4 tips for staying motivated when writing your paper

It can be difficult to keep motivated when writing your paper. We’re revisiting some great advice from OpenAcademics that we originally shared in our Knowledge Retreat email series, to help with mental fitness in the context of writing, and improve motivation for authors.

Generally speaking, mental fitness is about how we think, feel, and behave. It can be divided into four categories: emotional, social, financial, and physical. All of these can act as barriers, have an impact on your wellbeing and cause writing anxiety. Read on for more detail about these categories, and some strategies that can help you to maintain a positive mental mindset through this process.

1. Emotional

The emotional aspect relates to how you see and manage yourself and your emotions.

Issues are often related to comparing yourself to others, fear of failure and/or rejection. To deal with this, you need to start with self-acceptance. Allow yourself to set your own goals and define what success means to you. Write it down, what do you want to achieve, what is the next step, how will you get there. Use this to stay on track and to visualize your progress – recognize and celebrate your achievements.

Essentially, approaching your writing with a positive attitude can make a world of difference. Use failure/rejection as a learning opportunity, a step towards success.

2. Social

The social category relates to all aspects of interactions with other people and the external world, which influence your quality of life. On one hand, having the support and a rich social life can bring you happiness, energy and support. On the other hand, trying to keep up with a social life during writing or other hectic periods, may be more of a distraction. 

It can be difficult to navigate and find a balance for these social aspects, but it is important to address them upfront to reduce potential stress and increase the feeling of support.

Consider how your writing is most efficient. Are you best writing alone, or do you need company?

• If you work alone, perhaps listening to music you are familiar with can help you focus.

• If you want more support, try to find a writing buddy or join a writing session/community (many organized virtually on X and beyond).

• If you are always checking your phone, it might be a good idea to turn off notifications and log off from social media when writing.

The financial aspect is often what people feel less in control over and is a major contributor to stress. For academics, this might include both personal and professional financial stress.

Try to be in control of your finances, and don’t be afraid to ask for help and advice. Use a budget planner and a financial manager, try an app that lets you automatically save money. 

When you worry less about your economy, you can focus better on other tasks – allow yourself to be flexible and enter your writing bubble where you can forget about your other tasks and things that might be bothering you. 

By becoming a more efficient writer, you may have a positive impact on your economic situation by winning more grants and fellowships.

Lastly, the physical aspect is not only about dealing with exercise, but more broadly includes your active life. Taking the time to be active can really boost your emotions and positively impact your mental mindset. 

How can you incorporate physical activity during writing periods? If you use the Pomodoro technique where you write for a specified amount of time (25/45 minutes) and then take a short break (5/15 minutes) you can try and incorporate short burst exercise into your ‘down time’. If you can’t exercise during these breaks, and between writing sessions, you can still do physical activities which allow you to step away from the computer, do something completely different, and not think about your writing.

Get re-energized with some food, drinks or snacks, do some stretching, take a walk. Allow yourself to relax, get enough sleep. Take time for yourself, do things that make you happy. Remember, taking breaks is productive!