Understanding and solving intractable resource governance problems.
I was asked to write about tips for editing a research paper, since my Academic Writing and Literature Review posts seem to be quite popular. I have to confess that I don’t have any particularly insightful piece of advice to give, because here is the kicker: I HATE EDITING MY OWN PAPERS. I do it, […]
– September 2, 2016
Many, many people have asked me why I start working at 4am, and how the hell did I change from being a night owl to being a morning person. I had been thinking about writing about this topic for a very long time, and then this Wall Street Journal article started making the rounds (“Why […]
– August 28, 2016
Some people who see how my daily workflow happens in real life seem to be taken aback by the fact that I synchronize my digital and analog daily and weekly plans. To them, it would appear as though I take longer to plan my life than to actually execute it. This isn’t the case. It’s […]
– August 16, 2016
Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I often post photographs of what I’m doing, reading, and (often times) eating. Yesterday, I posted photos of how I had cleaned up my campus office (I’m officially on holidays, although I had to come into the office for 3 days in a row […]
– July 22, 2016
One of the issues I struggle with the most is motivation. I am organized, I keep all my plans, schedules, notes, fieldwork scribbles in my Everything Notebook, but sometimes I feel like I have so much to do I just get overwhelmed. While I have learned to break down my workload by the month, week, […]
– July 16, 2016
This page is intended to collate my posts on time management, organizational skills, and workflow design. I have written about how I organize my books, my journal articles and book chapters, how I approach digital document management, and how I plan my academic and personal lives. If you’re looking for my Everything Notebook™ posts, click […]
– July 14, 2016
I have blogged a lot about a broad variety of different topics. Many people ask me if I can point them out to specific blog posts in a certain area, and it’s hard for me to remember or to have them handy. To that end, I have decided to create a Resources page. Here, you […]
– July 14, 2016
“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” ― Annie Proulx In my courses, on my blog, across all my social media platforms, and everywhere I go, I […]
– April 13, 2025
I wrote the thread that originated this blog post on October 1st, 2022. I had not been able to blog for many reasons, one of the key ones was that I did not have time to blog. Most of the time, I plan my entire month by the end of the previous one. I did […]
– February 19, 2023
I really love writing. I absolutely do. But hasn’t always been like this. As a child, I actually did not like writing very much. Two factors influenced my enjoyment for the actual process. First, my Dad used to have a column in the local newspaper. Because his child was a book worm, he thought to […]
– May 2, 2020
One of the reasons people with whom I talk to gets frustrated is because they can’t find the time to write, and they ask me how I can write for 2 hours every morning. Well, turns out, some days (luckily not EVERY day), I am so busy with administrative and busywork that I just have […]
– July 14, 2017
Funny how some ideas have grounding on different disciplines and yet, we all end up learning more or less the same concept across several of them. I first heard of the concept of future studies (aka futurology) and its idea of backcasting during my Masters’ programme. In particular, the strategic planning literature uses the idea […]
– December 31, 2016
While I have pushed for reflection and slow scholarship in my blog, I have to admit that some of the less romantic and glamorous parts of academia don’t particularly excite me. I call that “the grunt work“. This is grunt work: Cleaning up THIRTEEN references I just imported into Mendeley pic.twitter.com/OT3BX4QQge — Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega […]
– November 6, 2016
Anybody who reads my research blog and/or follows me on Twitter knows that I have very specific approaches to writing. Because I need a disciplined approach to life, I do things like the following: I schedule my life to the every minute, I organize my office every day, I organize my research notes and books/journal […]
– March 11, 2016
Three weeks ago, I submitted a grant proposal for a project that would require four researchers (me and 3 others) to engage in a water conflicts project. I wrote the grant proposal in basically, three hours. 3 hours where nobody else but me, my colored pens, and my notebook were in the same space (mental, […]
– October 21, 2015
I think I’ve made it pretty clear that, while I am really adventurous when it comes to computer-aided anything, I am always willing to learn and use it (see my post on how I use Evernote in teaching and research). But my task-scheduling? It’s totally old-fashioned. I WRITE LISTS. By hand. And then I cross […]
– August 28, 2015
This term has been incredibly instructive. Since moving from UBC Vancouver to CIDE Region Centro in Aguascalientes I have had the opportunity to start developing a number of research questions I had wanted to examine for a long time. I will fully admit that I am enjoying a full year of teaching release (2012-2013), a […]
– November 23, 2012
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