The spiral-like nature of your academic life is particularly evident at the beginning of the academic year. No matter how experienced you are, it is always a bit chaotic. It offers the possibility of doing things better, or at least differently, this year. It is easy to approach a new year with your eyes on […]
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Managing your workload by creating containers
One way to get some control over how much time and energy you give to certain kinds of legitimate requests is to create a container for that kind of work.
Just as it is easier to store flour if you pour it into something with firm sides and a lid (so it doesn’t just flow all over the counter), some tasks can benefit from being contained in particular time periods or particular spaces.
Read More »Decisions take energy
making decisions is one of the most energy-intensive things we do as humans. Making a decision just plain takes a lot of calories. With a complex life, our brains are exhausted most days, too exhausted to make good decisions. Mark Silver A common scenario You have a sense that you should be writing regularly. You […]
Read More »The benefits of working small
In another post I asked “How could you experiment with working in a relaxed state?” I proposed that the ways in which my yoga teacher has been encouraging us to work within the comfortable range of movement and not stretch our muscles to their limits, might also apply to your writing and other work. In order to […]
Read More »Is working at or just beyond your limits really effective?
We live in a culture in which we are often demanded to do more. How much writing can you do in a year/semester/week/hour? How many students can you teach effectively? This constant striving for more leaves many of us feeling inadequate a lot of the time. It also privileges an approach to work that is […]
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Thoughts on accountability, deadlines & goals
You want to write more. You want to finish and submit more of your writing. You may think that the only way to do that is to do one or more of the following: set concrete (product-oriented) goals give yourself deadlines for achieving those goals make yourself accountable to someone else for those goals and/or […]
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On valuing your work
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · On valuing your work I came across a blog post by an artist that resonated with things I know academics also experience. I’d like to share it with you. The post is Artist’s Statement — Part Two at The Pale Rook. In it, the author talks about her own […]
Read More »You don’t need accountability
Why do you want an accountability partner/coach/whatever for writing? The things you most dislike about your job, and that you would not do if an external body did not require them, have accountability to that external body built in. You do your grading. You do it by the institutional deadline. You set aside important work […]
Read More »Change is hard
Whether you want personal change or institutional change, there are some things you need to accept about how it will happen. There is no magic wand It would be really nice if there were. Imagine “Poof!” and things are the way you’d like them to be. No messy transition. Some things are better but […]
Read More »Thoughts on work, creativity, and “bureaucracy’s perverse attractions”
An article about university bureaucracy by Elaine Glaser in the Times Higher contained this thought provoking paragraph: In The Utopia of Rules, Graeber offers a convincing account of bureaucracy’s perverse attractions. It offers a chimera of absolute transparency, consistency and fairness. It is like a game with perfect rules – and which is also not […]
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“Write all the things” is not a summer plan
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Write All The Things! is not a summer plan As the semester got busier, chances are you started saying “I’ll get to that in the summer” about a lot of things, especially writing. At this point you’ve probably got a list that is roughly “Write all the things.” Of […]
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How to take the weekend off
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · How to take the weekend off Academic life is demanding. During term time you are juggling teaching, administrative and service work, graduate supervision, and your own research and writing. During the summer and your sabbatical, you feel like you need to devote as much time as possible to your […]
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