In academia, in full-time research, I find that nonlinear productivity is normal. It’s closer to a sine wave, or a tide.

Manuscripts and grants are the most important parts of my job - each requires the other for success. My goal is to have one paper in the concept-development stage, one in mid-analysis, and one in writing stage (which is more a linear, or perhaps production-line, model of productivity). Similarly, once I get 2 years into a 5-year grant, I need to start brainstorming the next 5-year grant.

Yet I sometimes have 3 or 4 papers simultaneously at the writing phase, and it’s very brain-intense. When I get these boluses of papers nearing submission, it’s usually because they’ve been in development for many years. Sometimes slow timelines result from life events and pandemics, and sometimes from choosing to pursue lots of different papers and projects at the same time (e.g. my attention is split and progress slower).

For example, right now It’s been a year or two since I last submitted a first-author research paper for its first submission (since sometimes papers get rejected from 7 journals before finding homes). Some of the papers I’m currently writing are the products of grants I wrote 4 years ago and started working on (data collection or analysis) 2 years ago. We can be too quick to assign blame or name a problem what is merely a normal ebb and flow of creativity.

Similarly, there are times where I hit a flow and I’m able to be incredibly productive in multiple aspects of my life. Sometimes this is driven by time-sensitive deadline (like a grant due date), and sometimes it just happens because of some confluence of project energy, my energy, and the weather. Other times (almost always 3-6 weeks after a grant submission) I’m incredibly unproductive, prone to staring off into space. This is a normal ebb and flow of energy and attention. My brain and body are recovering from a hard push. I’m practicing honoring those feelings, rather than fighting and thinking of the “shoulds”. Especially when this occurs on the week-long scale (a few productive days, a few low-efficiency days), I try to recognize what’s happening, walk away from the computer to meditate or take a walk outside. Or I at least switch tasks to something that’s working better for my needs. I do keep an eye on how long my low productivity periods last, and remind myself that my standard of high productivity tends to be overly optimistic - 110% of my most productive day.