![A flatlay photo of a white desk surface displaying a few items. A black rope noticeboard with walnut frame reads: "Things to do: 1. own today. 2. [empty space] 3. [empty space]. A pair of bright neon turquoise wired headphones, a laptop, turquoise notebook, black coffee in white mug and grey cable knit jumper sleeve decorate the image edges.](https://jovanevery.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/emma-matthews-digital-content-production-p6g6S_kXkFc-unsplash-900x600.jpg)
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Motivation & accomplishment in your writing practice Given how hard it is for most academics to find time to work on their writing, and how difficult it is to know how long some stages of the process will take, I advocate establishing a regular writing practice and trusting that […]
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Priorities and boundaries in the face of job insecurity
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Priorities & boundaries in the face of job losses A friend (not an academic) has recently lost their job and noted that one of the most frustrating things about it is: “nobody ever looked at our performance, a decision was made several levels up and eliminated the department wholesale.” […]
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Asynchronous teaching and setting boundaries
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Asynchronous teaching and setting boundaries I’ve noticed in various conversations on Twitter that there are some issues with setting boundaries in the context of pandemic teaching conditions. In this post I address a particular issue with asynchronous teaching. Never in class and never not in class When you taught […]
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Juggling, jigsaws, and navigating by the stars: making reasonable plans
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Juggling, jigsaws, and navigating by the stars I’ve written before about juggling as a metaphor for planning out your workload. Consider all of the things you want and need to do, at work and outside of work, as the box of things a juggler could be juggling. Identify […]
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Dealing with the loss of a physical boundary between work and home
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Dealing with the loss of a physical boundary between work and home The pandemic has made us all hyper-aware of how much of what we’d come to tolerate as “just how things are” is actually deeply unacceptable. The pandemic has not created an impossible to resolve conflict between your […]
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You are not broken. You don’t need fixing.
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · You are not broken. You don’t need fixing. One of the comments I got from my editor when working on the Short Guides was “What do you want them to do with this information?” She was really not happy with a prompt that asked the reader to notice something […]
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How do you think about meetings when you are planning your day/week/month?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · How do you think about meetings when you are planning your day/week/month? When you are planning your week (or your day or your month) and you look over what’s already in your calendar what is your reaction to scheduled meetings? When someone contacts you to organize a meeting, how […]
Read More »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 they’ve done. I wrote about this practice several years ago: You get a lot done. I send […]
Read More »Writing & research in the summer of the pandemic
One of the issues that has come up in the Academic Writing Studio is the relationship between motivation to write and finding the writing you need to do meaningful. This is not a new problem but the current crisis may have brought it to the fore. You may already struggle to prioritize writing or treat […]
Read More »Time perception and how long things actually take
Another issue that came up in Office Hours recently was this feeling that things that should take 15 minutes are taking 3 hours, or just a general feeling that you aren’t really accomplishing anything. (Office Hours is a group coaching session I do with members of the Academic Writing Studio. We talk about what’s going […]
Read More »Autonomy in pandemic conditions
One of the things you value about an academic career is the considerable autonomy it affords you. This autonomy is not absolute and always involves making difficult decisions to manage your workload. (see Flexibility, autonomy, and boundaries and Unpacking “busy” the importance of being proactive instead of reactive) The radical reorganisation of your work life in response to […]
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The case for getting dressed for work
I’ve been working from home for over 10 years now and the question of pyjamas versus getting dressed properly is a pretty standard one amongst the work at home crowd. Academics often work at home at least some of the time. At least, those in the humanities and social sciences whose research does not involve […]
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