One of the great things about being an academic is how much autonomy you have compared to other jobs. Autonomy can also be one of the not so great things, too. If you are working really long hours and feeling overwhelmed with everything you have to do, you might have gone beyond autonomy. Help is […]
Read More »Developing a Practice
Your academic life is more than a string of articles published, classes taught, and meetings attended. You write because this is how you articulate and develop your ideas. You publish to communicate those ideas to others. Posts in this category help you develop the practices you need to do the work you love well without burning out or compromising your values.
You Need a Writing Practice is a good place to start to investigate the Writing subcategory.
Juggling 101: Elements of a good plan is a good place to start investigating the Planning subcategory.
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 […]
Read More »Make sure sessional teaching develops your skills
If the main reason to do sessional teaching is to gain experience, you might want to be proactive in ensuring that you get the most out of it.
Teaching can be very rewarding. However, the lack of compulsory training for teaching in higher education can also contribute to frustration.
If your main source of knowledge about how to do this is how you have been taught in the past, you have limited options when things aren’t working the way you’d like them to. You might also be a bit lost if you are facing a teaching situation you rarely faced as a student yourself.
Read More »On the topic of teaching experience…
The University of Windsor is working on a project supporting Graduate and Teaching Assistants. They are collecting information about what is happening elsewhere. Here’s the intro from their site: … a team working with Graduate Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. We’re building […]
Read More »Refinement vs Perfectionism
Shortly after I wrote about dealing with your Inner Perfectionist, I read this piece, “Refinement vs Perfectionism” by Cairene MacDonald at Third Hand Works, addressing the same issue. Cairene generously allowed me to share her thoughts here. (The original is no longer available online.) Refinement serves the work. Refinement is that process of adding only what’s […]
Read More »Is your inner perfectionist making things take longer?
Do you have an Inner Perfectionist? Your Inner Perfectionist can be really helpful and probably has been at various points in your career. They make sure you do your best work. Help you through the end game of writing in which all the big ideas are there and you need to make it really shine. […]
Read More »More on writing
In my last post, Rebecca Leigh talked about the physical way you write — pen and paper vs. computer. Her main point was that we should do it the way it works for us and not get all worried about how we should do it. There is another big should in the writing world, especially […]
Read More »Give Yourself Permission
I’ve subscribed to smart fresh updates from my friend and business writer Rebecca Leigh. The other day, I got this great story in my inbox. I immediately thought of you. Because writing is that thing you want to do but struggle with. And what Rebecca wrote was so inspiring and powerful. So, I asked Rebecca […]
Read More »Starting to think about working in teams
Are you thinking it’s time to hire a research assistant or collaborate with a colleague or hire an editor? Whether you feel pushed by external pressures or by the internal recognition that there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do all the things you want to do, this transition is hard. In addition to the practical […]
Read More »Teaching the lecture class
I encourage you to read this excellent post from the Tenured Radical on how to teach lecture classes well. As she puts it: The lecture class is worth learning to teach well because this is where you will build your reputation as a teacher. It is where you will recruit students into your upper level […]
Read More »Planning when you have no goals
As so often happens, reading someone’s blog inspired me to write about something. Keri is on sabbatical. And on her first day, she writes I am already in a bit of a panic about not get everything done that I want to get done over the next 6 months. And, yet, as I sit here this […]
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