This post was originally written in February 2021 as a follow up to Planning Your Winter Semester and was shared in the Academic Writing Studio. It has been edited and divided into a series of shorter posts for ease of reading. Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Managing the energy you use to make […]
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Introducing: the Academic Writing Studio
The Beginning When I started A Meeting With Your Writing back in September 2011, I didn’t even know if it would work. All I knew was that virtual accountability and community was needed, and that I was prepared to facilitate something that might help. Now, it feels central to everything I do. Participants have told […]
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Cycles of the Academic Year
What if I told you rethinking your academic year to align with your goals and values could help you manage your workload more confidently? Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Cycles of the Academic Year Cycles of the academic year & intensity of work is where I first started thinking about the broader shape of […]
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Thoughts on wrapping up your teaching for summer
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Thoughts on wrapping up teaching for the summer Academic work is cyclical. There are seasons to the work. You need to account for those cycles when you plan. Summer may feel like the research & writing part of the year. If you value teaching and being a good teacher, […]
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Motivation and accomplishment in your writing practice
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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The value of intellectual engagement
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Valuing Intellectual Engagement Burnout and stress are not just about the quantity of work you have to do. Lack of control and a sense of meaninglessness are major contributors to burnout. It has become very clear that your difficulty managing your workload is not a personal failing. You are […]
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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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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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Prioritising and planning
I really need to share this post by Helen Kara with you. She makes some excellent points that fit very well with my approach to planning. And she made me realise something: There is a big difference between project planning and workload planning. What I focus on here most of the time is workload planning, […]
Read More »The importance of your vision
One reason I started doing what I’m doing is that I could see all of these brilliant, interesting people not really enjoying their academic jobs. For various reasons you were discouraged, frustrated, or just plain overworked. As I’ve worked with clients I have noticed that one of the key elements in shifting that negative stuff […]
Read More »Mid-career blahs
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “I’ve Got Tenure, How Depressing” (Kathryn D. Blanchard, 31 January 2012), highlights the fact that even getting a coveted tenure-track position doesn’t necessarily lead to the “happily ever after” ending. Since my provost gave me the news about my promotion, I have been wallowing in “post-tenure depression.” Apparently this […]
Read More »Making writing challenges like #AcWriMo work for you
I am writing this part way through November 2017. A few years ago Charlotte Frost and her team at PhDtoPublished got the bright idea to make an academic version of #NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and call it #AcWriMo. PhDtoPublished is geared to early career researchers and particularly those still in the late stages of […]
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