Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · What if *you* need an extension? I’ve been seeing a lot of conversation on Twitter about granting extensions to students. Much of it is framed in terms of compassion and kindness. There seems to be a prominent school of thought that you should just do this, almost automatically. That […]
Read More »communication
Email sign-offs
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Email Sign-offs Every once in a while there is a bit of a social media storm about how we sign our email messages. There are some humourous memes attributing passive-aggressive intent to various formal sign-offs. They are only funny if you don’t regularly worry about whether the way you […]
Read More »Spotlight On: Email Overwhelm
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Spotlight On: Email Overwhelm. One issue that seems to affect your ability to find and protect time for writing is email. You may disagree on details. Not every suggestion will work for you. But I hope you find something in here that you can try to make your situation […]
Read More »Prioritizing rest over the winter break
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Prioritizing Rest over the Winter Break I wrote this in December but it also applies at the end of 2nd semester when you are going into summer. Or, at other times of year when you have a break from teaching and you are feeling exhausted. On the first Friday […]
Read More »So tired you could cry? Enable Low Power Mode.
This post is part 2 of a mini-series called So Tired You Could Cry. The 1st part can be found here. Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · So tired you could cry? Enable Low Power Mode You know when your phone warns you about the battery being low, it also asks if you want to […]
Read More »So tired you could cry? Permission granted.
This post is part 1 of a mini-series called So Tired You Could Cry. The 2nd part is available here. Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · So tired you could cry? Permission granted. You can cry! In fact, put it on your to-do list. Cry in the shower every morning. Cry in bed wrapped up […]
Read More »Email overwhelm as a collective problem
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Email Overwhelm as a Collective Problem. This post was prompted by the renowned classicist, Mary Beard, stoking up the embers of email stress recently over on Twitter. for all you guys (women and men) recommending 'delay delivery',. do you know what that means? It means that at 9.00 my […]
Read More »Not contributing to other people’s email overwhelm
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Not contributing to other people’s email overwhelm As a companion piece to Managing email when you’ve rapidly switched to remote working, I thought I’d also share some tips to make email more effective as a means of communication. Modelling good email practices does create change. If other people find your […]
Read More »Managing email when you’ve rapidly switched to remote working
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Managing email in the rapid switch to remote You probably have a hard enough time keeping on top of your email at the best of times. The changes you have had to make to respond to the pandemic are likely to make things worse. It is possible you […]
Read More »Thoughts on academic freedom, scholarly publishing, and mundane practices
This post is something I initially wrote for my newsletter. I had come across something that I wanted to write about even though I didn’t have a neat conclusion or lesson. I value freedom and autonomy. I know freedom and autonomy are important factors for many people who choose an academic career. I also value […]
Read More »Protecting time for writing: Interruptions
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Protecting time for writing: Interruptions I encourage you to make writing a priority and block time so that writing becomes a regular practice, rather than something you only do when you have specific deadlines. Although I recognise that different people will work better in different places, I strongly advocate […]
Read More »Before you can say no …
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Before you can say no It’s all well and good for people to tell you “You need to get better at saying no” but there are lots of good reasons that saying no is difficult. Even the people giving you that advice aren’t very good at hearing no, when […]
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