disrupting the tried-and-true

i guess school isn't technically back in session yet, but once you're no longer in coursework, it's all kind of one, long, ongoing thing that doesn't stop until you're done.  i'd hoped to spend my two weeks off of work working on transcribing my interview data, and i got a good chunk of it done (about half!).  i still have three days of vacation to go, so it's possible that i'll pick up the pace and get quite a bit more completed.  for me, picking up the pace has been about changing my transcription routine.  in the past, i've let perfectionism take over my work habits, so rather than work quickly and jump from transcript to transcript, i would work on only one transcript at a time (in chronological order by interview date), doing a meticulous initial transcription, followed by a read-through and edit with the recording at a faster tempo. 

earlier this week, i decided to try a new method: jump from interview to interview based on my mood; start with some of the shorter interviews and get them done first; let the initial transcription be quick and dirty, with the knowledge that i'll be able to clean it up and make it more accurate in the second run-through; and take a 5-minute Netflix break for every 2 pages transcribed.  whereas the earlier method meant sometimes spending weeks not doing any transcription and yielded the first five transcripts over many months of weekends, the new method has yielded about five transcripts in just three days or so.  so, it's really paid off to try this more "scattered"-feeling method.  it makes me feel a little uneasy when things aren't super organized, but when i find myself feeling anxious about this disorganized method, i take a few minutes to just breathe and relax my mind.  that might sound strange, but i think it's a critical piece of disrupting old methods: reminding myself that everything will be okay. 

and in a weird way, it's enabled me to kind of relish in the new approach, to find the fun in doing things in a way that seems, at least on the surface, to be disorganized.  in truth though, it's just as organized a method, just with many more parts.