I only drink coffee from one mug: my favourite one, which features inside it a miniature porcelain cow standing on her hind heels. If you fill it almost to the brim, as I used to do every day, you lose sight of the cow’s face, and it appears that she is drowning in mud.

Just a few weeks ago, before the start of my research, I was determined not to feel so overwhelmed by the six weeks ahead of me – it certainly was to be the longest I had ever spent doing just one thing. I couldn’t really comprehend how much it would be.

I felt slightly intimidated at the prospect of having six weeks’ worth of work to do, and only ever one day at a time to do it in. ‘How much could I really nibble away in a single day off of such a large amount of work?’ I was asking myself. I was to investigate how the King James Bible can be considered more a transformation than a translation of the original Greek New Testament, by examining the translations and corresponding translators of a list English Biblical words. Of course, I am itchingly interested in my project, but this sounded like a lot to me to do just a day at a time. 

The feeling I had on the first of June was quite something. By lunchtime, I had read my first article, examined my first Egyptian papyrus, showing me a use of kyrios, Greek Lord, contemporary to the composition of the Gospels, and had even written down my first word or two, but I just couldn’t shake the fancy that I had surely made a negligible amount of progress.

I cheered myself up by boiling the kettle for what would be the first of very many times throughout the period. To my own huge fortune, I realised that.

Almost aimlessly humouring myself, I wondered how many times I would boil the kettle before the six weeks were up. I wondered how much coffee would go in and out of my mug in that amount of time. Suddenly, that seemed an unfathomable amount too.

But I looked at my cow inside the mug, and she really didn’t seem too daunted at all. Totally unfazed, even.

And there it was at the perfect time – I just wasn’t concerned with how I would consume six weeks’ worth of coffee, and nor was my cow. It would be two or three cups a day until six weeks were up. It sounds awfully simple put that way, but it was remarkably hard for me to see, especially when it came to my project. Before heading back to my desk, I filled my mug up just to the point at which my cow could still see and breathe. 

This was going to be the way to manage my own workload.

I already had a solid long-term, even weekly, plan in place, but by planning not even a whole day, but as little as a morning or afternoon at a time, I have been able to divide my research into mug-sized chunks. This sense of moderation has prompted me to have discussions with my supervisor on how I can keep my short term workload manageable, while still getting through everything in the long term: breaking it all down is the answer!

This way, I can just get through little bits at a time, hitting goals multiple times a day. I feel like I’m making progress little and often, distracted from how large the total workload truly is. With a long-term plan broken down enough, I hardly have to worry about it all totting up in the end, because it simply will, as long as I get through each chunk, and as long as the chunks are just the long term plan cut up. 

To remind myself of this every day, I have taken to filling my mug up only so far as the neckline of my cow, so she can always see and breathe while she manages six weeks’ worth of coffee. Following her example, breaking my own research down into similarly small chunks has proven crucial: I am able to take manageable, but frequent steps throughout, all the while keeping my own head above water.