by Grace Moorman, Art History

I am indisputably a morning person. More often than not these weekdays, I wake up before my 6:00 o’clock alarm and have a few moments before my phone goes off to lay in the cool quiet with my dog snuggled close. I get up, let my dog out, have breakfast, and set off to school about an hour later for the day. Most of my classes are in the afternoon hours, so my mornings are precious quiet time that I can spend working on readings, essays, and my master’s thesis. I’ve learned that these hours are my best hours, my most productive hours.

I want to emphasize here that I had to learn how to do this. In my undergraduate program, I could sit down and produce a five-page research paper in a single day. I would do this only a few days before the final paper was due, and so of course, I had no time to revise. I barely had time to reread the paper. I completed undergrad thinking that this was the best way for me to write; I thought that my grades proved that I didn’t need to revise and edit my essays.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at graduate school and not only were the length of papers quadrupled but we were also expected to read lengthy, dense essays and articles to supplement our seminars. It was now physically impossible for me to sit down the week before a twenty-page paper was due and produce something that would please me and my department. It took me weeks of uninterrupted research and writing to get a decent first draft and plenty of additional time to revise and edit for the final version. By forced trial and error, I tried pretty much every study and research method in the books. Sitting in my bed and working at home didn’t work. I predictably always talked myself into a nap. Late nights were not my first choice, though I had my inevitable fair share. I always regretted them the next day and swore I would manage my time better. Finally, I discovered that the mornings I spent at school in my office were the quiet, productive time that I needed to carve out for myself. It took an entire semester of fumbling along and being frustrated when I tried and failed to be productive at 8:00 p.m. on a Tuesday.

An additional part of this advice: learn when not to write. School, as the adage goes, is truly a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself and be kind to yourself. If you sit down to write and simply cannot find the words or the headspace, then maybe do not write in that moment. I don’t (and can’t) write if I am frustrated, annoyed, or overwhelmed; doing so will only make me more upset and what I produce is never the quality that I want it to be. If you learn when and how you write best early in the semester, you will find yourself with ample time to complete your work with time for those “off-days” to happen with no additional stress.

And so, whenever I am asked what piece of advice I would give someone approaching any writing assignment, I always encourage people to learn how they work best. Ask yourself if you do better at home, at school, or at a neutral location like a coffee shop. Ask yourself if you function better in the mornings, afternoons, or nights. Get to know the environment in which you are most comfortable settling in for research, writing, and revising; it will make the work easier, and it will make it more enjoyable if you are not constantly wishing to be somewhere else at some other time.