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

Inger was too scared to drive her new Tesla and Jason was scared he'd lost his drone at sea. Luckily Jason did not have to tell Cath the boy toy went missing and at least Thesis Whisperer Jnr thinks Inger's new book Level Up Your Essays is 'not that boring'.

We take up the challenge, put to us by a sadly anonymous listener on SpeakPipe, to talk about why the famous book 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' by Stephen Covey is a problematic fave. Inger couldn't remember why she thought it was problematic, and Jason always reckoned it was great, so we decided to read it again.

We've got as far as chapter one and Inger had a lot of notes.

Inger enlightens Jason about the origin of the book as a literature review for Covey's PhD thesis and some of the surprising influences on Covey's thinking. Inger does a feminist critique of Covey's ideas, but comes away deciding they are not entirely rubbish. Jason promises to read chapter two for next time, so this could take awhile.

Jason doesn't have a 2 minute tip, but thought Inger's tip was super awesome - but you'll have to listen to most of the episode to find out!

Late note: @robjforsyth on Twitter inspired this conversation by leaving us a message on SpeakPipe - thanks Rob!

Mentioned in this ep:
Level Up Your Essays - Inger's new book with Katherine Firth and Shaun Lehmann.
The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey
Criticism of Covey's book by Baptists
The book of 5 rings
Connected Papers

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 [email protected]

- 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