Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Email is not urgent Do not start an email with this sentence or any variation on it: “Sorry for the delay in replying” You are busy. Your inbox gets full. Sometimes it takes a while to get back to people. Sometimes you miss something and notice it 2 weeks […]
Read More »Planning, or Juggling 101
My approach to planning focuses on 3 key elements: Priorities, Boundaries, Slack. I have also elaborated these in my book The Principles of Juggling, illustrated by Amy Crook.
If you have come here because you are overwhelmed start with the Emergency Planning Technique. Once you've got things calmed down, you can then consider making a plan to keep things from getting out of control.
Tough decisions: turning down a job offer
Sometimes I help clients decide whether to turn down a job. Yes, that’s right. Even in this tough labour market some of my clients are deciding not to take jobs. These aren’t easy choices to make. I’ve written before about how you are not desperate. That post focused on applying for the right jobs. What […]
Read More »Volunteer before you’re drafted
If your level of frustration with your working hours is more about what you are doing in them than how many of them you are working, how do you increase the proportion of your time spent doing things that are meaningful? Try this suggestion from the #femlead Twitter chat. (Which sadly doesn’t happen any more.) […]
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Is “number of hours” the right measure?
Recently a client asked me to help her figure out how to work less. She is frustrated by long hours, working weekends, and so on. She figures at this stage of her career, she should be able to have a better balance. As we worked together, it became clear to me that the number of […]
Read More »Are you valuing your time?
It is really easy to overvalue tasks that other people ask you to do or see you doing. And to undervalue the tasks you do alone. Writing happens alone. Sometimes it doesn’t even look like work, especially when you have to do a lot of thinking. It takes a long time to get a product […]
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Permission to refuse service/admin requests
One difference between an academic career and other forms of employment is that you are often left to manage your workload yourself. The basics are decided by someone else, but you are always “free” to take on more.
Saying “no” is hard. Are you saying yes just to avoid the discomfort?
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A class provides structure
Now that so much information is available on the internet, this question arises more and more frequently. Why go to university? Why pay all that money to learn things you could learn on your own using resources available on the internet and in public libraries. Couldn’t you just do this stuff yourself? Perhaps with the […]
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You can ignore the grading, reprise
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · You can ignore the grading, reprise This post refers to the break between the first and second semesters of an academic year, which in the Northern Hemisphere tends to incorporate the Christmas holidays. Often the exams and assignments that come in at the end of the semester need to […]
Read More »Are you letting gremlins ruin your job?
No one will fund that research. Find a sexier topic. One there’s a bit of buzz about. And make it something useful. You’re really behind the times. There’s all kinds of educational technology out there. Why aren’t you using it? Get innovative. Update that course. No one reads academic journals. What are you even bothering […]
Read More »Learning to say “no”
I know that academic workloads can be nuts. I’ve been an academic.
I also know that as an academic you have considerably more control over your work than many other professionals.
Read More »Managing your workload as a full-time academic
Overwork is rampant in academe. Whether you are tenure-track, tenured, or some other kind of full-time (temporary or otherwise), the Tenured Radical has some of the best advice I’ve ever seen. It may seem harsh, but you are strongly advised to do everything she says. Here are some snippets to tempt you: Yeah, baby. The […]
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Making difficult decisions
Recently I had to make some difficult decisions about my capacity to review grant proposals in advance of a fall 2010 deadline. It was a hard decision to make and a hard decision to communicate to clients. I have gifts to share with my clients. I genuinely enjoy helping people. And from 2005 to now, […]
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