How exactly does one casually return to blogging after 4.5 months away? Especially when one isn't sure how well she can keep it up (e.g., will this be the only post for the next 4.5 months)? And when the country is dealing with major political change/issues that feel too large to ignore but also too large to address?

I have lots of things I want to say. But I may have mentioned (in my last 10 or so posts) that I kind of, finished up a job after 18 years, packed up an office, sold (well, tried to) a house, bought a house, packed up a house after 14 years, unpacked a house, started a new, somewhat busy job, in a new state, at a new institution, and sent two kids off to middle school in a new state, for the first time. It's been a busy 4.5 months (case in point – I drafted this post before the outcome of the presidential election).

So, a quick post for now.

I am a full professor and a department head. That does not make work-life integration particularly easy. On the other hand, it likely makes it easier than being an assistant professor. Because generally, I am not afraid that my life-oriented decisions are going to lose me my job. Recently I had a dinner event to attend in Hartford, the same night my husband teaches late, but I was able to get a sitter and I made the choice to attend it. I make other choices toward the family balance, like having one afternoon a week when I'm home to meet the kids after school at the bus stop, and generally being home every evening by 6:00 to have dinner as a family (or shuttle someone to/from lessons of some sort before having dinner as a family).

I think that senior faculty women, particularly women in administrative roles, need to model work-life integration for more junior faculty women (and men). I do my best to do so. In my new office, there is a very large photo of my children. It is often the first thing that people comment on when they walk into my office. And that's okay, because they are a huge part of my life and I don't ever want to forget that, even when I'm working a long day. I want others to recognize they are a really important part of my life. I am conscious to explain when there are family reasons that I can't make a meeting at a regular time, such as a random day off of school, a doctor's appointment, or visiting the kids at school for the parent open house day. And I end faculty meeting at exactly 5:00 (if not earlier), even if we haven't finished, so no one has to feel uncomfortable being the one to sneak out early (though if they need to sneak out earlier, they are welcome to do so).

I don't think (I hope) that anyone believes I do not work hard enough at my job. I get things done and I stay up late working after the kids are asleep so that I can have a couple of hours with them in the evening.

I am not suggesting that female junior faculty must be equally explicit about their family or personal reasons for being absent from the workplace at times. But I do think that it's female senior faculty's responsibility to model this behavior, through words and actions, to demonstrate that we value family/personal life, and that's okay.

“The post Work-life integration: Show and tell first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on November 30, 2016.”

My husband and I recently accepted new positions at another university. In making this decision, I didn't find many resources about this type of mid-career move that felt "real." My goal in the coming weeks is to do my best to honestly share what this process was like for me. To begin, the email I sent go my colleagues and students as a faculty member and grad director.

Dear HDFS community,
 
I spent the first 18 years of my life in Connecticut, and the last 18 in Pennsylvania (there may have been a couple of years in between). I literally grew up in CT, from birth to college launch. And I grew up as a professional from 2 months post-PhD assistant professor to full professor and Grad PIC in Penn State HDFS.
 
It is at this symmetrical crossroads that I had to make the most difficult decision of my career. This summer, I will be leaving Penn State to become the HDFS department head at UCONN. Eric will be joining the faculty of the Measurement, Evaluation, and Assessment group in the College of Education.
 
It’s challenging to put in words how much Penn State, and the HDFS department in particular, have meant to me, and still mean to me. I cannot imagine a better set of colleagues and students or a more collegial and welcoming place. As a junior faculty member, I had abundant support. Throughout my career, I’ve had excellent collaborators, intelligent and, even more valuable, thoughtful and funny graduate students, and staff who provide extensive support while also reminding me that I sometimes need a vacation. Trying to explain the HDFS culture of comprehensive support, Follies, and fruit bandits to anyone outside HDFS is like explaining life on earth to martians; it’s natural to us, but foreign to others. Penn State, and Penn State HDFS, gave me an amazing career, nurtured me as a scholar and researcher, as an instructor and adviser, and as an administrator. Penn State, and Penn State HDFS, literally gave me my husband, and by extension, my children.
 
I feel incredibly fortunate to have had role models of leaders in and from the department who manage to be excellent leaders and productive scholars as well. I know that I won’t be able to be match them, but I sure as hell will try.
 
The idea of leaving this place – HDFS, Penn State, and State College, the students, colleagues, and friends I have known for two decades, is the main thing that has kept me from sleeping much for the past three months.  We have created family in happy valley, and moving away from this family after 18 years is even harder than it was for me when I first left Connecticut for college.
 
I would have liked to deliver this news to people in person, and I apologize to anyone I did not have a chance to. Know that this process has been difficult, and that I hope to get to talk to all of you and say proper, in person goodbyes before I leave.  
 
Penn State, and Penn State HDFS, will always be an enormous part of my identity, more than any institution I’ve spent time at. Thank you, to all of you, for your support and kindness. I am very grateful to have had it for these 2 decades. I’m grateful to have spent one year of my career in a brand new building, which I may never get to experience again. I look forward to being one of those 2-degrees-of-separation people who walks up to student posters at conferences and says, you’re at Penn State HDFS? I worked there. It’s an amazing place. 
 
Eva

"The post Moving Institutions: Part 1, The Goodbye first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz's blog on May 6, 2016"

In the physical sciences, postdoctoral positions appear to be all but necessary if you want an academic position. In the humanities, post docs are relatively uncommon. And in social science, post docs are increasingly common, but not necessary 100% of the time. Among graduates of our program in 2015-2016, we have 9 going into postdoctoral positions, 3 alt-academic positions, 2 research-focused tenure line positions, 1 teaching-focused tenure line position, and 1 still searching. Academic positions straight from grad programs in the social sciences are becoming rarer, but are not impossible.
 
I recommend to most students that even if they are doing an academic job search, they apply for post docs as well. It is hard to know what will happen in the market in a particular year, and much like an undergraduate safety school, knowing that you could go to a post doc if you don’t get an academic position is extremely helpful. But post docs aren’t simply back up plans. For many students, post docs are the best choice after grad school. Here are some suggestions for figuring out if a post doc is right for you:
 
How strong is your record? The most obvious question. If you are finishing grad school with few publications, you will need a post doc to be competitive. If you have a very strong record of publications (and, a huge plus, external funding), then you may be able to land a tenure line position without doing a post doc first.
 
What are your career goals? If your career goal is a tenure line position at a top research university, then having a couple of years more to improve your publication and grant-getting record, to demonstrate a more independent line of research, and to gain additional experiences before launching a truly independent career can be useful. If your career goal is a teaching position, than staying in graduate school for an extra year to gain more teaching experience might be a better CV builder. And if your goal is an alt-academic career, at, for instance, an applied research institute, then a post doc might not be the best use of time.
 
How ideal of a job do you want? If your goal is to find your dream job and stay there forever, then 2 years at a post doc might help you better position yourself. If your goal is to get into a tenure line position as soon as possible, to have a higher income quickly, or to not have to move twice in the next 3 years, then you may want to apply for tenure line positions broadly to see where you land.
 
What are your geographic and/or family constraints? Constraints could lean you either one way or another. If you feel like you can’t move multiple times in the next couple of years because of a spouse’s job or children’s needs, you might want to skip a post doc and take a job right after grad school. Alternatively, if you know your long term goal is a job in a particular region of the country, limiting your search, you may need a post doc, both to wait for the right job to become available, and to make yourself competitive for it.
 
There are a few other reasons that you might want a post doc, even if you could land a top tenure line job right now:
 
Post docs increase your network. You have your mentor, dissertation committee, and other faculty and colleagues at your graduate school program. But if you do a post doc, you substantially increase your lifelong network with a new set of colleagues and collaborators. Each senior person tends to have a relatively large network, and if a post doc doubles yours, that’s can be a substantial difference. I’ve seen at conferences that people who did post docs generally have much larger networks.
 
Improve your record. As described, post docs provide time to add publications and grants to your CV. Even if you could land a tenure line position right now, extending your record before doing so does not only help you get the right job, it helps your record when you go up for tenure.
 
Publish from your dissertation. Many post doc positions will provide time to write up your dissertation work in addition to joining new projects.
 
Breathing room. Are you ready to launch into a tenure line position where you truly need to balance research, teaching, and service? Perhaps you are. But if not, a post doc gives you a period where you can almost exclusively focus on research.
 
Post docs may be the emerging adulthood of the academic career.  You are not a mentee in the same way that you were in graduate school, but you have not yet fully launched an independent career. During emerging adulthood, assuming adequate resources, individuals have more leisure time than during any other period of development. Emerging adulthood is an excellent time for identity exploration with fewer consequences than one would have in adulthood. Similarly, post docs provide a period where exploration is less costly than in a tenure line position with 6 years on the clock. Post docs are a bridge period between graduate school and independent researcher.
 
In my last year of graduate school, I went on 4 interviews for tenure line positions. I became nervous, and started applying for post docs. Soon after I went on my first (and only) post doc interview. I did a there and back in one day, leaving on the 6:00 AM flight, having meetings all day, and flying back on the last flight of the day. I came home a bit discouraged, in that I felt ready to be a grownup, and it was clear to me on the interview that I would be expected to be, well, an emerging adult. And when I returned home, I had a message to call the department head at Penn State, who offered me my current position the next day. I was elated that I would not have to do a post doc and would instead get to, well, be a grownup.
 
I do not regret my decision or my career trajectory. And yet, it was a rough couple of years, and in sharp contrast to a good friend from grad school, who also interviewed for both academic and postdoctoral positions, and chose to do a post doc. In my first year I taught 3 classes (2 preps; 400 students total), served on a search committee, supervised graduate and undergraduate research, worked to publish my dissertation, worked to start a new program of research, all while living in a small college town as a 30-year-old single woman. Simultaneously, my friend worked to publish his dissertation, worked on a new program of research, and lived in Toronto where he had plenty of time to enjoy city life. In the end, we both ended up where we wanted to be, we just took different paths there. Neither one was right or wrong, but I was frequently jealous of him in those 2 years.
 
So, should you do a post doc? Only you know, and there probably isn’t one right answer for you. Just remember – becoming an adult is great in many ways, but many of us wouldn’t mind extending the years before a bit more if we could do it all over again.
 
 
“The post Should you do a post doc? was first published on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on April 11, 2016.”

At Society for Research in Adolescence (SRA) this year, two young scholars announced to me and my friend/colleague, “We’ve known each other for 7 years!” I may have audibly scoffed (sorry!) when I replied, “come to me when you can say 23 years, then we’ll talk.”

Rose is my person. We met early in grad school and worked together in the same lab for 5 years. She has been my conference buddy since our first conference together in the 1990’s. In grad school at conferences, we would scout out places to watch March Madness. Actually, not much has changed except the atmosphere of where we watch and the type of drink we consume.

Every academic needs a best friend who doesn’t assume you get summers off or doesn’t wonder what you do with all that free time between the only 2 classes you teach per week. Who in grad school sometimes made you take a break from presentations to go for a long walk or actually see the outside of the convention center (these days, I’m more likely to do that to her). With whom you have code names for other people at the conference (but not for you, dear reader, definitely not for you). Who can sleep right through your insomnia when you share a hotel room. Whom your students are excited to get to meet, and you can say, I know her. It’s so helpful to have someone in the same career and stage as you, but not at your same institution, to check in about prickly work situations. You know you will never have to walk into an intimidating reception alone because you will always have her by your side. It is in conference hotel rooms and on the streets of conference cities that we have confided in each other about many of life’s stressors, whether work or children.
In grad school, we were usually crammed 4 to a room, negotiating shower schedules and bed sharing.  These days it’s usually the two of us, going to sleep earlier than we used to, but still having plenty of time to chat and catch up. Or to ignore each other while we get work done or zone out after a long day of professional social interactions. One year we were given a suite, and we invited a friend up to hang out. When she showed up she saw us each with laptops in front of us and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were both working.” But no, that’s just us hanging out in a hotel room, reading emails between conversations about our latest administrative headache or student accomplishment.

When my kids were babies, she was the one who, even though replaced as my conference roommate for a few years by my husband and kids, immediately came up to the room after getting a text that said “help!” and entertained babies  while my husband and I packed. She’s the one who, when my kids were toddlers and I had to give a presentation, went to Reading Terminal with my husband and kids and helped chase them down when they took off in opposite directions.

When my kids were 2 ½, I attended my first conference without them since their birth. Rose was happy (I think) to get me back as a roommate. I was feeling very confident. I had presentations two days in a row scheduled, and this was my first chance in years to show competent-conference-Eva rather than scattered-Mama-conference-Eva. On the first day, I was at the front table right before it started, when I wondered, why is everyone from tomorrow’s panel here but no one from today’s panel here? Oh. I had mixed up my talks, and had not only been practicing the wrong talk, but also had the notes for the wrong talk. Rose, from the audience, immediately saw the panic in my eyes, and texted to ask what was wrong. I texted her back. And Rose ran the 1 mile back to the hotel room, texting me from the room to find the talk, and ran it back to me in the middle of our session. Not my most polished presentation, but a lot better than it would have been if I hadn’t had my person there.

I like to think I occasionally do things for her as well. For instance, there are few other people I’d do this for:

When I make a list of things that I gained in grad school, there’s writing and stats skills and professional development. But more than any of those things, I gained my person. I don’t think I could have navigated this career these past 23 years without her. It’s hard to convey to grad students the value of the friends you make in grad school. It’s not just the conferences, it’s all of the in betweens, whether work or standing up at each others' weddings or visiting with families in tow. So every year, I know I’m going to end the conference with sushi, wine, and my person. Sometimes a movie, too. But always the sushi, wine, and Rose.

“The post Find your lifelong conference buddy was first posted on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on April 7, 2016”

There are a number of posts out there about mental health during graduate school. Some good sources include The Professor Is In’s posts on mental illness and academia, Tenure She Wrote, and ProfHacker’s section on wellness.
As Graduate Professor-in-Charge, I meet with students frequently, and concerns around stress and mental health arise in a range of contexts. A while ago, a student expressed some concern about there being a stigma on mental health issues, and so I spent some time considering how I, as Grad Director (and as a non-clinician), could address these concerns without sounding preachy or condescending. After consulting with some of our clinically trained faculty, I sent the following email to our graduate students to provide students with thoughts and resources on the topic. I also forwarded it to faculty so that they could see the messages I was communicating to students. How does your department address student mental health and wellbeing?

Dear HDFS graduate students,
 
I hope that you had a wonderful break, and found time for sleep, relaxation, and engagement in whatever activities bring you joy.
 
I wanted to write to bring up the subject of mental health, and how important it is to be aware of your own mental health and wellbeing, now and throughout graduate school. The period of personal and professional development that you are currently in is one where rates of some mental health issues increase and/or peak. Sometimes, the stress of graduate school can intensify previous mental health issues, and sometimes new issues emerge. In addition, some of the topics covered in HDFS courses can at times trigger personal issues that could bring up mental health concerns. 
 
Your own personal wellbeing, whether physical, mental, or social, is always going to be more important than excelling in classes or getting another manuscript submitted. Do be aware of your own wellbeing, and take the time to nurture it.  Monitor your own stress levels, and make sure to engage in activities that will help you alleviate some stress, whatever those activities may be for you – yoga, meditation, or mindfulness practice; exercise, long walks, or time spent in nature; reading or listening to music; spending time with friends… There is free yoga available in State College, both on campus  and in town. And there are many opportunities for recreational activities on campus.
 
If you have concerns about your own stress levels or mental health, do seek out help. You can always talk to your adviser, to me, or to other faculty for advice, although they/I cannot serve as a professional counselor or therapist.
 
If you think that you would benefit from professional help, do not hesitate to take advantage of the services offered by the University’s Counseling and Psychological Services Center (CAPS).  CAPS provides up to 6 free sessions with professional therapists on their staff. CAPS staff includes psychologists as well as psychiatrists, for those for whom medication might be helpful. CAPS also offers a number of group sessions during the semester, some of which are specifically designed for graduate students. Other helpful resources on campus include the Center for Women Students and the LGBTQA Student Resource Center. Finally, there are useful self-help resources on the CAPS website, including videos.
 
There are also many highly skilled therapists in the community. CAPS has a list of community-based mental health providers with current openings. I’m happy to make suggestions if you ever need such advice.
 
There are many useful resources for crisis situations that you should know about. The CAPS website has a comprehensive list:
 
There are also some hotlines for urgent situations:
Centre County CAN HELP Line: (1-800-643-5432)
Sexual assault and relationship violence hotline: (1-800-560-1637)
Centre County Women’s Resource Center: (814-234-5050)
The Meadows Psychiatric Center: (1-800-641-7529)
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: (1-800-273-8255)
 
Here are some other suggested readings if you’d like to learn more on the topic:
 
APA
Gradhacker
 
As always, don’t hesitate to be in touch if you have any questions.
 
Eva

“The post Prioritizing wellbeing during graduate school first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on January 17, 2016.

I had been considering moving to a different “system” for my office sitting time. I considered several options, including an exercise ball and an under desk stationary bike. I didn’t consider a standing desk because I always get back pain if I stand in one place for a prolonged period of time.

At a conference this Spring a colleague told me that the best thing she has done is replace her chair with an exercise ball, and that she lost 5 inches off her waist as a result. I ordered an exercise ball as soon as I returned. Here are my thoughts.

I didn’t lose 5 inches off my waist. Or even one inch. But I am still happy with the decision.

I did a fair bit of homework. I read the following articles on the possible benefits (or lack thereof) of using an exercise ball as a desk chair. 
Lifehacker
NY Times
Women's Day

Around the same time that I replaced my chair, our university sent around a message saying that they would not pay for alternative work stations and that if you wanted to use an exercise ball, you needed approval from your supervisor. I hadn’t considered asking the department to pay for it, and I do recognize that if I fall off, I’m not going to sue the university for damages.

I read about how to pick the right size. I’m short, but I did go up a size from what I would use for actual exercise, and I’m happy I did.

I bought this burst resistant ball. The pump was easy to use (not fancy!), and it was reasonably priced.

I bought it in black. Thus, some people walking by didn’t even notice the change, and sometimes I would talk to a colleague for a minute or more before s/he noticed that I was sitting on a ball. It has sparked conversation with colleagues, but never in a bad way.

I like it.  Most of the time I find it really comfortable. I do pilates regularly, so that may help me know how to sit properly on the ball. Occasionally I start to feel lower back pain from sitting on it, particularly days where I have few meetings and thus am at my desk all day, but when I do, I switch back to my chair that day and the pain goes away within an hour. Most days I have one or more meetings so I either go elsewhere to meet or move from my desk/ball to my table/chair for the meeting and have no issues.

I’m a fidgety, hard-to-stay-still person. I think the ball helps center me in some way.

The biggest change I’ve noticed is that I don’t get tired in the afternoons. I used to find that in the 3:00 – 4:00 range I would get very sleepy at my desk. That almost never happens since the switch (and I’m not sleeping more, and in fact, on days that I work at home, I do get tired in the afternoons). I think the fact that my body is constantly engaging in micro-movements to stay balanced helps ward off sleepiness.

Because I generally like balance balls, I can play with how I sit. I often like to sit with my legs crossed and only one foot on the ground to increase the challenge. I’ve wobbled here and there but never felt like I was going to fall off.

Every once in a while, I close my door and bounce. Or more often (but still relatively rare), close my door, and lie back and stretch over the ball.

It’s a small change. I am really not losing weight or noticing a difference in my body size as a result. But I’m happy with the change, and am glad to have made it.

“The post I replaced my office chair with an exercise ball first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on August 22, 2014.”

Years ago I started talking about Morning Eva and Late Night Eva. They have a love-hate relationship. In that Late Night Eva loves Morning Eva, and Morning Eva hates Late Night Eva.

Case in point: late night Eva gets tired and decides, “I really want to go to bed, but I haven’t finished reading this dissertation yet. No worries, Morning Eva can do it.” Morning Eva is not pleased. And then you can just replace “reading this dissertation” with a long list of things: reviewing this manuscript; drafting this paper; grading these assignments; proofing this document; replying to emails (and a bunch of non-work things, like laundry, dinner prep, lunchbox prep, school form completing)… and you can see how Morning Eva is not so fond of her close relation. Plus Late Night Eva has a choice – go to bed, or finish up – whereas Morning Eva is stuck – the dissertation must be read by 1:00 PM today, so she is stuck with it, and was not even consulted.

And so it is with Semester Eva and Summer Eva. Now, Semester Eva is busier of course. She has more meetings, she’s teaching classes, and generally, she is always sleep deprived. So, in say, February, when a big task comes across Semester Eva’s desk (well, more likely, lands in her email), of course she thinks about Summer Eva and all her “free time” and decides Summer Eva is better equipped to address the task. And thus, Summer Eva begins her summer in mid-May, thinking she has a big empty slate for cranking out manuscripts and grant proposals, but instead, Semester Eva has left her with a giant pile of grunt work to get through before she can think about manuscripts and grant proposals. And thus, Summer Eva is always in meetings, and generally is always sleep deprived.

One month or so left; what more do you want to accomplish this summer? And was your Semester Self kind to your Summer Self?

“The post Summer Eva first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on July 18, 2014.”

I had this vision that summer would bring an increase in my blog writing. I would write a new post 5 days a week, post them 2 days a week, and come fall, I would have a great store of written posts that I could use to fill in the weeks I didn't have time to write. You know where this is going, right?

There are no back-up posts. There is a list of blog ideas, and that's it. The list grows; the back up posts do not.

On sabbatical, I vowed to bring sabbatical thinking more to my summers.  As many people know, most faculty are not paid in summer, although we are expected to get work done in summer (although I did recently receive the facebook comment, "You work in the summer?") I have a part administrative position so I have a requirement of a certain number of hours for that.  I am trying to get some bigger writing projects done in the summer. And of course, everyone else is trying to get writing done in the summer, so I have a back log (so much worse than back-up posts!) of other people's work I owe feedback on.

I've been mildly successful with sabbatical thinking. I have been working from home more. Evidence that I rarely do so was the recent email I received to "get better soon!" when I told our administrative assistant I would be working from home for the second day in a row, if she needed me.

All of this preamble is to say: Working from home more; getting some writing done; mostly working on other people's stuff.

In some recent conversations, people have said things like, "how long does it really take to read someone else's paper?" A legitimate question. So I decided to start tracking it given how much of my summer has been engaged in this very act. My conclusion: I just about never spend less than 3 hours on someone else's manuscript (or thesis). I can easily spend 4-5 hours on someone else's manuscript (or thesis). And, if the manuscript is a revision, and thus also includes a letter to the editor, I may spend a bit longer.

Now I'm a bit of a perfectionist (this poorly written at 1:00 AM blog post notwithstanding), and so I do spend a fair bit of time microediting. But it would be great to get data from others about how long you spend reading/editing co-authored manuscripts. Please share in the comments.

“The post Time spent editing other people's manuscripts (and other things keeping me away from blog posts)  first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on July 11, 2014.”

For the past 4 years, I chaired the membership committee of the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA). One of the areas we identified as a need for growth was in terms of advice and engagement for mid-career scholars. SRA has done a fabulous job over the past few years of improving professional development guidance for emerging scholars. Could the organization start to do the same for mid-career scholars?

The membership committee organized an invited roundtable for the 2014 SRA biannual meeting in Austin, TX. We were quite excited about the participants on the panel, as well as the turnout (given that it was late in the afternoon on the last day of the conference). The panelists gave excellent advice, and the audience asked really helpful questions. I wrote a blog post for SRA summarizing the advice from the scholars (and explaining why my first attempt at live tweeting was a huge failure). You can find the post here.

I did want to mention one thing that was not brought up by any of the panelists, and that is work/life balance. At mid-career, almost everyone has responsibility to a young child, or a teenager, or an aging parent. These are not unique features of mid-career, but often mid-career represents the time that these responsibilities converge. I remember a time in my mother's life when she had an active full time job, an aging father to visit at a residential facility, a husband with a degenerative disease, and a grandson in the NICU (she was a young grandmother). This convergence isn't uncommon at this point in one's career, and it's another way in which work/life balance can be challenging. I don't have all the answers of the perfect balance (even though, as my son likes to tell people, I won "Best work/life balancer at HDFS follies last year).

Post-tenure, it's a bit easier to think long-term. If a manuscript gets submitted one week later because your child is home with the flu or because you spend a week visiting your parent in a hospital, it doesn't feel as career threatening as it might pre-tenure (though obviously, one week is rarely career threatening for anyone).
Work-life balance also involves things like exercise, healthy eating, and time with friends. I've mentioned before that I put exercise blocks on my actual calendar because if I don't, it doesn't happen. But exercise gives me more energy and makes me a generally happier person, so it improves my work/life balance. In addition to putting it on my calendar, I work it into my daily life -- I try to walk my kids to school and then myself to the office, and this week, I started trying an exercise ball in place of my chair (yes, I get many strange looks as people walk by my office). So work/life balance is sometimes about responding to things outside your control (babies who don't sleep all night long; responsibility to a parent's finances;  partner's illness), but sometimes about finding the balance you need to be a sane and happy person.

Can you do something balanced for yourself today?

“The post Professional development advice at mid-career first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on April 9, 2014.”

2 ½ years ago, when I began as Professor-in-Charge (PIC) of the Undergraduate Program, I started an Excel file that listed all of the Undergraduate program tasks, by month. It’s a long list – it now has 149 rows in it. At one point in the process, I asked one of our administrative support assistants to prettify it for me. After she returned it I was looking through it, and the one addition she made, in July, brought a huge smile to my face: “Go on vacation :)”

Look at your calendar and then look at your to do list. What’s the difference? Your calendar likely has all of the things you need to do for other people, or at least that have external deadlines. If you’re a grad student, there are classes to take and/or classes to TA. If you’re faculty, there are classes to teach. Then there are meetings, often requiring you to prepare in advance (run some analyses for your adviser; read a dissertation for a defense…). And your classwork, lecture notes, grading, and meeting prep gets done, because you need to report to someone else.

What are the most important things on your to do list? They are likely things without external deadlines. You need to work on your dissertation. Finalize a manuscript. Make progress on a grant proposal. Most of these tasks that are important for your own career development do not have external deadlines, but yet are just as important as grading and classwork and meeting prep.

Now, what is important to you that doesn’t even make your to do list? Exercise? Sleep? Preparing a nice dinner occasionally? Catching up with a friend? Generally, non-work, non-mandatory things don’t even make it to on your to do list. But often, these are the things that energize us, and potentially increase our productivity by making us healthier, more focused, and/or happier. 

Successful people are successful because they make time for writing/research. I used to try to use my daytime for meetings, course prep/grading, and prepping for meetings, and save nighttime for writing. But writing often requires the most mental energy, and doing so at night, even for a night owl like me, can be challenging. Instead, if you block off a chunk of time every day for writing, at night you can grade and reply to emails, things that do  not require the same mental energy as writing does (for many of us, at least).

One way that people succeed in finding time to write is to block off time on their calendars every day for writing and refuse to schedule meetings during those times. Otherwise, your calendar can fill up and suddenly you have no time to write. If someone asks to meet with you then, you can try moving writing to another time that day. If you don’t have any other free time on that day, you can tell the person you aren’t free then. You don’t need to explain why. Of course, emergencies come up where you may need to use that time, but very few meeting requests are actually emergencies, and you need to value your writing time as much as you value anything else on your calendar.

Don’t stop with writing, though. If exercise is important to you but you rarely get to do it, block it off on your calendar. Again, don’t move it or schedule something else then unless it’s urgent. If you don’t have that time physically on your calendar, it’s too easy to schedule something else in that slot. If a good night’s sleep is important, schedule a bedtime on your calendar. Give yourself the visual cue that you will go to bed at midnight every night this week.

To do lists are great. I love crossing things off (checking them off in Outlook). But to do lists don’t structure our time as well as calendars. Calendars tell us where to be when, and sometimes that’s just what you need to yourself writing, or to the gym, or to bed.

“The post Put it on your calendar first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on January 20, 2014.”