The chasm of intercultural communications research? [Photo by Jeff Sheldon | unsplash.com] For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to establish a new habit.

I wish I could tell you it was an exciting one, perhaps involving stacks of innovative, disruptive-thinking body-painting.

But it’s not.

It’s a habit for researchers that’s bog-standard and necessary. It’s something I need to stop thinking of as a chore.

I’m trying to read. 

I need to stop being scared of my burgeoning collection of articles that stare at me, unblinking, from Mendeley. At least they don’t teeter and threaten to avalanche anymore (as the hardcopies used to), but I’m certainly guilty of what Pat Thomson calls ‘PDF alibi syndrome‘: “Merely having and storing them is enough. I own, therefore I have read.”

There’s so much out there in blog and #acwri (academic writing) world about getting the words down; ‘write early, write often’; and getting ideas out…