Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us!

Jason lost the annual Downs family hosted hot cross bun competition, but Inger's political team comprehensively won the federal election, so we figure we came out even.

There's a bulging mail bag with lots of interesting questions from listeners - some of which we could even answer.

Then we chat about the first ten months of our business 'On The Reg Team'. What lessons has Jason learned about being an entreprenerd? loyalty wont save your Higher Ed job... so how do you start your own thing (even if it's just a lifeboat for now).

Clearly we had a lot to say because Inger's AirPods gave up before the end! (Inger snippity doo dah'd over half an hour... Sadly, you don't get to hear about Jason painting his boat)

Things we mentioned:

• The first hot cross bun episode (where Jason accidentally bought secular buns)
• Guardian episode on Australia's obsession with sexy (!?) hot cross bun varieties
• Jason's pictures of the HCB off and trophy
• #DemocracySausage price list on Instagram
• Inger's pictures of her election day work for Pocock
• List of reading for nurses going into academia (thanks Sally-Anne Wherry!)
• Timing app and Co-Typist + our TextExpander book
• MaxQDA tailwind AI assistant and Consensus
• Goblin tools
• Do the work by Steven Pressfield
• Inger's enshittification post
• Xero and Paris Financial

Got thoughts and feel pinions? Want to ask a question? You can email us on

- Leave us a message on www.speakpipe.com/thesiswhisperer.

- See our workshop catalogue on www.ontheregteam.com. You can book us via emailing Jason at enquiries@ontheregteam.com

- Subscribe to the free, monthly Two Minute Tips newsletter here (scroll down to enter your email address)

- We're on BlueSky as @drjd and @thesiswhisperer (but don't expect to hear back from Jason, he's still mostly on a Socials break).

- Read Inger's stuff on www.thesiswhisperer.com.

- If you want to support our work, you can sign up to be a 'Riding the Bus' member for just $2 a month, via our On The Reg Ko-Fi site

Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us!

We're back! It's been six weeks - sorry about that!

Jason was finally struck down by covid... for the first time. Yes, really! Now he finally understands what everyone is complaining about. There's a lot to catch up on: the election, a digression into 'Married at first sight' and what happens to a sander when you use it for 6 hours straight on your boat hull.

We get half way through a very full mailbag, before getting on to our dissection of chapter one of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This is the third time we've talked about this book, and we're only now doing Habit One: proactivity ... look, we have a lot to say! Check out episode 17, where we discuss how the book is really Mormonism pretending to be productivity, and chapter 38 where we talk about chapter three.

Be warned - it gets very deep and meaningful. In fact, we get so into it that we forgot to do a two minute tip! We'll make it up to you, we promise.

Things we mention

• Previous discussions of 7 Habits: episode 17 and chapter 38
• Academic Mean Girls
• Inger reckons Andy Kirk is your go to for Data visualisation
• Back to Zero - the paper
• Book: The voices within: the history and science of how we talk to ourselves
• Book: Team Dog
• Book: The presentation of self in everyday life
• The Valley of Shit (blog post about Jason when he was doing his PhD)
• Book: Striking Ore: the rise and fall of union power in the Pilbara
• Book: Enemy Fe

Got thoughts and feel pinions? Want to ask a question? You can email us on

- Leave us a message on www.speakpipe.com/thesiswhisperer.

- See our workshop catalogue on www.ontheregteam.com. You can book us via emailing Jason at enquiries@ontheregteam.com

- Subscribe to the free, monthly Two Minute Tips newsletter here (scroll down to enter your email address)

- We're on BlueSky as @drjd and @thesiswhisperer (but don't expect to hear back from Jason, he's still mostly on a Socials break).

- Read Inger's stuff on www.thesiswhisperer.com.

- If you want to support our work, you can sign up to be a 'Riding the Bus' member for just $2 a month, via our On The Reg Ko-Fi site

Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us!

Longtime listeners who have been asking for Jason to read another romance novel: Inger has delivered! Jason reads Rebecca Yarros's 'The Fourth Wing' and only throws up a little bit in his mouth :-)

After a bit of mail bag, we go deep on the subject of reading: how much of it there is; how tedious academic reading can be; how tired this reading makes us; the feelings of Guilt when you read for pleasure; and the myth of 'keeping up with the literature'.

Finally we talk about how many books we own: how much is too many and when/how should you slim down a collection? Inger feels better about her massive collection when she compares herself to Umberto Eco, and Jason has a mild panic attack at the idea of putting together a display shelf.

We finish with a tribute to the late, great Professor Peter Elbow (one of Inger's most beloved writers about writing) and a two minute tip about buying study aids.

Note, we were going to try to put out a video version of this one - but there were technical problems. Hence the references to showing the camera books. We will try again next time.

What we talked about

• Cornell template technique
• Note taking Matrix instructions
• Umberto Eco in his 50,000 book library (video evidence!)
• Marie Kondo's life changing magic of tidying up
• Rebecca Yarros - The Fourth Wing
• Writing without Teachers

Got thoughts and feel pinions? Want to ask a question? You can email us on

- Leave us a message on www.speakpipe.com/thesiswhisperer.

- See our workshop catalogue on www.ontheregteam.com. You can book us via emailing Jason at enquiries@ontheregteam.com

- Subscribe to the free, monthly Two Minute Tips newsletter here (scroll down to enter your email address)

- We're on BlueSky as @drjd and @thesiswhisperer (but don't expect to hear back from Jason, he's still mostly on a Socials break).

- Read Inger's stuff on www.thesiswhisperer.com.

- If you want to support our work, you can sign up to be a 'Riding the Bus' member for just $2 a month, via our On The Reg Ko-Fi site