the well-trod path and to generate papers with fewer mistakes buttressed by experience, but when boredom strikes, as it definitely will, there is a feeling of helplessness. To state an analogy, a good athlete will always cross-train. Very good athletes will migrate to other sports as well. Such as Michael Jordan who tried his hand at baseball, or Valentino Rossi who is preparing to move from motorcycle grand prix racing to formula one cars.
  
• Picking off low hanging fruit only, and not working on at least a few really hard problems. Its like doing very mild exercise. Eventually you lose muscle tone. The mind is like that too.
  
• Being disorganized. There is method in every madness – if you cannot see it, start getting worried. Get it together, and you will stay with it longer.
  
• Failing to invest in one’s human capital. Amortizing human capital leads to burnout with probability one. One criteria for choosing projects is to ask if they add to one’s personal growth or are just repetitions of past work. Old wine in new bottles is just that – old.
  
• The absence of long-term goals. Be very wary of the incentive system at your university. Most of these system count numbers, and also have very short-term goals, like a calendar count of output. This does nothing to foster long term growth in quality which is one of the few things that keep academics fresh for long periods.
  
• Poor training – this obviates the ability to keep learning and comes with an eventual dissatisfaction with poor quality of one’s own work. This disillusionment results in lowering of intellectual self-esteem. In many ways this is your gene pool that you were bequeathed from the PhD program you were in. But there is no reason to stay with that only. The luxury of being at a university allows one to take courses and retrain any time. Why pass up on that?
  

(d) Antidotes: So, feeling like all this is too close to home? Here is a 6-step plan to get cranked up and dig out of the hole.

1. Get Away. First, calm down, stop worrying and take time off to think and re-think. Read popular intellectual writing – its accessible, and good writing usually kindles the urge to begin writing oneself.
   
2. Intellectual Cleansing. Jettison old projects – these are like poison in one’s system. Delete them off your hard drive, off your vita, make sure you never see them again. Liberate yourself from the shackles of stale work. Its like cleaning out a wound.
   
3. Self-Renewal. Re-invest in your human capital (a) outside your field, so as to avoid immediate cynicism, and (b) then in one’s own field. Taking a walk on the other side is usually not wild, but fun. Recharge your batteries this way. Try some new fuel.
   
4. Focus Patiently. Take your time looking for just one project to work on, no more no less. Make it a three-year plan, not shorter. So choose well and be patient in the search. Be mindful of how you do this, the process is more important than the result.
   
5. Get Out of the System. Talk to practitioners more than academics. This will avoid all the self-reinforcing cynicism that floats around. Also, its a great source of grounded ideas.
   
6. Focus Inwards. Work for your own edification, not for publication. This will avoid what caused burnout in the first place, and create powerful long-term internal, intrinsic incentives. You will begin to see why you became an academic in the first place.
   

No matter how much we try to prevent burnout, it is inevitable to us all. In some, its severe, and in others less so, but everyone faces the demon at some point. Its good to know this, and also to take time dealing with it, to enjoy being an academic again.