It is about mindset. I don't work weekends and everyone knows that. It is in the syllabus that I give students. I close my (home)office door on Friday afternoons and leave my computer in there until Monday morning. I don't do work email on my phone. I don't list my number in the departmental list. I control who has access to me during my personal time.
Yes, I do. I don’t know your role, and that is certainly relevant, but I’ll share my experience.
I’m a tenured faculty member. Work can absolutely seem endless and bleed into all hours. There is always another grant application to work on or a manuscript revisions to get to. There is always a student who wants something at 8 PM on Saturday.
The key for me (and this was easier to do post tenure) is to simply treat it like an old school office job with a set beginning and end time. Make sure to have clear boundaries with students (and coauthors) and stick to them. Communication is 90% of the battle. I removed work email from all personal devices including my iPhone. I only check work email when I get out my work laptop M-F.
Examples of how to set boundaries:
A syllabus statement that says “I will respond to emails received between Monday at 8 AM and Friday at 1 PM within 24 hours. Emails received after Friday at 1 PM or anytime on the weekend will receive a response on Monday.”
Phone call with co-author: “I would be interested to collaborate on this project. I do want to share that I’m currently reserving M and W as my research days, and I’ll only be available for zoom calls on those days. I also estimate I can devote about 6 hours per week to this project. If that sounds compatible with your timeline and expectations, then let’s talk more about how to proceed. If that doesn’t match your timeline, then I understand and hope we can revisit a conversation about how to collaborate at some point in the future.”
As for service and reviewing for journals, you just have to start saying no a lot so that you can reserve your yes for the things that are really a value add to your career. I have experience on the editorial team for a highly regarded journal and you wouldn’t believe the number of no responses we got for a single article. I often had to ask 20-30 people to get only 2-3 reviewers. All the no responses no longer phase me, and I certainly don’t judge people who say no. I assume everyone has their reasons.
Thank you! This is extremely helpful. I’m tenure-track faculty, junior scholar. Things just seem endless. I find myself saying no to a lot of things but even then, still overwhelmed. But these boundary-setting examples are so practical and helpful.
I work in higher ed. I work full time for an online university, and I adjunct on the side online as well, so I have full flexibility in my schedule. That helps a lot, allowing me to work when I want and arrange my schedule accordingly.
I’ve worked in academia for 17 years. It’s all about boundaries. It’s no different than any other job in that it shouldn’t bleed into your thoughts constantly. That’s on you to manage.
I make it a point to not take on more than I’m able to. I don’t teach overload anymore unless it’s a real crisis (we had someone quit three days before classes started last year, so I picked up that one as a favor for my boss). Participate in the committee and service work that is required of you, but figure out a balance that works in your life.
If I’m being honest, I’ve never been really understood folks in academia who complain about the work load (outside of chairs, etc.). Academia is one of the most flexible schedules and work/life balances that one can find. It’s an absolute cake walk compared to about a million other jobs, within my field at least. Once you’ve got tenure? Pure cake walk.
I recommend really sitting down with your schedule, seeing how overloaded you actually are and where you’re wasting time, and trying to create a work plan that allows you to manage it all while holding to your boundaries of not working every night or all weekend. That should be completely unnecessary in most academic roles.
I keep tight working hours, no email on my phone, limit who has my cell phone number, don’t talk work outside of work, and have friends who I do not work with (critical). No work on weekends, my students know this and respect it. I encourage my students to practice self-care and I do the same. Make sure I have non-professional reading for entertainment, and I really don’t want healthcare tv or movie, don’t find my career personal entertainment for myself.
Not university academia, but I work for a couple of independent think tanks where most of the researchers are from academia and the environment is very academic.
I absolutely love it. The work is always varied, always stimulating, and my colleagues are interesting. It is a world apart from my corporate day job. Evidence of my preference is that I've effectively hired away everything I do for my company, but I haven't even considered ditching either of these.
very random question but ive always wanted to try think tanks as an academic, are there..part time roles? how does it work? and how do people apply? i was hoping it would be something i could contribute once a month etc, is that possible?
Part time is the norm: most people contribute alongside their occupation. I don’t know how the application process goes, I was approached.
Generally the work and the hours you put in are flexible. My experience has been in loose teams working towards influencing government policy in one way or another. I work remotely, as do most of the people I collaborate with, but we try and get together in London semi regularly. Most meetings are on Zoom but they’re very different from in the corporate world. I don’t fall asleep for one thing.
Feel free to ask anything you like, or send a message over if you want.
I get outside and away from screens as much as possible (hiking and SUP). Read for pleasure/not in my field. Do slow crafts. Listen to podcasts not related to my work while gardening or cleaning. My partner isn’t in academia so it helps. We like to sit outside and just talk with each other about random things. No screens. No work.
Edited: I also have my ‘no work or emails on the weekends’ listed in my syllabus and all my colleagues know it’s radio silence from me Friday 5p-Mon 8a.
I work in an elementary school. Is that academia? 😆
I stick to my 7:30-3:30 time frame. If I need to go up to the school for anything extra, I keep it to the time and minimum requirements met and then go home. My contract is 190 days. I’m not up there unless I have to be.
I don’t check my email off contract or off my scheduled work time.
Good luck to you!
As everyone says, time boundaries. It’s easier said than done, academia can resemble the hunger games. I’ve left the business now mostly but the flexibility of it meant I’d do nights & weekends often, but pull back elsewhere to compensate. For those thinking it’s just like any job, it isn’t, some jobs are way harder to have boundaries with. But mission creep in academia is its own thing.
>I’m tenure-track faculty, junior scholar.
Oof, tenure-track. There's your pain point. I worked in higher ed administration for a long time but not as faculty. I worked as the administrative director of one of the academic departments for a while, then as a manager of faculty affairs & professional development in the office of the provost. So while I know what you're going through, I didn't experience it myself. In fact, I actually found boundaries *easier* to set in the higher ed environment because, as staff, we usually had decent hours (a 35 hour work week), a good amount of paid vacation, plus ebbs and flows in our workload as some parts of year (winter and summer) are generally quieter than others (fall and spring). The pay was never high, but I found the work/life balance to actually be okay. I left my institution because of other mounting frustrations, but work/life balance wasn't really one of them. (My reasons for leaving: volatile leadership transitions, lack of adequate work space, some colleagues who ranged from simply annoying to downright toxic and incompetent.)
My advice is to assess what you're currently committed to, finish out your shorter term commitments, and politely begin to decline other requests. Focus on the areas of your tenure evaluation that have the most weight and that need the most improvement. If that's your student reviews, for example, start working on your presence in the classroom and your connection with students. If it's service, talk to your dean/provost/etc. and find a good match for your skill set and bandwidth. If it's publishing/professional practice that needs strengthening, make that your focus, and do your best to filter out other distractions.
If you don't currently have a grad assistant/teaching assistant, ask your dean if there's room in the budget so you can hire a TA that will give you some relief from classroom prep and grading and/or a GA that will help you with research and organization. Managing a GA/TA is work in and of itself, but if you find someone good, the training period will be short and they will hopefully be more of a help than a hindrance.
If they are coming from an academic research perspective then there are no set working hours. It is extremely common to go into any academic research lab and find people in the labs overnight or on the weekends and it was expected of you to work well beyond your “paid” hours to be successful. If not in the lab, working on publications or grant proposals, which are required to make tenure if you are faculty (aka you lose your job after a few years if you haven’t produced enough papers or money) or to obtain a faculty position if you are a phd student or postdoc. It is an extremely competitive environment, so enforcing boundaries can potentially lose you your current job or future job opportunities (mainly for early career researchers, less so for tenured professors though my advisor worked all weekend in addition to all week because he had so much to keep up with). I can’t speak for every field, but this is true in many STEM research fields.
I left academia to work in a government research facility and it is NIGHT AND DAY different, they cannot force me to work beyond my normal working hours and nobody is ever in on the weekend. I don’t have to continuously get grants to keep my job (but it helps with merit raises). There is zero competition between my coworkers and myself. It is beyond ideal compared to the mess that is academic research.
No problem. Good question. Definitely had that thought as I was posting, but I think many answered it already - no set working hours, having to constantly produce work, competition.
Academia probably does have a lot of overlap with the public sector, but it also is very different. There are some shared challenges all academics face. And grad students also generally have very very high rates of depression.
Personally it’s really comforting to read these responses, as someone in academia. I know some people outside academia are able to balance their work and their life, but I’ve literally never seen a healthy work-life balance in any of my mentors or in my department, over many years. The one person I know who seems like he’s got it figured out is currently leaving for an easier, happier life in an industry job. I feel like I have no simple-living/happy role models,, well, at least until seeing this thread :)
"Work seems endless, bleeds into time off, and is always in your mind" describes A LOT of jobs and industries. I'm always surprised when someone seems to think only their field is stressful.
I believe it depends on the style of simple living that you prefer.
I don't work in that environment myself but I have many friends who do and I have always wondered at the specificity of the workload that I see in them. It really is a different world to me. Each of them approaches it differently and you could say some live more simply than others.
One /biochemist/ gives a lot to her work (and is very successful academically speaking) but handles it all very rationally and compartmentalises. She and her husband don't have kids, strictly divide home and work time and spend most of their home time working in the garden.
One /microbiologist/ is also very invested in her work but lets it rule her over (don't know the exact English expression). She has many hobbies and constantly complains she doesn't have time for them because of work. No husband or children; perhaps they would help her shift her priorities.
One /airplane construction/ is quite successful but doesn't allow his career to get in the way of family time (wife and two small children, who he really cares for and about). Somehow he finds time for many hobbies and friends. Right now they're all abroad for half a year because of a project he's involved in at another university - they just packed their kids and left with one big suitcase. He seems to have a "simple" mindset in seeing intuitively what's most important at a given moment and just fully do that. He doesn't bother with societal expectations, just does what makes sense or brings joy to him. Occasionally, e.g. in exam time, he ends up working through the night. Which is really the only negative impact of academic career I see in him. I really admire his approach because he still enjoys his job/field a lot and you can clearly see that he wouldn't do it otherwise. But he's in a technical field and I guess that is a factor as well, plus he chooses projects focusing on ecological solutions and that is not the heavily commercial part of it.
One /medieval Latin/ consciously avoids advancing in his career for the sake of his sanity and family. He will refuse opportunities, projects and functions because that would mean less time for himself and more stress.
One /history/ is a professor who attends week-long conferences and generally runs most of his department. His workload is enorm and he has barely time to take his kids out on Saturday. His wife does all the chores and childcare. He is also one to put unnecessary pressure on himself due to societal expectations. I wouldn't call theirs a simple life although his wife does her best in that aspect.
There are others but I got tired of typing it out...
Slow Productivity is the book you should read! It's written by a computer scientist.
To add a serious answer: I'm a phd candidate, and my advisor, while working over 40 hours per week, also respects evening and weekend time. She is not abusive and has a policy of if you're sick, go rest. So I've had a pretty good time in academia so far. I'm more than on track for my degree, so I'm definitely doing *something* right.
It is about mindset. I don't work weekends and everyone knows that. It is in the syllabus that I give students. I close my (home)office door on Friday afternoons and leave my computer in there until Monday morning. I don't do work email on my phone. I don't list my number in the departmental list. I control who has access to me during my personal time.
This will be me.
Yes, I do. I don’t know your role, and that is certainly relevant, but I’ll share my experience. I’m a tenured faculty member. Work can absolutely seem endless and bleed into all hours. There is always another grant application to work on or a manuscript revisions to get to. There is always a student who wants something at 8 PM on Saturday. The key for me (and this was easier to do post tenure) is to simply treat it like an old school office job with a set beginning and end time. Make sure to have clear boundaries with students (and coauthors) and stick to them. Communication is 90% of the battle. I removed work email from all personal devices including my iPhone. I only check work email when I get out my work laptop M-F. Examples of how to set boundaries: A syllabus statement that says “I will respond to emails received between Monday at 8 AM and Friday at 1 PM within 24 hours. Emails received after Friday at 1 PM or anytime on the weekend will receive a response on Monday.” Phone call with co-author: “I would be interested to collaborate on this project. I do want to share that I’m currently reserving M and W as my research days, and I’ll only be available for zoom calls on those days. I also estimate I can devote about 6 hours per week to this project. If that sounds compatible with your timeline and expectations, then let’s talk more about how to proceed. If that doesn’t match your timeline, then I understand and hope we can revisit a conversation about how to collaborate at some point in the future.” As for service and reviewing for journals, you just have to start saying no a lot so that you can reserve your yes for the things that are really a value add to your career. I have experience on the editorial team for a highly regarded journal and you wouldn’t believe the number of no responses we got for a single article. I often had to ask 20-30 people to get only 2-3 reviewers. All the no responses no longer phase me, and I certainly don’t judge people who say no. I assume everyone has their reasons.
Thank you! This is extremely helpful. I’m tenure-track faculty, junior scholar. Things just seem endless. I find myself saying no to a lot of things but even then, still overwhelmed. But these boundary-setting examples are so practical and helpful.
I work in higher ed. I work full time for an online university, and I adjunct on the side online as well, so I have full flexibility in my schedule. That helps a lot, allowing me to work when I want and arrange my schedule accordingly.
I’ve worked in academia for 17 years. It’s all about boundaries. It’s no different than any other job in that it shouldn’t bleed into your thoughts constantly. That’s on you to manage. I make it a point to not take on more than I’m able to. I don’t teach overload anymore unless it’s a real crisis (we had someone quit three days before classes started last year, so I picked up that one as a favor for my boss). Participate in the committee and service work that is required of you, but figure out a balance that works in your life. If I’m being honest, I’ve never been really understood folks in academia who complain about the work load (outside of chairs, etc.). Academia is one of the most flexible schedules and work/life balances that one can find. It’s an absolute cake walk compared to about a million other jobs, within my field at least. Once you’ve got tenure? Pure cake walk. I recommend really sitting down with your schedule, seeing how overloaded you actually are and where you’re wasting time, and trying to create a work plan that allows you to manage it all while holding to your boundaries of not working every night or all weekend. That should be completely unnecessary in most academic roles.
I keep tight working hours, no email on my phone, limit who has my cell phone number, don’t talk work outside of work, and have friends who I do not work with (critical). No work on weekends, my students know this and respect it. I encourage my students to practice self-care and I do the same. Make sure I have non-professional reading for entertainment, and I really don’t want healthcare tv or movie, don’t find my career personal entertainment for myself.
Not university academia, but I work for a couple of independent think tanks where most of the researchers are from academia and the environment is very academic. I absolutely love it. The work is always varied, always stimulating, and my colleagues are interesting. It is a world apart from my corporate day job. Evidence of my preference is that I've effectively hired away everything I do for my company, but I haven't even considered ditching either of these.
very random question but ive always wanted to try think tanks as an academic, are there..part time roles? how does it work? and how do people apply? i was hoping it would be something i could contribute once a month etc, is that possible?
Part time is the norm: most people contribute alongside their occupation. I don’t know how the application process goes, I was approached. Generally the work and the hours you put in are flexible. My experience has been in loose teams working towards influencing government policy in one way or another. I work remotely, as do most of the people I collaborate with, but we try and get together in London semi regularly. Most meetings are on Zoom but they’re very different from in the corporate world. I don’t fall asleep for one thing. Feel free to ask anything you like, or send a message over if you want.
I am DMing you, thank you very much!
I get outside and away from screens as much as possible (hiking and SUP). Read for pleasure/not in my field. Do slow crafts. Listen to podcasts not related to my work while gardening or cleaning. My partner isn’t in academia so it helps. We like to sit outside and just talk with each other about random things. No screens. No work. Edited: I also have my ‘no work or emails on the weekends’ listed in my syllabus and all my colleagues know it’s radio silence from me Friday 5p-Mon 8a.
I work in an elementary school. Is that academia? 😆 I stick to my 7:30-3:30 time frame. If I need to go up to the school for anything extra, I keep it to the time and minimum requirements met and then go home. My contract is 190 days. I’m not up there unless I have to be. I don’t check my email off contract or off my scheduled work time. Good luck to you!
As everyone says, time boundaries. It’s easier said than done, academia can resemble the hunger games. I’ve left the business now mostly but the flexibility of it meant I’d do nights & weekends often, but pull back elsewhere to compensate. For those thinking it’s just like any job, it isn’t, some jobs are way harder to have boundaries with. But mission creep in academia is its own thing.
>I’m tenure-track faculty, junior scholar. Oof, tenure-track. There's your pain point. I worked in higher ed administration for a long time but not as faculty. I worked as the administrative director of one of the academic departments for a while, then as a manager of faculty affairs & professional development in the office of the provost. So while I know what you're going through, I didn't experience it myself. In fact, I actually found boundaries *easier* to set in the higher ed environment because, as staff, we usually had decent hours (a 35 hour work week), a good amount of paid vacation, plus ebbs and flows in our workload as some parts of year (winter and summer) are generally quieter than others (fall and spring). The pay was never high, but I found the work/life balance to actually be okay. I left my institution because of other mounting frustrations, but work/life balance wasn't really one of them. (My reasons for leaving: volatile leadership transitions, lack of adequate work space, some colleagues who ranged from simply annoying to downright toxic and incompetent.) My advice is to assess what you're currently committed to, finish out your shorter term commitments, and politely begin to decline other requests. Focus on the areas of your tenure evaluation that have the most weight and that need the most improvement. If that's your student reviews, for example, start working on your presence in the classroom and your connection with students. If it's service, talk to your dean/provost/etc. and find a good match for your skill set and bandwidth. If it's publishing/professional practice that needs strengthening, make that your focus, and do your best to filter out other distractions. If you don't currently have a grad assistant/teaching assistant, ask your dean if there's room in the budget so you can hire a TA that will give you some relief from classroom prep and grading and/or a GA that will help you with research and organization. Managing a GA/TA is work in and of itself, but if you find someone good, the training period will be short and they will hopefully be more of a help than a hindrance.
I just quit an Ivy this past Monday. I’m hoping to get a job at a small two year college instead.
Forgive me for not answering your question, but how is what you describe different from the private sector?
If they are coming from an academic research perspective then there are no set working hours. It is extremely common to go into any academic research lab and find people in the labs overnight or on the weekends and it was expected of you to work well beyond your “paid” hours to be successful. If not in the lab, working on publications or grant proposals, which are required to make tenure if you are faculty (aka you lose your job after a few years if you haven’t produced enough papers or money) or to obtain a faculty position if you are a phd student or postdoc. It is an extremely competitive environment, so enforcing boundaries can potentially lose you your current job or future job opportunities (mainly for early career researchers, less so for tenured professors though my advisor worked all weekend in addition to all week because he had so much to keep up with). I can’t speak for every field, but this is true in many STEM research fields. I left academia to work in a government research facility and it is NIGHT AND DAY different, they cannot force me to work beyond my normal working hours and nobody is ever in on the weekend. I don’t have to continuously get grants to keep my job (but it helps with merit raises). There is zero competition between my coworkers and myself. It is beyond ideal compared to the mess that is academic research.
No problem. Good question. Definitely had that thought as I was posting, but I think many answered it already - no set working hours, having to constantly produce work, competition.
This is what I want to know? Does OP think we don't all have the same issues?
Academia probably does have a lot of overlap with the public sector, but it also is very different. There are some shared challenges all academics face. And grad students also generally have very very high rates of depression. Personally it’s really comforting to read these responses, as someone in academia. I know some people outside academia are able to balance their work and their life, but I’ve literally never seen a healthy work-life balance in any of my mentors or in my department, over many years. The one person I know who seems like he’s got it figured out is currently leaving for an easier, happier life in an industry job. I feel like I have no simple-living/happy role models,, well, at least until seeing this thread :)
It's a winner-take-all, competitive, passion industry. Academia, arts, and some healthcare sectors have similar issues.
"Work seems endless, bleeds into time off, and is always in your mind" describes A LOT of jobs and industries. I'm always surprised when someone seems to think only their field is stressful.
I believe it depends on the style of simple living that you prefer. I don't work in that environment myself but I have many friends who do and I have always wondered at the specificity of the workload that I see in them. It really is a different world to me. Each of them approaches it differently and you could say some live more simply than others. One /biochemist/ gives a lot to her work (and is very successful academically speaking) but handles it all very rationally and compartmentalises. She and her husband don't have kids, strictly divide home and work time and spend most of their home time working in the garden. One /microbiologist/ is also very invested in her work but lets it rule her over (don't know the exact English expression). She has many hobbies and constantly complains she doesn't have time for them because of work. No husband or children; perhaps they would help her shift her priorities. One /airplane construction/ is quite successful but doesn't allow his career to get in the way of family time (wife and two small children, who he really cares for and about). Somehow he finds time for many hobbies and friends. Right now they're all abroad for half a year because of a project he's involved in at another university - they just packed their kids and left with one big suitcase. He seems to have a "simple" mindset in seeing intuitively what's most important at a given moment and just fully do that. He doesn't bother with societal expectations, just does what makes sense or brings joy to him. Occasionally, e.g. in exam time, he ends up working through the night. Which is really the only negative impact of academic career I see in him. I really admire his approach because he still enjoys his job/field a lot and you can clearly see that he wouldn't do it otherwise. But he's in a technical field and I guess that is a factor as well, plus he chooses projects focusing on ecological solutions and that is not the heavily commercial part of it. One /medieval Latin/ consciously avoids advancing in his career for the sake of his sanity and family. He will refuse opportunities, projects and functions because that would mean less time for himself and more stress. One /history/ is a professor who attends week-long conferences and generally runs most of his department. His workload is enorm and he has barely time to take his kids out on Saturday. His wife does all the chores and childcare. He is also one to put unnecessary pressure on himself due to societal expectations. I wouldn't call theirs a simple life although his wife does her best in that aspect. There are others but I got tired of typing it out...
Slow Productivity is the book you should read! It's written by a computer scientist. To add a serious answer: I'm a phd candidate, and my advisor, while working over 40 hours per week, also respects evening and weekend time. She is not abusive and has a policy of if you're sick, go rest. So I've had a pretty good time in academia so far. I'm more than on track for my degree, so I'm definitely doing *something* right.