Brass Tacks

ugh-a-thon: how to & template

Published: Reading time: 2 min Tags: everblue Draft: Yes Part of: everblue notes

written in response to an email asking:

I saw … that you hosted an ugh-a-thon ... I’m interested in hosting one for peers and faculty at my university.

Would you kindly share any tips or resources you have for hosting my first one?

  • General notes:
    • ~4h is good. ~6 is prob the upper limit, ~3h is prob the lower limit
    • Good to serve snacks/drinks, and ideally a meal afterward (depending on your budget)
  • Beforehand:
    • Make a shared google doc — template here, feel free to just duplicate it
    • Make a Partiful (sample text below), send it out to ppl
  • At the beginning:

    • Have everyone open up the shared google doc

    • ~20m: have each person duplicate the templated tab, and fill it in like the example tab

    • As people finish, have them read through each others’ responses — encourage them to comment, especially (but not exclusively) on:

      • Getting people to be more concrete about what their next steps are (“What does that task actually involve?” “What single thing needs to be done first/next?”)
      • General strategic/emotional confusion (“Hmm, are those two options actually mutually exclusive?” “Why are you worried about this?”)
      • Ugh-swapping & pairing (re: ugh-swapping, see here; re: pairing, e.g. “Seems like we both need to do our taxes; maybe let’s pair up and do them alongside each other?”

    • After that period, people:

      Things tend to go better if you’re working alongside someone, but that’s not required if you’d really like to just work without a partner.

      So: raise your hand if you want a partner… now, find someone who’s raising there hand, maybe someone who commented on your doc, or someone you’ve never met before.

      Great, this will be your check-in partner for the rest of the ugh-a-thon.

      Every 30 minutes, stop for a couple minutes and check in with your partner. Ask them about what they did, how it’s going, what their next steps are, etc. Aim to push them along in progress, and keep them on track. Then, set a timer for another 30 minute segment.

    • Ask if people have questions

    • Get started

  • During:
    • Do your ugh tasks! Take part! Dogfood!
    • People might drop off as time goes on; that’s fine
  • After:
    • ~3m: Encourage people to write out reflections on how it went — what went well, what didn’t, what they got done & why, etc
    • Get lunch/dinner with attendees
    • Let me know how it went :)
  • Some of thoughts/tips on hosting events more generally: here.

Sample Partiful description:

let's push through tasks we've been flinching from.

ugh-a-thon schedule:
- 1pm — kickoff. everyone quickly writes down some of their ugh fields and some concrete substeps toward working through them.
- 1:30–5:30pm — heads down working through your ugh fields. swap tasks with someone if you'd rather do theirs & they'd rather do yours.
- 5:30pm — wrap-up & quick celebration, for wins big and small.

doc: [link your doc]

context on "ugh fields": https://medium.com/@robertwiblin/ugh-fields-or-why-you-can-t-even-bear-to-think-about-that-task-5941837dac62

context on "ugh swapping": https://bayesshammai.substack.com/p/ugh-swapping