PhD(o), PhD(on’t): PhDing Outside the To-Do List
Chantelle Caissie, Ph.D. Student
Faculty of Education, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Creative Writer, Poet, and Academic Researcher
I opened my agenda and began writing my academic to-do list for the day. The agenda, for me, is directly tied to the education system. Productivity-centred, the academic agenda houses a never-ending to-do list — a self-managing tool that has become embedded into the factory model of education designed to keep us ticking, tasking, and tallying. The to-do list consists of the wants-to-dos, should-dos, could-dos, and, if you have enough time afterwards, the do-dos.
The to-do list has always helped me stay organized and on task. I was first introduced to this self-managing tool of efficiency in grade school. I would give a check beside completed tasks, marking my daily accomplishments. Incomplete tasks would receive an X, marking the nos of the day — the could-nots and did-nots. The nonachievements. As I progressed through formal schooling, I became more dependent on the agenda. This planner, or what I’ve often referred to as my “tick tick manager,” has allowed me to reflect on my academic to-dos, making me acutely aware of my triumphs and troubles. As a doctoral student, I have found myself returning and, more importantly, reflecting on the to-do list and its role in my writing process.
Over the winter, my to-do list continued to grow at an alarming rate. It became a never-ending loop. A series of checking and x-ing. The list primarily consisted of all my academic writing to-dos — assignments, abstracts, research proposals, and scholarship applications, among other things. I began to resent my agenda and the to-do list contained within it. As a colleague once said, “Cross one thing off the list and add five more.” Writing became a ticking task. And I did not want to do anything.
Kimberley Holmes (2022), an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Calgary, writes that “many classroom patterns and rhythms are dehumanizing” (p. 236), stripping learners of their personal voices and ability to connect with others. As I entered the second year of my doctoral program, this assertion forced me to pause. I began to wonder if the list of to-do’s in my academic agenda was an example of this dehumanizing pattern, a self-managing tool that has become embedded into the factory model of education designed to keep us ticking, tasking, and tallying.
As human beings, we often prioritize or place a greater emphasis on what exists outside of self (Yoo, 2020) — that which is exterior. This prioritization continues to infect the roots of education, contaminating our understanding that at/tending to “both interiority and exteriority are needed [in order] to flourish” (Lyle & Snowber, 2022, p. 7).
Poetry allows me to flourish, to grow from the inside out. But poetry is the product. It is the end result of doing what had or needed to be done. And, as I continue to push beyond what is, moving toward what might be possible demands a shift, one that moves away from the poetic product and instead engages with the creative process — poiesis.
The term poiesis is etymologically derived from the Ancient Greek term ποίησις, which refers to the process of emergence, producing or bringing forth something that did not previously exist (Wiebe & Sameshima, 2017). This philosophical and process-oriented concept makes self central, fluctuating between the realm of reality and aesthetics (Gallo, 2023) to re/produce thought and unmask the mind of the creator during the act of creation (Vinz, 2022). Poiesis is the process, and poetics are one of many artistic forms that can be created. Drawing on the notion of poiesis, I extend beyond the mind, bringing into appearance all the rumblings of what exists “outside the realm of what is” (Fitzpatrick, 2017, p. 516) or, rather, the to-dos.
Reflecting on this month’s theme, I wondered what restorative possibilities could be found when we disrupt the conventional rhythms and patterns of the to-dos and instead create space for what emerges with/in the to-don’ts. Rather than housing my academic writing tasks under a to-do list, I captured how my writing process unfolded during sustained periods of rest, the to-don’ts, that which exists outside the conventional list of to-dos. Rest disrupts what is otherwise required. It invites us to pause and engage slowly, allowing for a more instinctual and embodied way of knowing.
Resting and engaging with the to-don’ts helped me to re/consider process through poiesis; what emerged was poetic, a new form of doctoral doing.
Doing sometimes requires don’t-ing. To rest.
This piece is not intended to advise those in academia to operate list-less. But, in the case of writing, I have discovered that my process begins outside the conventional to-dos. My writing cannot be contained, timed, or managed. It is not another to-do, a task to tick. However, I hope that my musings on the dos and don’ts of the writing process inspire others to challenge the conditioned patterns and rhythms of education that we have unwittingly inherited.
References
Fitzpatrick, K. (2017). Poetry, poiesis and physical culture. In M. Silk, D. Andrews, & H. Thorpe (Eds.), Routledge handbook of physical cultural studies (1st ed., pp. 515–527). Routledge.
Gallo, S. (2023). The prism of self-translation: poiesis and poetics of Yu Guangzhong’s bilingual poetry. The Translator, 29(1), 45–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2022.2140623
Holmes, K. (2022). Rehumanizing the heart. In E. Lyle (Ed.), Re/humanizing education (pp. 230–240). Brill.
Lyle, E., & Snowber, C. (2022). Nesting with/in the bloom. In E. Lyle (Ed.), Re/humanizing education (pp. 1–9). Brill.
Yoo, J. (2020). Writing creatively to catch flickers of ‘truth’ and beauty. New Writing, 18(1), 74–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790726.2020.1726966
Wiebe, S., & Sameshima, P. (2017). Generating self: Catechizations in poetry. Revista VIS, 16(2), 140–155. https://www.academia.edu/35340270/Generating_self_Catechizations_in_poetry
