Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Planning as a practice The purpose of planning is to enable you to take action. Making a plan helps you prioritize the things you want and need to do, so that what you take action on includes the things that are important. Planning also helps you ensure that time […]
Read More »Learned in Yoga Class
How yoga influences how I work with clients. I don’t expect you to do yoga. You don’t even have to attempt the pose I’m going to talk about. Ever. In your whole life. The point of this series is that yoga has taught me some interesting things about how to approach other things.
Overcommitted? Declaring a moratorium
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Overcommitted? Declaring a moratorium It’s easy to get overcommitted. In addition to all the things you have to do, there are a lot of things you would like to do. You don’t want to manage your workload by dropping everything that makes your work meaningful. In fact, I encourage […]
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Optimism in the face of uncertainty
There is a difference between optimism and positivity, or at least the kind of positivity that tries to pretend that bad things never happen, or never happen to good people. I am an optimist. I read something recently that helped me clarify what that looks like for me. It’s a bit like “It’ll be okay […]
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Are meetings really a waste of time?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Are meetings really a waste of time? One of the core practices of my work with clients, and my engagement with academics on social media, is to remind you to notice what you’ve done. I wrote about this practice several years ago: You get a lot done. I send […]
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Your home office setup during the pandemic
I start and finish A Meeting With Your Writing with some gentle stretching. During the current circumstances it has occurred to me that you might be more tense and also that your office space may not be set up as well as would be ideal. While academics like to think of their work as mental […]
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Meditation as practice & metaphor for focus
This post is part of a series on Optimizing Focus. Finding it hard to focus is normal. Self-flagellation does not work to improve your focus. Furthermore it takes time and energy that takes you away from your writing; it is another distraction. I firmly believe that you can approach your work compassionately rather than violently. […]
Read More »How to use advice to develop your own practice
This post is part of an occasional series about how yoga influences how I work with clients. I don’t expect you to do yoga. Ever. In your whole life. The point of this series is that yoga has taught me some interesting things about how to approach other things. I have a daily yoga practice. […]
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How much teaching preparation is enough?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · How much teaching preparation is enough? Teaching is an important part of your job. You are committed to doing it well. At the same time, you may often resent how much time it takes. You really wish you had more time for research than you do right now. Content […]
Read More »Making writing challenges like #AcWriMo work for you
I am writing this part way through November 2017. A few years ago Charlotte Frost and her team at PhDtoPublished got the bright idea to make an academic version of #NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and call it #AcWriMo. PhDtoPublished is geared to early career researchers and particularly those still in the late stages of […]
Read More »The 15-minute practice, 1 year later
I’ve been preaching the value of establishing a regular writing practice. If you are writing regularly, you will produce journal articles, books, and whatever else you need to produce. Establishing a regular practice is hard, but research shows that as little as 15 minutes per day can be effective. You can find 15 minutes. I’ve […]
Read More »Breathe
In the spirit of my Learned from Yoga posts, I want to draw your attention to a recent post by Aimée Morrison, Let it breathe. An excerpt gives you a flavour of the problem she addresses: When I began teaching, and for some time after, I used to try to assuage such anxieties by crowding […]
Read More »An advanced writing practice
A friend went to yoga class the other day and lay on her back the whole time absorbing the energy of the group and doing the poses in her head. She felt great afterwards. This is the advanced practice. You know your body well enough and you have enough self-confidence that you can just lie […]
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