"I'm stressed" is academic for "I have no idea what's wrong."
My PhD student said this during one of our weekly meetings.
Third week in a row.
So, I asked her to get specific. What exactly was stressing her?
"Everything. The data. The writing. The timeline."
Jan 30, 2026 13:16That's when I realized we had a precision problem here.
Vague emotional labels don't fix anything.
They just make you feel busy being overwhelmed.
So I made her list three concrete problems.
Not feelings. Problems.
1. Dataset had 7% missing values
2. Intro section was 2000 words of just rambling
3. Conference deadline was still 6 weeks out
Now we had a plan.
Clean the data first.
Cut the intro to 1,200 words.
Submit to the next conference cycle if it doesn't get done.
She finished her paper early.
Stop saying "I'm stressed."
Start saying what's actually broken.
Gloria Willcox's wheel above will help you.
