Balance? In academic life? What’s that?
We all know it’s hard to attain. Though academic life can provide us with a great deal of flexibility, it seems that our work is never finished. There’s always something we could be working on–and often enough we feel like we should be working on it.
We can manage our projects and action lists using a system like Getting Things Done. What about life balance more generally?
Natalie has written about this before, pointing out that balance isn’t something we achieve, but something that that we strive for, making course corrections as we go.
Those course corrections are often the purpose of resolutions that we make for the beginning of a new year or term.
At my institution, we’re just completing the fourth week of the semester, so it’s a good time to reflect on resolutions that I’ve made with the intention of maintaining some semblance of life balance. Here are a few things I’ve tried that seem to work reasonably well, and that may work for others:
- Set limits to email:
- Cut yourself off from email at a given time each day (or, if it works better, don’t start until a particular time each day).
- Consider taking a weekly day off from email.
- Let people know your limits, so that they don’t expect responses from you during “off-limits” times. (I make it clear on my course websites that I don’t ordinarily check my email on Sundays.)
- Commit to an exercise routine. If something comes up and you can’t make your usual workout or class, consider whether there’s an alternate you might do that day–it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing.
- Take a little time to unwind at the end of the day–don’t work straight until bedtime. (Lately, I’ve been unwinding just before bed by re-reading Mercedes Lackey’s Mage Storms trilogy.)
- Commit time to an activity you enjoy. Book club? Choir? Community theatre? Dance? An ongoing service project? Sports? We don’t want to overload on outside commitments, but one or two activities can be energizing and enriching.
- Make time for friends–even if it means scheduling appointments!
- If you have a spiritual practice–formally “religious” or otherwise–be faithful to it. It’ll help keep you grounded.
Of course, these only work for me when I keep at them, and I’m not always successful in doing that. Restarting the practices above is something I have to keep doing on a regular basis (there’s that constant course correction again!).
I don’t use GTD in any kind of systematic way (perhaps I should reconsider that), but I plan to add actions associated with some of these strategies to my action list. That way, they’ll be in front of me as things I need to do (and which are arguably as important as some of my more clearly “work-related” tasks), and I’ll get the satisfaction of checking them off when they’re done.
Are there other practices that readers find helpful for maintaining balance? Let’s hear about them in the comments.
The photo in this post is CC-licensed and was created by Flickr user lululemon athletica.
8 Comments
I’ve actually been considering the “no email after work hours” strategy, but still have yet to commit. It would make a lot more sane, but I somehow feel guilty about attempting it – like I’m short changing students.
@ Ethan -As a former and prospective student, I understand that my high and mighty professors are people too. I think it reasonable that a professor should not have to respond to an email within the hour, but certainly by the next day would be nice.
I haven’t been so good about the “not after work hours” part, though I’ve managed to be fairly consistent about the “not on Sundays” part this semester. Still, usually sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 pm I need to get off the email. It’s not really student expectations that get me; if I don’t disconnect, it’s my own expectations about the need to respond that pose the problem.
As for response time, my course sites say that students can expect a response within 48 hours at the latest. In actual practice, I’m ordinarily much quicker than that; students usually get a response before the next day is out.
@Drew – Like Amy (below), I always respond to student email within 48 hours, and almost always more quickly than that. But it really grates my cheese when a student approaches me and asks “Did you get my email?”, because if they were checking their email regularly, they would see that I responded the day before.
It’s not unreasonable to expect prompt replies to email. It is unreasonable to expect someone to keep in their head the contents of all email received in the last 72 hours.
I announce to students that I don’t look at email after dinner time except on my EOffice hours evening (Wednesday). They also know I won’t be waiting, holding my breath, when their papers are due at midnight on a due date in my inbox either. I stick to this, but also promise to clear it out the next morning.
I have a schedule: Read from 6-7, Write from 7-9, then DVD/Netflix/Streaming stuff from 9-11. I want to be unplugged and offline by the time 9pm rolls around.
Ugh, sorry about the formatting.
Having children is, of course, the nuclear option for achieving life/work balance as an academic. I’m chuckling at the very idea of feeling guilty for NOT checking email outside of normal office hours
This is a complicated thing. First, as a general disclaimer, let me say that lots of people who don’t have kids also have comparably nuclear responsibilities.
But, what the kid also does is disrupt the idea of “normal office hours.” For example, for many years my wife and I basically had the following division of labor: I worked from [whenever the kid went to bed] until about 1, and she worked from about 3, and stayed up until [more or less whenever he went to bed].
Now that he’s in first grade, she’s pushed back her wakeup time until 4 or so, and I try to go to sleep closer to midnight.
One could say that our approach has been a bit demented, but it’s also let us get our stuff done in a reasonable way while keeping the boy out of daycare.
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