In the sequestered world of academia, the process of writing a dissertation is often characterized by isolation, self-doubt, and a looming sense of "not doing enough." For doctoral candidates, the transition from consumer of knowledge to producer of research is a psychological hurdle as much as an intellectual one. Recognizing these systemic barriers, Charlotte Hogg, a professor of rhetoric and composition at Texas Christian University, sought to demystify the labor of writing by turning it into a transparent, collaborative, and data-driven practice.
As a writing professor with more than a decade of experience leading faculty writing boot camps, Hogg has long been fascinated by the mechanics of productivity. Her approach is rooted in established academic support systems, such as those provided by the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD), as well as personal accountability structures. For nearly ten years, Hogg has maintained a writing log with her graduate school colleague and fiction writer, Erin Flanagan. This long-term data collection revealed a startling truth about the creative process: the time spent avoiding work often dwarfs the time spent actually doing it. Flanagan once noted that while a first draft took thirteen months to complete, the actual time spent at the keyboard was a mere 91 hours.
This realization—that progress is often obscured by the "weeks and weeks" spent in avoidance—became the catalyst for the Hogg Advisees Club (HAC). Hogg realized that her role as an adviser often involved navigating the psychological barriers her students faced rather than just correcting the content of their chapters. To bridge this gap, she invited her advisees into a shared Google Sheet where they, along with Hogg herself, would log their writing time, set monthly goals, and track their running totals.
The project, which spanned nearly two years, followed the group through significant life transitions, including job changes, career insecurities, and childbirth. By making their labor visible to one another, the group moved away from a traditional hierarchical model toward a community of practice. The following accounts from Hogg and her former students—Sean McCullough, Nataly Dickson, and Ashley Hughes—detail how this simple tool redefined their relationship with their work and each other.
Charlotte
The decision to start the Hogg Advisees Club was born out of a desire to foster the mindset of a "working writer" within the graduate school environment. In my experience, doctoral students often view the dissertation as a singular, insurmountable "beast" rather than a series of manageable, timed sessions. By using a Google Sheet to track our progress, I wanted us to move beyond the abstract anxiety of "finishing" and toward a concrete understanding of how we actually spent our hours.
The structure was intentionally simple. Each participant had a dedicated column to record the date, the duration of the writing session, and a running total for the month. This allowed us to see the reality of our writing lives in real time. For me, participating alongside them was essential. I wanted to model a "marathon-type" writing practice, showing them that even a professor experiences the highs and lows of consistency. It also allowed me to avoid the "parenting" dynamic that can sometimes stifle the adviser-advisee relationship. Instead of asking, "Did you finish your chores?" I could simply look at the log and offer a "yay!" or listen to their reflections on their own data.
After the first year, I asked the group to reflect on what the log had taught them. The discussions that followed were illuminating. For Nataly, who was balancing teaching and service, I suggested that if we looked at how universities typically "count" research time, she should be aiming for at least ten hours of writing per week. For Sean and Ashley, who held full-time jobs outside of their Ph.D. work, ten hours was often unattainable, yet they were still surprised by what their hourly averages revealed.
The data did the heavy lifting. It provided a neutral ground for us to discuss habits without judgment. It shifted the conversation from "why aren’t you writing?" to "what does your writing time actually look like?" This transparency relieved the pressure on both sides and allowed the students to take ownership of their processes in a way that would serve them long after the dissertation was filed.
Sean
When Professor Hogg first proposed the idea of a shared writing log, I was skeptical. At the time, I was working a 9-to-5 job outside of academia while trying to make headway on my dissertation. The phrase "9-to-5" often carries a certain rhythm, but as anyone in the corporate world knows, it is rarely as upbeat as the songs suggest. My professional life was governed by billable and nonbillable hours, categories used by consultants to justify their productivity and value to a company.
Because my career had already conditioned me to view time-tracking as a tool for surveillance and performance evaluation, the idea of logging my dissertation hours felt like an extension of that pressure. I feared the log would become a place where I would constantly be reminded of how little I was getting done.
However, the HAC log turned out to be the opposite of a corporate audit. It became a collaborative space where our collective labor was made visible. Seeing my progress—or lack thereof—alongside the progress of my peers and my adviser changed my perspective. I began to see that there were many different ways to use time and that "productivity" did not have a singular definition.
The group organically cultivated a sense of "our time" rather than just "my time." It was no longer about whether I had billed enough hours to a project; it was about being part of a shared effort. This communal aspect transformed the act of logging from a constraining requirement into a freeing experience. It allowed me to see that even on the days when the dissertation felt stagnant, the act of showing up and recording those minutes was a form of progress.
Nataly
For me, the writing log was a lesson in self-compassion. It forced me to rethink how I valued my time and what I defined as "work." Before the HAC, I tended to believe that if I couldn’t sit down for a two-hour block of deep work, the time wasn’t worth recording. The log changed that.
I began to record everything: five minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes. Seeing those small increments on the Google Sheet made them feel legitimate. It validated the idea that every minute spent engaging with the project mattered. This shift in mindset became crucial when I became a mother. Suddenly, my time was no longer my own, and the large blocks of work I had once craved were non-existent. Because the log had already taught me to value small chunks of time, I didn’t get discouraged. I knew I could still move the needle, even in the margins of my day.
The log also challenged my definition of "writing." We often fixate on the production of new pages as the only metric of success. But through the HAC, I realized that looking for sources, refining an argument on the back of an electric bill, or simply thinking through a difficult transition were all "work worthy of logging."
The dissertation process is long, and when life intervenes—whether through career shifts or a new baby—the "prize" at the end can feel very far away. The writing log served as a tether. It reminded me that I was moving forward, even when the path included detours. It allowed me to see the continuity of my effort during a time of immense personal change.
Ashley
As a researcher, I am naturally inclined toward data. When we started the HAC, I assumed that more data would lead to a better understanding of my writing habits. In addition to tracking my time, I often added my word count for each session, adhering to traditional productivity metrics. However, looking back at that data now, I see the limitations of that approach.
My logs revealed a pattern where I overemphasized quantifiable output at the expense of intellectual quality. On the days when I had significant breakthroughs—the moments where I sat with the project for hours and finally distilled a complex thought into a few concise sentences—my "productivity" on paper looked low. The word count didn’t reflect the depth of the labor.
I noticed that I often stopped tracking my word count altogether during these intensive, breakthrough sessions. My measurement practices collapsed precisely when my perceived productivity decreased, even though those were often my most important days. This suggests that traditional productivity models can actually reinforce burnout by making us feel unsuccessful during the most demanding phases of intellectual labor.
The solution, I’ve realized, is to shift toward metrics that capture the quality of the work and prioritize purpose over pure output. The shared Google Sheet was most effective not as a tracker of words, but as a tool for motivation. It made the invisible, isolated labor of the dissertation visible to a community.
Ultimately, the sheet was like a handprint on a cave wall. It was a mark of our presence across different spaces and times. We returned to it to record our efforts, finding evidence that we were not alone in the struggle. It was a simple, elegant, and reliable tool that provided a small nudge to keep writing for another day. In the best moments, we would even see each other entering our minutes in real-time, a silent acknowledgment that we were all in the trenches together.
Nataly Dickson is a visiting lecturer in the Department of English at Texas Christian University and a recent graduate of TCU’s Ph.D. program in rhetoric and composition.
Ashley Hughes is a former Ph.D. candidate in TCU’s Ph.D. program in rhetoric and composition.
Sean McCullough is a recent graduate of TCU’s Ph.D. program in rhetoric and composition.
Charlotte Hogg is a professor of rhetoric and composition in the Department of English at Texas Christian University.
