{"id":158860,"date":"2023-09-20T13:35:23","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T11:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=158860"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:58","slug":"small-steps-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/09\/20\/small-steps-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Small steps forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am currently working on the chapter of a book, on how factors in the first thousand days after birth can be predictive of problematic substance use and addiction in adulthood. I had never done it before, but thought it was doable.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>, \t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPauline Wiersema<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The deadline was a few months away, so I decided to take my time. But in the hectic life of an academic, with countless deadlines for various projects, this task fell by the wayside until I realised I hadn\u2019t written anything at all with a month left to go.<\/p>\n

I thought I\u2019d make short work of it, but then I realised it would take more work and particularly creativity than I\u2019d thought. As driven as I am, I solved it immediately: with a bit of juggling, I was able to block out a number of mornings, afternoons and evenings in my schedule to get some writing done. Problem sorted.<\/p>\n

Or was it? Alas, just blocking out the time in my schedule wasn\u2019t enough, because for the first time in ages I hit the infamous writer\u2019s block. I stared at the empty document on my screen for hours. I had no idea where to start or what to say, and I couldn\u2019t bring myself to sit in front of my computer and fully dedicate myself to writing. I started to avoid the writing, or the staring, more like. As long as I didn\u2019t open the file, I wasn\u2019t confronted with the blank page. I became increasingly uneasy, and I started feeling anxious, stressed and guilty that I wouldn\u2019t even manage to meet a new, delayed deadline.<\/p>\n

Until I came across an article on LinkedIn by an academic who barely had time to write, and started with a sentence per day. That turned out to be the solution for me: micro writing.<\/p>\n

Instead of taking hours out of my day for writing, I started writing one or two sentences during 10- or 15-minute intervals. The result: after two weeks, I had miraculously written almost a whole section.<\/p>\n

By dialling down my expectations from writing a whole chapter to writing a few sentences at a time, I took off the pressure I had put on myself and I was able to achieve the goal far more easily. Sometimes, I even managed to write a whole paragraph. After a few weeks, I had written a large part of the chapter and the finish line was in sight. I made a final dash, but at a snail\u2019s pace of course. You can go a long way by taking small steps forward.<\/p>\n\t

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Hanan El Marroun is professor of Biological Psychology.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t