You've Got Mail...Now What?

September 25, 2016

By Bryn Harris, PhD, University of Colorado DenverAs the semester kicks off, many of us have goals to be better about managing our email this academic year. This can be a challenging task, because each aspect of our work (research, teaching, and service) has email components. However, there are many strategies for managing email and some may work for you! Below, I list some of the techniques that have worked for me.Reduce email as a distraction. I don’t know about you, but I could probably spend days of my week just on email. No one has that kind of time, especially if you are on the tenure clock. Find ways to reduce email as a distraction. Turn off your email alerts. Close your inbox during certain times of the day. Remove email from your smartphone. Figure out the ways in which email is making you less productive and problem solve solutions.Check email at certain times during the day. Some people benefit from blocking off time on their schedule to respond to email. Picking one or two times during the day makes you more efficient as you have slotted a specific time period for email. If email requires less energy than other tasks you are working on, you may consider responding during a specific time of day. In Dr. Randy Floyd’s insightful post, he mentions that responding to emails in the evening is the most efficient use of time for him (http://www.ssspresearch.org/earlycareerforum/foundations-successful-scho...).Don’t check email as your first task of the day. One of the top New York Times bestselling authors and motivational speakers, Brendan Burchard, writes that what is in your inbox is “someone else’s agenda.” When you open up your email first thing in the morning, your to-do list then becomes someone else’s to-do list. Some people find that if they spend a certain number of hours on research or teaching tasks first thing in the morning (without email!), they are more efficient the rest of the day.Forget about having an empty inbox (also called “inbox zero”). I know many people who get stressed by how many emails they have. I will go ahead and say that it is impossible for me to have an empty inbox and I am okay with that. Know that having an empty inbox likely is an unrealistic expectation. Come up with realistic expectations for email (e.g. respond within a certain number of days, put appointments on my calendar at first email read, respond to crisis emails quickly).Know when to respond and when to file. Someone suggested to me that if I receive an email that I can respond to in 2 minutes or less, I should do it at that time. If it will take longer, then I need to file it and put it on my to-do list or in my calendar. This advice has helped me feel more productive managing my time. Some people file emails by project name, class, or such categories as “crucial”, “action”, “side burner” etc. to indicate the importance.Use boiler plate responses when possible. I receive many of the same emails from students over the years. I have created responses that I can use for these common questions. In addition, know when to delegate. Is the question something a student advisor could respond to? Or could the student find that information in the student handbook? Lastly, if you find yourself a writing long email, that likely means that this communication would be better in person (or on the phone).Reframe the growing inbox. Often, when my inbox is at its largest it is when I am working on a large project, an article that must be submitted, or other significant program responsibilities. Try to minimize the stress of a growing inbox but reminding yourself of the work you are completing. Last I checked, no one evaluated my email abilities in my tenure dossier!Create a program philosophy regarding email communication. Many programs have documented in their program handbooks the agreed upon time that professors will respond to email (i.e., three business days).  The students will benefit from understanding expectations surrounding email and will be less likely to send last minute emails that potentially disrupt your tasks.The power of the out of office! Pick one day during the week (or on a schedule you desire) where you put your out of office on. Use this day to unapologetically work on tasks that are important to you and not feel the need to check your email.What strategies do you use to manage your email? Did you try one of these strategies? How did it go?

Battling Imposter Syndrome in Academia

June 16, 2016

By guest blogger, Ima Syke Many months ago, following a reader request, I was tapped to guest blog on the topic of Imposter Syndrome (cue internal voice asking, “Am I worthy of writing this post? Did they ask me to write it because they know I don’t belong here? How did they figure me out?”). I’ve been assured the invitation had nothing to do with anyone’s perceptions of my inadequacy but rather a belief that I could do a great job and hopefully help many others similarly plagued by this type of pesky internal monologue. So here goes…Imposter Syndrome is generally defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that are prevalent despite success. Researchers have found this is more prevalent among women, graduate students, academics and interestingly, among those with evident success. This topic interested me for personal reasons; I have battled with aspects of Imposter Syndrome for years. While this is not a DSM diagnosis, it has impacted my career in academia in various ways. Let me give you a few examples from my professional life, hopefully others can relate.Recently, I sat in a meeting with a group of fellow academics as we prepare to write a large-scale collaborative grant. As I hear what other people can contribute to the data collection, writing the grant and other key aspects of this work, I wonder, “What can I contribute that others can’t?” and “My section will not be nearly as strong as theirs” and countless other comments revolving around self-doubt that ran through my mind. In other situations, I have remained silent during conversations that directly relate to my teaching or research for fear of “intellectual fraudulence.” And don’t even get me started regarding reading vitas! Others with Imposter Syndrome may feel like “luck” has more to do with their success than ability, or they may downplay their success. While I logically know that these behaviors hinder my productivity, collaborative relationships, and ultimately my perception in academia, I also never knew how to change these feelings until working on this blog post.Like any good academic, I started my assignment by doing research (i.e., investigating what has already been written on this topic). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Imposter Syndrome has been addressed in numerous academic magazines and blogs because it is all too common. Below are some strategies I have found in the literature for battling Imposter Syndrome.Recognize it within yourself and in others. Imposter Syndrome does not necessarily relate to low self-esteem or confidence; these are two different issues. If you suffer from chronic self-doubt and feelings of intellectual fraudulence, these are signs that you are battling Imposter Syndrome. If you see these traits in others, acknowledge what you see and allow for conversation on this topic.Regularly remind yourself of your accomplishments. Create lists or email folders of accomplishments and refer to them when these feelings of inadequacy strike. Part of Imposter Syndrome is the inability to internalize accomplishments, even when highly successful.Become keenly aware of your strengths. Learn what you excel in and utilize these abilities often, especially in collaborative relationships. This will heighten feelings related to your usefulness and contribution. Utilize others to help you with this task as it may be challenging for some to identify personal accomplishments.Discuss Imposter Syndrome with your students. Recognize patterns within the classroom (such as comments from students that may indicate these feelings) and have open discussions about this topic. Furthermore, talk with your students about how you overcame your own doubts or how you are still working to overcome them.Seek support. People who have Imposter Syndrome may find benefit in seeking therapy to improve their coping mechanisms. Group therapy might be particularly beneficial as relating to others and their experiences and coping strategies can be powerful.If you are interested in learning more about how to overcome this problem, Academic Coaching and Writingis offering a free webinar, Managing Imposter Syndrome in Academia, on June 30th, 2016.Additional resources on this topic:Feel Like a Fraud by Kirsten Weir in APA’s gradPSYCH MagazineFaking It: Women, Academic, and Impostor Syndrome by Kate Bahn in VitaeThe Imposter Syndrome, or, as my Mother told me: “Just Because Everyone Else is an Asshole, it Doesn’t Make you a Fraud” by Phyllis Rippeyoung for The Professor Is In‘I’m not worthy!’ – Imposter Syndrome in Academia by Jay Daniel Thompson for The Research WhispererAn Academic With Imposter Syndrome by Joseph Kasper in the Chronicle of Higher EducationDo you have any further coping strategies for imposter syndrome? What works – and doesn’t work – for you? Don’t be afraid to share. You are not alone.

Give Yourself the Gift of No

December 14, 2015As an early career scholar, you have a finite amount of time so there reaches a point where saying yes to one thing means saying no to another—or where you risk overburdening yourself to the point where your performance in many or all areas of work suffers.  Saying yes to x often means less time for y. This becomes problematic when x is a nonessential, unwanted task and y is a highly valued or necessary task (e.g., writing).  Ideally, such decisions are driven by your professional and personal goals in conjunction with institutional expectations, especially if you are concerned about promotion and tenure. Maintaining any sense of balance in one’s professional roles and with one’s personal life will likely require accepting that we cannot and do not have to do everything. Often, this requires releasing ourselves of unrealistic expectations of personal perfection and pleasing everyone around us. Further, protecting the time needed to do well the things you need and want to do will require learning to say no to other nonessential opportunities and tasks.Learning to say no first requires identifying your priorities so that you can easily identify requests and opportunities inconsistent with those priorities. After identifying priorities it can be helpful to build time for necessary and desired tasks into you schedule and calendar. Just as you block out time for commitments to others (e.g., class, advising appointments, committee meetings), you should schedule time for commitments to yourself to better account for your time and to ensure necessary or desired tasks do not fall by the wayside. This is especially important with research and writing time since these are often the first to be sacrificed when faced with competing demands. For many scholars, these are also the highest priority. I routinely schedule writing time on my calendar. Treating these times as nonnegotiable helps to ensure you don't abandon this priority. Few of us would accept competing appointments when we are scheduled to teach, but it is not uncommon to accept competing appointments when we plan to write even though it is counterproductive in both the short and long term.For those who have difficulty saying no, I have a colleague who admitted she notates writing time on her calendar as meetings with administrators so that others who view her calendar won't consider infringing on the time and to remind herself of the importance of these appointments. A similar strategy may work for you if you are concerned that your commitment to research time won't be accepted or respected by colleagues. The important thing is to carefully guard your time so that other activities don't crowd out your priorities and prevent you from being productive and efficient.Another strategy that can make it easier to say no is giving yourself a minimum amount of time to consider any request or invitation. For instances, I know other EC scholars who wait at least 24 hours before responding to invitation or request for time or involvement. This disrupts an otherwise automatic tendency to say yes to everything and provides the time needed to reflect on whether an opportunity or request is consistent with one’s priorities and availability. Rather than blindly saying yes to everything, consider the potential benefits and costs, including the impact on your other work. Mentors and more senior scholars can provide valuable guidance in this decision process.You will also have to accept the need to practice pleasantly and unapologetically saying no. Some people are incredibly uncomfortable with the possibility of disappointing others or are so conflict-avoidant they would rather say yes to everything than risk that discomfort, only to fall short on their own goals. Still others are motivated by some mistaken belief that they are so important that others need them to the point that they cannot say no. This is very rarely the case. Once you've accepted that there are times when you can and should say no, do so simply and unapologetically. It's okay to say no without offering any more justification than you are simply unavailable. That is generally all the requester needs or is entitled to know. Practice saying, "Thank you for the invitation, but I am not available at this time." Or "Thank you for this opportunity, but I'm unavailable." When justification is needed, it can be helpful to link you refusal to you job duties or tenure expectations, or to have a senior colleague--generally your program or area coordinator-- back up your decision (e.g., "My program coordinator advised me against taking on additional service activities at this time."). Certainly some individuals may make requests that you shouldn't refuse, but don't assume every request they make is one of those. Instead, ask for time to consult with your colleagues and verify your availability and then speak with more senior colleagues and/or you program/area coordinator who can help you evaluate the request, and, when appropriate, plan your refusal. At times, your coordinator may want to say no on your behalf depending on who the requester is in order to more convincingly state your need to focus on your priorities.Another helpful strategy for people who tend to reflexively say yes is to remind yourself that no is the default decision unless you can identify sufficient professional or personal benefits to saying yes. For a few years, I posted a small note on my computer that read, "Just say no." For me this visual reminder was needed to counter my knee jerk reaction to accept every research and service opportunity that came my way. In the end, it saved me a lot of unwanted stress and time.In the end, learning and practicing saying no is necessary to bring strategic in managing your time and commitments.  Time management is key to being efficient and productive and avoiding overextension and burnout.  Chances are you'll enjoy your work more when you are judicious with your time. Be kind to yourself by giving the gift of allowing yourself to say no when appropriate.

Academic Parenthood: When I Figure it Out, I'll Let You Know

September 28, 2015

This is the third installment of a mini-series on academic parenthood, a follow up to the ECF session at the 2015 NASP Convention. In the first two installment, Bryn Harris and Jessica Hoffman discussed their perspectives as mothers pre- and post-tenure. In this installment, Sterett Mercer provides a father’s perspective on academic parenthood.By Sterett Mercer, The University of British ColumbiaUpon receiving the invitation to write this column, I was stuck with a general sense that I didn’t have any useful advice or profound perspective to provide…this is very much a work in progress. That said, I am a father of two girls (ages 5 and 7), in my first year post-tenure, and part of a dual-academic family; and that does at least make for some interesting stories.Our first daughter was born while I was working as a research associate for a company that developed and evaluated social-emotional interventions for children. At that point, I hadn’t published much (and probably didn’t write all that well, to be honest), but I was determined to keep writing and get some work under review. During the first month after my daughter was born, I did manage to get most of an introduction to an article down on paper before having to move on to a major period of data collection and other projects. There were probably some times of waking up with keyboard prints on my forehead, but fortunately sleep deprivation seems to impair memory formation. A few months later (in a slightly better-rested state), I returned to the draft, read it twice, and deleted the file. I can only describe that draft as lacking what I would now refer to as ‘lexical cohesion’—at the time, I described it as word salad.

• Lesson Learned:It is important to match tasks with current capabilities. For me at least, it is generally a waste of time to write first drafts when sleep-deprived, sick, upset, etc. Of course, we don’t have full control of these factors, but I try to fill those non-optimal hours and days (sometimes weeks, occasionally months…) with less involved tasks like answering email, course planning, editing, reviewing manuscripts, and other service-related tasks so that I can take the time to write when in the right state of mind.

Four or so years later, I was in my first year of employment as an assistant professor at my second academic institution.  My wife was completing a post-doc in another country, and I was the primary caretaker for our girls (then ages 2 and 4). While teaching a new course (and really struggling to stay afloat in general), I had the bright idea to submit a proposal for a modest federal grant. At the time, I thought that it would be a great opportunity to learn the format for Canadian grants and get some feedback on the proposal, but the only way to get the grant completed by the deadline was to work on it during nights in a cycle of heavy childcare disruption due to child illnesses (and eventually me being sick too) in that critical period before the deadline. The grant ended up being submitted, and amazingly enough it was funded. Success, right? Not really. The idea wasn’t all that great, and the project was a very poor contextual fit for the local schools. Recruitment and data collection (which I also didn’t really have time for) were a nightmare, and overall, I would describe this project as one of my least successful to date.

• Lesson Learned: (See the prior lesson that I obviously did not learn the first time around.) Clearly there are some times when it is best to work on other things and prioritize other areas. Planning and initiating a major project at a low point during academic parenthood may not be the best use of time.

In the first year post-tenure, I am increasingly aware that academic careers are marathons, not sprints, and managing burnout will most likely be the key to successfully navigating the 30+ years to go in my academic career. Although some academics can maintain a consistent schedule of work and writing on evenings and weekends, it’s typically a waste of time for me if it extends beyond the (very) short term. I drop off and pick up our kids from daycare/school most days of the week, so I typically have 7.5 to 8 hours of potential work time on campus, and I do my best to optimize that time. When I don’t use that time well, then work drifts back into evenings and weekends, I get annoyed and burnout increases, and then my overall productivity drops even though I end up working more hours. Eventually I start to think that leaving academia to pursue [insert half-baked career idea of the moment] is a great idea, but if I start brewing beer as a job, what would I do as a hobby?

• Lesson Learned: I try to be aware of the cycles of the work week and academic year. Some times of year those daytime hours tend to be full of meetings and course times, but Friday afternoons, times between academic terms, and summers tend to be less heavily scheduled; thus, those are the times that I need to read, plan, and write so that research productivity stays on track.

I would stress that you have to decide what kind of academic you want to be. Even without kids as part of the equation, you have to decide which aspects of research, teaching, and service you are going to do well, which ones you are going to ‘just do,’ and which ones you are going to avoid at all costs. Ideally, the parts you decide to do well will correspond to parts of the job that you enjoy and that are also valued in terms of merit and promotion at your university…for me, I enjoy the feeling of being immersed in a research problem, fitting complex statistical models (including hours of code debugging), uninterrupted writing time, teaching courses closely related to my research interests, and student research mentoring. In academia, we have quite a bit of control over our schedule, so I do my best to make sure I maintain a healthy diet of these activities in the work day to fight off burnout. When I’m in the midst of times that don’t allow those activities due to overscheduling of meetings or other tasks, I look ahead in the calendar and think about what I will do when the schedule opens up again. The need to protect time for these activities is even more important with kids in the equation and the compression of the work day that school and childcare schedules create.You also have to decide what sort of parent you will be. Just like you can’t successfully be awesome at all aspects of the academic job, I don’t think it’s possible to be awesome at all aspects of parenthood. Compared to the families with a stay-at-home or part-time working parent, my wife and I are probably not going to win any awards for school involvement any time soon. Our kids’ school projects are completed solely by them (for the most part), we routinely miss a few food groups in the school lunches we pack, our kids’ wardrobes get pretty rough some times of the year, homework doesn’t always get done as well as it should, the house is pretty much a perpetual mess, and we don’t push the kids to do tons of extra-curricular activities (and actively try to limit them to some extent). I do, however, do my best to keep work out of weekday and weekend family times, and the kids seem to be happy and reasonably well-adjusted. They are also aware that mom and dad both have productive careers working at universities while having some time to play, and I think that’s pretty awesome.

• Lesson Learned: “Relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew”[1]...protect time for writing and parenting, and hopefully we’ll all stay in the game over the next 30+ years.

[1]Quote from Charlie Papazian (1984). The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. New York: Avon Books.

Academic Parenthood: A Post-Tenure Perspective

May 25, 2015

This is the second installment of a mini-series on academic parenthood, a follow up to the ECF session at the 2015 NASP Convention. In the first installment, Bryn Harris discussed her experiences as a mother and pre-tenure assistant professor. Below, Jessica Hoffman discusses her experiences as a parent and tenured associate professor.Academic Parenthood: A Post-tenure PerspectiveBy Jessica Hoffman, PhD, NCSP, Northeastern UniversityI found myself at my doctor’s office after a series of awful, no good, very bad days.  For the past four months my kids had been sick with all types of things that go around daycares and preschools—particularly when you have a baby in an infant room (fortunately not lice, though).  My doctor was listening to my chest and asked me to sit up straighter so she could hear me breathe.  I realized that it hurt to sit up straight.  I was so tired.  It was two days before the NASP convention and I was secretly hoping she’d declare me too sick to travel, and at the same time hoping I’d be fine to travel so I could get just two days away and maybe, just maybe, a full night’s sleep.This blog is about academic parenthood, something I’ve become quite familiar with.  I have three kids ages five, two and one.  My first was born a little over a year after I received tenure and promotion to associate professor.  Having children after receiving tenure in some ways would seem much easier than having children at other points in one’s academic career, say, in graduate school or when on the tenure track.  The pressures of tenure have been removed, there is job security, and academic jobs are very flexible.  As my husband (also an academic) says, we can choose the 60 hours of the week that we want to work.  So, when the kids get sick, or there’s a snow day (we had quite a few in Boston this past winter!), or there’s a school vacation, we have much more flexibility compared with parents employed outside the academy.Since becoming a mom the academic pressures that I’ve been struggling with mostly are the internal ones; the drive to work those long, uninterrupted hours that were a luxury before having kids.  The ability to read, to think, to write productively—these are more of a challenge than ever right now particularly because of the young ages of my kids. Although I mentioned earlier that one advantage of an academic job is the flexibility—we can work pretty much wherever, whenever, the major disadvantage to this flexibility is that work can be very difficult to turn off.  It can seep easily into family time and the boundaries between work and non-work time can become very blurry.  Another of my struggles is turning work off and learning to be OK with projects left hanging at less than ideal points, at unanswered emails that continue to mount, and saying no to interesting, career advancing opportunities because I “just can’t put anything more on my plate right now.” I tell myself that this is OK because my academic career is long and I know that this precious early childhood period will go by in the blink of an eye.Learning to say no without feeling badly or regretful is a skill I acquired some time ago that has been really important.  Other strategies that are getting me through this crazy, wonderful, exhausting time are:

• Having clear goals and being flexible to adjust my goals.  Being aware of and realistic about my personal and professional goals (both short term and long term) is really important.  Having personal and professional goals that don’t jive with the reality of what I can reasonably accomplish in the time available is a recipe for stress and distress.  Being in touch with my own values and those of my institution has been important in the goal setting process.  For me, promotion to full professor is important, but it will take longer to accomplish now that I have three young children.
• Being incredibly organized, careful planning, and excellent time management.  These are my three main survival skills these days.  I find myself continually prioritizing and reprioritizing daily, weekly and monthly tasks at work and at home.  Staying ahead of deadlines is incredibly important because I never know who is going to get sick next and how that will affect my work schedule.  I can’t rely on being able to get things done at the last minute.  Fortunately, many of our deadlines can get extended.  Those timelines that are less flexible are class meetings and grant application due dates.  Often, I feel as if time is a commodity that just evaporates into the ether—I find that most things take longer than expected, and leaving things to the last minute contributes to increased stress.
• Collaborating with exceptionally talented colleagues and students.  I am so fortunate to have wonderful colleagues and graduate students to collaborate with on research projects.  I strive to always take the lead on at least one study or grant proposal, and I am more productive when I collaborate with teams that produce consistently high quality work.
• Accepting help.  Accepting help from others is essential.  High quality, reliable child care is very expensive, but is worth every penny.  At this point, I also pay for services that take up time that otherwise can be spent with my family or working.
• Having a support system of other academic parents.  It’s been really important to me to connect with other parents of young children in the academy, both in school psychology and in other fields.  Surprisingly, a lot of this support has come from friends and colleagues who are at a distance via social networking.  These supportive relationships help me feel less isolated when life gets stressful.  It’s nice to have a group of people who understand the daily struggles of trying to survive and succeed in academia while nurturing a family.

Other things that make life somewhat easier:

• Cooking on days that I work from home, making double portions and freezing them so healthy meals are ready available—especially when I teach at night.
• Making lunches at night—getting three kids out of the house in the morning is exhausting enough without the lunches.
• Shopping in bulk so supplies are readily available
• Writing at home two days per week.  I tend to be more distracted in the office and I can also avoid time wasted in traffic.
• Turning off the email notification when I’m writing also helps to lessen distractions.
• Not even attempting to work in the house when my kids are at home.
• A steady intake of coffee.

Having an online discussion forum to share ideas about how to survive and succeed in the academy while raising children is important.  What strategies and supports have you found to be helpful?Jessica Hoffman is an Associate Professor at Northeastern University where she directs the MS/CAGS and PhD programs in school psychology.  She is a licensed psychologist and nationally certified school psychologist.  Her research is in the area of early childhood obesity prevention.  Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  She is a member of the Society for the Study of School Psychology.  

Academic Parenthood: Lessons Learned Along the Tenure Track

March 30, 2015

This is the first in a mini-series on Academic Parenthood, a follow up to the ECF session at the 2015 NASP Convention. The presentation is available here. Given the strong interest in the session, we are featuring two of the presenters' perspectives. In the first installment below, session lead Bryn Harris discusses her experiences as a parent and tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver.Academic Parenthood: Lessons Learned Along the Tenure TrackBy Bryn Harris, PhDI want to start this post by saying that raising a family as an academic has many advantages, but is also very challenging. Careers in academia provide flexibility which can allow for unique childcare arrangements; working hours that fit with your family’s schedule (rather than typical business hours); balancing teaching, research and service around family dynamics; and often an academic calendar that coincides with school breaks, among others. However, we also know that women are less likely to get tenure or advance to full professor than men (D’Amico, Vermigili, and Canetto, 2011) and that women with children on the tenure track are much more likely to drop off the tenure track than men (Ginther & Kahn, 2006). Furthermore, among tenured faculty, 70 percent of men are married with children compared with 44 percent of women (Ward & Wolf-Wendell, 2012). While I recognize this issue includes men and women, it is clear that women are impacted by academic parenthood in a unique way and thus my post will focus on my personal experiences as a mother on the tenure track.After reading the above paragraph, you might be surprised to learn that I willingly had two children while on the tenure track—I have a 2 year old and a 3 month old and I submit my tenure dossier this summer—and am so glad I did. I realize the decision to have children is a personal one, and for me I felt it was important to have children when my partner and I were ready, rather than waiting until after tenure. Below, I will provide some suggestions for people considering having children while on the tenure track. I realize that every university setting and personal situation will be different, but I hope these suggestions will be beneficial and promote your own success along the tenure track.Institutional Support. One of the main reasons that I feel I have been successful as an academic parent is the institutional support I received. When negotiating my leave length and responsibilities with my Dean, I prepared a proposal with my ideal scenario and shared this with her. Others might find it helpful to consider working more the semester prior to your leave to give you more time during your leave or other creative options. Could you teach a class during the summer to count toward your future load? Can you teach an online class after you return to allow you more flexibility in your schedule? Is a reduction in administrative responsibilities possible? Having conversations with your program faculty about your leave will also be beneficial. After you return, can you teach classes that you have taught before so as not to have new course preparation? Can another faculty member cover you advising responsibilities during your leave? Now is not the time to take on significantly more responsibilities – especially as you work toward tenure. Advocate for yourself! If you are unsure or uncomfortable with how to advocate for yourself, consider contacting university offices or committees that may be of help. For example, at my institution, the Women’s Issues Committee provides resources to faculty members and the Ombuds Office helps faculty negotiate leave or other responsibilities when there may be contentious relationships at play.Surround Yourself with Supportive Colleagues. I was surprised to find myself in a situation at my institution where there were no colleagues with young children when I had my son. Within the next couple of years, more of my colleagues were having children and somehow that felt less isolating. I found that I gravitated toward collaborating with other colleagues with young children at other universities as well. If I had to miss a conference call because my son was sick, they understood. This made the guilt I felt about missing work or a deadline more bearable. It was also nice to talk to these individuals about their own experiences in academic parenthood. One of my colleagues and I have a monthly phone call where we talk primarily about our success and challenges as parents. I feel this has made our working relationship stronger as well. It is not necessarily important that you surround yourself with colleagues that only have young children, but my point is to surround yourself with people who are supportive and understanding as much as possible.Know the HR Policies. It is important to know the requirements and processes within your own institution regarding leave, FMLA, and short-term disability (if applicable). I believe this should be done far before you think about having children. For example, at my institution we accrue sick leave each year to be used for events such as childbirth. If you do not have sufficient sick time accrued, people are eligible to purchase short-term disability insurance, which would cover additional weeks of leave at full pay. However, this has to be purchased during an open enrollment period prior to having your child. Be careful not to get all of your information from a colleague at your university that recently went on leave. You might fall under different leave policies if you are on a 9-month contract and they are on a 12-month contract, for example. Lastly, it is important to discuss whether you will stop your tenure clock. Some institutions allow faculty to pause or stop their tenure clocks so that the time does not count towards their probationary period when they have children, which can be beneficial when it is difficult to maintain productivity while caring for your new family member. This is a personal decision that should be discussed with your Dean, colleagues within your institution, and other mentors.Publication Pipeline. Hardly anyone I know has been able to time their pregnancy to the exact time they are hoping to have the baby. That being said, I do think this should be something you consider. I had one of my babies in September and enjoyed having the time during the summer to get some publications out the door and prepare for the baby’s arrival. I had my second baby in December (at the end of the semester) and was able to take off the spring semester from my teaching responsibilities, which meant 8 months off from teaching. In terms of research, pregnancy impacts your productivity more than you can imagine and most people find the second trimester to be the most productive time for them. I spent some time during the first trimester planning out all of the projects I would like to finish before I had the baby. I also tried to make my life easier after the baby came by having data collected by the end of my pregnancy so that I could write during my maternity leave. However, I truly believe that spending time with my baby is what maternity leave is for, they are only this young once! Once I returned to work full-time, I had several writing projects that I could delve into right away. This made returning to research tasks much easier. I also broke down my days so that certain days of the week were research-focused days and others were focused on teaching and service. I found that teaching responsibilities easily crept into research days and thus I gave myself a time limit of how much time I would spend preparing for classes each week. Amazingly, I feel just as prepared now than when I spent much more time preparing for my classes. I think that giving myself a time limit to prepare for teaching allows me to be more focused and efficient. There are always more research tasks I would like to be working on, but that was the same scenario prior to having my son. I do feel like I could be more productive with my research if I sacrificed more time with my family—which I am not willing to do right now. I allow myself to work during their naps on the weekend if necessary, but I also value the time I have with my husband and time I can focus on my own self-care.Be Kind to Yourself. When I came back from maternity leave with my son, I felt like I had been gone for years! It seemed like everything had changed at work and I needed some time to catch up. Furthermore, when it came to teaching I found that my confidence was lower and that I had a hard time getting into a “groove.” I think more than anything I was dealing with the fact that I was now a parent and an academic, and trying to balance these roles was tough. Give yourself some credit. You just had a baby. Returning to work can be challenging. But I also enjoyed having an identity other than being a mom when I went to work.Returning to work. Think about when are you the most productive. Do you normally work from home? It will be helpful to think about how the baby might impact your productivity and try to modify your surroundings. I thought I would be able to work from home when I went back to work. We hired a nanny who came to our house to care for my son. I quickly realized that I was incredibly distracted whenever I heard my son cry. I even bought noise-cancelling headphones to help! But I realized that I needed to physically separate myself from my son in order to be more productive. You will need to be patient with yourself as you re-learn how to be the most productive upon your return to work.Set Priorities. When you have children on the tenure track, you need to be especially focused on your productivity. Intimately knowing the requirements for tenure at your institution is the first step. I also recommend having regular meetings with the Dean or Department Chair regarding your productivity, establishing mentorship relationships with people who are also aware of the tenure requirements at your institution, and holding yourself accountable for your own successes. I encourage you to map out your projects and responsibilities as you work towards tenure. These goals can be broken down into 1 month, 6 month, or yearly increments. I also spend 30 minutes every Sunday mapping out my priorities for the week. My research priorities come first since research is incredibly valuable to achieving tenure at my university. It may help to share your priorities with others so you are held accountable.Flexibility. I used to be a person that always got things done on time, usually before I needed to. Those days may have passed! But I have embraced that. I focus on getting my priorities done on time, this allows me to feel productive. But I also know that my son will likely get sick at the worst time possible and that my daughter will refuse to take naps at all some days. I had to let some of that control go. Remember that your career will likely last for many, many more years. You will have other opportunities to do work.Practice Self Care. I find that it is increasingly difficult to find time for myself after my second child, but it is crucial. Maintaining your individual identity is important and makes you a better parent. If you currently have hobbies, think about how you might incorporate your baby or family into them – or how you can continue to do these things by yourself. Spending time with friends is also a critical part of my life and reduces feelings of isolation that you may have. You may consider joining a parent group in your neighborhood to meet other families with young children. This may be incredibly important for people without family members nearby as you can receive support from other parents (and maybe even a babysitting trade!). In addition, eating well and exercising are also important. I find that when I am not eating well I am more likely to get sick. We teach our graduate students about the importance of self-care, now is the time to practice what we preach!Supportive Partners are Instrumental. This may seem like common knowledge but it might be the most important factor of all. Have conversations with your partner ahead of time regarding your pregnancy and leave. What types of supports may you need during your pregnancy? How will you divide responsibilities during your leave? When you go back to work, how will you equitably provide care when a child is sick? When I had my son, I somehow thought I would have time to do the cooking, cleaning and care for my son during my leave. Reality check: if I took a shower that felt like an accomplishment. We are productive people or we would not be in academia. But you will need the support of others, and you will need to ask for help.One of the best things about being a parent is that it adds a new perspective to my research and teaching. It has allowed me to set greater limits with my work hours. I am more focused when I work since I know I have less time to work on something later and I want to spend time with my kids! Finally, careers in academia allow us flexibility that other careers may not and this lends itself well to parenthood. I hope we will all support other faculty members who have children, especially those working towards tenure.What other ideas can you share with us? What scares you the most about academic parenthood? What do you think will be the best parts of academic parenthood?

How Can You Progress Towards Better Work-Life Balance?

April 14, 2014

Last month, we turned our attention to work-life balance and posed several questions for scholars to consider. This month, we highlight some strategies that may be effective for you, as you progress towards better work-life balance.Set BoundariesSetting clear boundaries about one’s time and attention may alleviate the sense that one’s professional activities are all-encompassing since there always seems to be something on which we could be working. In our own experience, colleagues have reported or demonstrated a number of strategies for establishing boundaries such as:·       checking emails only at designated intervals or times;·       developing an email communication policy;·       protecting specific personal/family times (e.g., family dinner, daughter’s volleyball games, yoga class) when scheduling meetings or classes;·       maintaining a “traditional” work schedule to ensure time with non-academic partners;·       scheduling non-negotiable writing time;·       maintaining rigid office hours;·       scheduling work time around child-care activities;·       delaying responses to requests for new projects or service activities at least 24 hours to allow careful deliberation (e.g., allowing oneself to say no); and·       working behind closed doors or from home to minimize potential interruptions and maximize on-task time.Such boundaries are dynamic and may shift as professional and personal priorities change.Sometimes, it is helpful to communicate these boundaries to colleagues and students (e.g., developing an electronic communication policy for inclusion in syllabi). This may shape their expectations about how they use your time and reduce ongoing confrontations or intrusions. At the same time, it is important to remember that people do not need to know what you are doing at all times or why you are not available; often it is fine to simply say, “Sorry, I am not available then” (Jones, 2011). The goal is to develop some autonomy over one’s work life. This sense of control over one’s schedule has been shown to be the strongest predictor of work-life balance (Berry, 2010).Work SmarterFor many faculty, having the feeling that there isn’t enough time to accomplish everything that must be done may be one of the greatest hindrances to a sense of balance or satisfaction. Competing and seemingly endless demands make time management and efforts to increase organization and productivity critical to success. Faculty can assess ways they can be more productive by documenting and reviewing their work tasks, monitoring time on-task and progress toward goals, and eliminating time spent on tasks that do not align with goals (e.g., web surfing, spending hours a day on emails). Others suggest making daily or weekly lists of action items organized by type of work (e.g., reading, writing, class, emails, calls, errands), rather than on relying on to-do lists of general tasks (Cavendar, 2010). At the same time, creating—and reviewing regularly—lists of short and long-term goals can be important to keeping track of the bigger picture.Some early career scholars have reported tracking and charting time spent writing, words or pages written per day, and other key behaviors. A simple web search for “productivity tools” or “time management tools” yields numerous free applications that can be used to self-monitor. Amanda likes the free app for computers and mobile devices from Rescue Time because it does all the monitoring for her, allows for categorization of specific applications and websites, permits goal setting, and automatically generates reports on productivity. Mac users like Bryn may enjoy apps such as Concentrate or Anti-Social. Such resources can be used to determine how you actually use your time and where potential inefficiencies lie so that you can address them. Rob uses a digital chess timer to keep track of on-task and off-task time, but only uses it when starting new tasks, which is particularly challenging for most of us. He has also used a repeating alarm on his digital watch as a self-monitoring strategy. Setting a repeating alarm (it just beeps for a second and then starts counting again) is a useful way avoid getting too far off-task. Faculty members should share resources on these topics and provide support to each other in an effort to improve work-life balance within the professional community.ConclusionsReflecting upon one’s work-life balance is the first step in improving areas in need of change. Faculty members may choose to focus on improving one aspect of their situation at a time, or to increase the positive aspects of their job to increase their sense of satisfaction. It is important to note that this process is not simple or quick. As such, it evolves and continues throughout one’s career. However, faculty members are better teachers, researchers, and administrators when perceptions of work-life balance are positive.What strategies do you use to improve work-life balance?Have these strategies changed over time?Also, stay tuned for the next blog post focusing on self-care, another important aspect of work-life balance.ReferencesBerry, E. (2010). Achieving work-life balance: More than just a juggling act. American Medical News. Retrieved from http://ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/01/04/bisa0104.htmCavendar, A. (2010, February 5). The balancing act. Chronicle of Higher Education.Jones, J. B. (2011, May 27). Expecting balance. Chronicle of Higher Education.

What is Work-Life Balance in Academia?

March 17, 2014

Being a scholar in school psychology is a rewarding career that offers opportunities for, collaboration and lifetime learning. This path also offers a degree of flexibility not found in many other fields. The flexibility of the profession requires having to carefully regulate motivation and work ethic and practice effective time management. In the absence of a fixed schedule, it is essential to define manageable boundaries between professional activities and personal relationships. Academics commonly work long hours, including nights and weekends, but want separation between their work and personal lives (Kinman & Jones, 2008).As professionals, we all strive for work-life balance, or perhaps more accurately, some sense mutual fulfillment or overall contentment across our professional and personal lives. Here, we conceptualize balance as an alignment between the use of time and personal and professional goals and priorities—not necessarily equal distribution of time between professional and personal activities, but rather general satisfaction with one’s life (Berry, 2010). For early career scholars, this issue can be particularly salient when grappling with expectations for tenure, such as the perception that we must “publish or perish.” In school psychology, junior faculty also juggle teaching, supervision, service, and practice responsibilities.These pressures can be exacerbated by the concern that they should work all the time and constantly do more (Solomon, 2011), making it difficult to rationalize and create time away from professional activities. Not surprisingly, early career faculty are especially at risk of burnout. Given these constraints, many scholars will find it beneficial to engage in purposeful activities to foster well-being and satisfactory sense of balance in one’s professional and personal lives. Research suggests that the happiest faculty are those who have a sense of control over their work and schedules and have support within their institutions (Kinman & Jones, 2008). With this in mind, we begin our discussion of potential strategies to assist scholars at all career stages in improving work-life balance with reflection.Engage in Self-ReflectionBefore you start crafting your desired professional arrangements, it is necessary to identify what you want. Ongoing self-reflection is essential to self-care and one’s sense of balance. Berry (2010) emphasized the importance of regularly assessing one’s values and priorities to identify professional and personal goals and to guide decisions about responsibilities, activities, and time management. This may occur at annual, semesterly, monthly, or even weekly intervals. Schultheiss (2006) provided a series of questions we can periodically consider and discuss with mentors or peers when assessing our professional roles. She recommended recording and reviewing one’s responses to the following questions at regular intervals:

• What does workmean to you? (Note: Faculty may consider research, teaching, service, and practice separately.)
• What roles does workplay in your life?
• What supports and barriers are in place that influence your professional activities? What supports are currently missing, but may be possible?
• What implicit messages might there be about gender, race/ethnicity and privilege within professional and family relationships? How do these shape your professional activities?
• Do you connect with colleagues and share common interests, values, and goals?
• Do you have a sense of alienation and isolation at work?

To this list we add some questions you might ask yourself to determine facets in your personal life that might deserve some attention:

• What do I find fulfilling about my work?
• What aspects of my work do I find least rewarding? Why?
• How much time and attention to the fulfilling aspects require v. the unfulfilling aspects?
• Why do I want to be an academic? How does this vision align with the three items above?
• How does work creep into my personal life?
• What interests do I have outside of work? Do I have a hard time having conversations that don’t relate to my work?
• How do I make time for things outside of work that interest me (hobbies, activities with friends, personal relationships)?
• Are there facets of my life where I feel unfulfilled?
• How do I regularly take care of myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually?

Take time to reflect on each of these questions. What do they tell you about yourself and where you are professionally? The questions can be used to identify needed changes in thoughts and behavior to foster greater professional satisfaction. Avoid absolutist or perfectionistic thinking and instead think about your feelings, goals, priorities, and needs. Think instead about adopting an orientation of continuous improvement in both the personal and professional spheres. In next month’s installment of the Early Career Forum, we will explore strategies for fostering a satisfying sense of balance.An earlier version of this column appeared in the April 2013 issueof APA Division 16’s The School Psychologist.ReferencesBerry, E. (2010). Achieving work-life balance: More than just a juggling act. American Medical News. Retrieved from http://ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/01/04/bisa0104.htmKinman, G., & Jones, F. (2008). A life beyond work: Job demands, work-life balances, and wellbeing in UK academics. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 17, 41-60.Schultheiss, D. (2006). The interface of work and family life. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 37, 334-341.

Follow Up to the ECF Sessions at the 2014 NASP Conference

February 26, 2014

The Early Career Forum had a productive week at the NASP Convention. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the ECF session and to all the participants who attended the sessions. Interested individuals can access handouts and information on the presenters each of our sessions below.Our first activity of the conference was the panel, Dollars and Sense: Advice for Early Career Scholars on Grantsmanship, featured four distinguished speakers: Edith Arrington, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections; Jacquelyn Buckley, Institute of Education Sciences; James Griffin, National Institutes of Health; and  Jessica Hoffman, Northeastern University. The panelists provided guidance on current federal and foundation funding opportunities, and strategies for navigating the funding process and developing compelling proposals.Next, Rob Volpe, Amy Briesch, Julia Ogg, and Maria Rogers led a conversation hour, Developing and Sustaining Research Collaborations. Participants engaged in an informal discussion surrounding how to foster productive research partnerships with peers and students.The session, Academic Motherhood: Perspectives from Early Mid and Senior Career Faculty, was a resounding success. Panelists Bryn Harris, University of Colorado Denver; Jessica Hoffman, Northeastern University; Shannon Suldo, PhD, University of South Florida; Beth Doll, University of Nebraska Lincoln discussed strategies for navigating the tenure clock, increasing research productivity, teaching strategies, negotiating parental leave, and forming supportive systems while parenting.In the symposium, Straight Talk about Faculty Careers: Preparing for the Role,Bryn Harris, University of Colorado Denver; Amanda L. Sullivan, University of Minnesota; Janine Jones, University of Washington; Jamie Zibulsky, Fairleigh Dickinson University, discussed the variety of career opportunities available to prospective faculty in school psychology, the common roles and expectations of faculty in different types of institutions, and strategies in which graduate students and practitioners can engage to prepare themselves for this career track.In the final offering of this conference, Making Mentoring Work for You: Advising and Collaborating with Students, ECF Committeemembers Amanda Sullivan and Rob Volpe, with Amy Briesch provided an overview of various faculty roles in mentoring and advising, tools for facilitating positive mentoring relationships with students, and strategies for initiating and maintaining productive rewarding individual and group mentoring relationships. Rob also discussed how to develop a research team, complete with a team website for recruiting and dissemination.We think these sessions were successful, but we’d love to hear from participants. What worked? What didn’t? What topics would you like us to address in the future? Please let us know!

How do You Prepare for the New Academic Year?

August 22, 2013

By Bryn Harris

With the new academic year upon us, we share our strategies for preparing for the fall semester.RobBeing a university professor has to be one of the greatest jobs in the world. It is hard to imagine a career that would match it in terms of flexibility with regard to topics of study and scheduling. With the exception of service obligations and teaching, you really do make your own hours. Indeed, to a large extent you can choose how much time you allocate to the big three areas of effort: research, teaching and service. For many of us, this is a tremendous asset, but it can also lead to stress and undermine our success when we do not set clear priorities and devise mechanisms to structure our time. The parameters of this blog will not allow me to go into any significant detail initially on this topic, but let me hit on some important themes here and we can follow-up with discussion or perhaps another thread. Two notions guide my advice for beginning of the semester planning:1.     Because we have so much control over how we allocate our time an important skill to develop as a university professor is regulating our motivation. This involves forethought and planning.2.     Often, the frequency and proximity of the feedback we receive about our work is high and closer respectively for teaching and service than it is for research. For many of us it is important to supplement feedback on our progress in research by goal setting and keeping track of our progress.I believe it is important to take a significant amount of time off in the summer. For me personally, I need the time to think about other things, to reenergize and to pursue other interests. For me, getting geared up for the new academic year is all about planning and preparing to get started on the right foot and to keep my motivation high for those things that are most important to me. The key things I do to keep motivation high are to positively frame my work, to set short and long-term goals, to plan how much time I will allocate to achieving these goals (protecting time), and to pick two or three things that will take priority over all other tasks. Planning is so important at this time of the year, because when the semester gets rolling, it is easy to become overwhelmed and to get into what I call “survival mode.” Survival mode is when you are reacting instead of acting- like riding in a rollercoaster as opposed to driving a car. It is not fun. Planning ahead and setting clear priorities will help you make the most of your time when you get into those situations. Right now I am planning studies and writing projects I will complete over the fall semester (detailed plans) and spring semester (less detailed plans). Though in past years, I have instead allocated time for reading about a new area of interest to get to that point where I can design and write-up those studies.A key motivation killer is getting overwhelmed. For me, writing down the things I need to do helps me keep from getting to that point. Well, that is one part of it. Sometimes that list can be intimidating itself, but when you plan when you will do each task in your calendar or whiteboard, it has the magical effect of making it much less so. We have so many little tasks to do to get ready for the new semester (updating syllabi, setting up blackboard/WebCT sites, finishing up tasks that were supposed to be done over the summer…) that we can easily fill up our days and feel like we have not accomplished much at all. Also, a lot of valuable time can be spent spinning our wheels because we don’t know what to do next. This is especially true when we finish a big task. When you have a well thought out calendar, it is possible to reward productivity on difficult tasks with something else that we might think of as more fun. I like to schedule more fun kinds of tasks later in the day. Like writing this post for example. I worked on a grant budget this morning (not that much fun for me), and I am now doing something much more fun (the good old Premack Principle works for us all). It is quite possible that I will go for a sail when I am done writing this because I finished my tasks for the day—it is still summer after all.

BrynThe beginning of the academic year is exciting yet also anxiety provoking. The summer always seems too short, and my ideas for preparing for the academic year far in advance are never realized. However, in the past five years, I have learned a few strategies that help start the academic year positively and efficiently.1)   Time Management – This is the concept that seems to be the most important to my productivity. Of course, it is also critical to consider when preparing for the new year. Now that I have an 11-month-old son, I find it even more important to create work time and family time. My husband and I discuss childcare, family obligations, and other issues far in advance to eliminate the dreaded “I thought you were picking him up?” scenario. I also spend some time at the beginning of the year creating yearlong goals for each of my responsibilities (research, teaching, and service). Lastly, on Sunday evening, I go over my weekly, monthly, and longitudinal to-do lists and make sure I am focusing on the most important tasks during the week. As an early career scholar it is easy to spend a lot of your time working. However, if you are more purposeful with your time, I think you will find you feel more productive.2)   Calendar Creation - I allocate some time in mid-August to prepare my semester-long calendar. I teach two days a week, and I try to use those days to work on course preparation, grade, advise/mentor students, and attend meetings at my university. I then allocate other days of the week to research and service tasks. By blocking off time in my calendar for specific tasks, I find I am more productive in those areas. In terms of my courses, I make sure that assignments are not due at the same time so that I am not struggling to provide feedback in a timely manner. I also upload all materials to our online course management system one week prior to class and request that students print materials themselves if they wish.3)   Grant Submissions – Grant RFPs always seem to have such short deadlines! At the beginning of the year, I email the director of grant services at my university to inform her of the grants I intend to apply for the year. She sends valuable reminders to me prior to the RFP, during the grant writing process, and also informs me of other grants I may be interested in. This assistance is invaluable! While I understand that not all readers will be writing grants, my advice would be to find people at your university who can support you in your endeavors – you do not need to do this alone!

AmandaAs Rob notes, one of the greatest advantages of this career is the flexibility, but capitalizing on this freedom and avoiding its potential pitfalls requires intentionality in one’s professional activities. Thus, for me, August is a time for reflection and strategizing. The beginning of a new academic year provides a natural point at which to reflect on the activities of the previous year, but more importantly, to think back on my own practices to consider what worked and what didn’t, what I did well and what I can do better.I am a list-maker, so this is a great time to consolidate my various project lists for research, teaching, service, and professional development (which can get disorganized when I kick into survival mode at the end of the semester) to re-prioritize and strategize for how to accomplish my goals given what I’ve learned over the past year and how each project aligns with my annual goals and long-term targets. This year, I attend primarily to my research projects, thinking carefully about where each project is, how it fits (or doesn’t—file-drawering is a topic for another day) with my research agenda and long-term goals, and on what timeline it should move forward. Once I’ve developed a plan for the term, I work out from there to account for my other responsibilities. Building my annual plan around research works for me because my position is more heavily loaded on research and I am not teaching this fall, but for others, having teaching activities at the core might make more sense.Like Bryn, I set aside time to revisit my calendar, entering all obligatory activities (e.g., faculty meetings, committee meetings, research group, spring classes) for the academic year and preferred activities (e.g., spin class) so I can build in office hours and writing time. The two days of the week in which I have standing meetings are the ones I reserve for teaching/advising and service activities. I’ve learned that compartmentalizing each domain in this way can help minimize the overflow that often crowds out writing time.I am also not one of those people who can progress on papers when writing in small chunks of time, so I like to block out larger segments of time for research activities and writing time. My intent is to align my actual apportionment of time with my workload. By scheduling out the obligatory events for the year, I can then fill in research and writing time and develop targets for each project that account for the real constraints on my schedule. Color-blocking (i.e., red for teaching, orange for advising, green for meetings, blue for research activities, purple for writing, etc.) provides an easy visual  that I use to determine whether my actual time allotment corresponds with my workload and goals. I then make the adjustments necessary either in specific activities or in my commitments to bring the two into alignment.Having done these two main activities, I feel invigorated for the new academic year. There are certainly smaller tasks that must be done, but the project lists and calendaring provide a road map for the coming term. I have a plan and I know what I want and need to accomplish over the months to come. I’ll revisit my project list every few weeks and tweak my calendar as necessary, but for now, I’ve got a clear (color-coded) vision of what the fall semester holds.What do you do to gear up for the new academic year?