Academic Writing
Melanie Smith
How to plan your writing week: goals, ...
Academic Writing
Melanie Smith
Getting published in academia: pitfalls and ...

The biggest career mistake ambitious academics make

academic career coaching academic coach

They forget which game they are playing.

You imagine, at the start, that it is enough to take on everything and be really good at it, and you imagine your research excellence will shine and take you where you want to go.

You think becoming a better researcher, acquiring skills, publishing more, teaching courses, and saying yes to every opportunity is the way forward, because eventually you’ll be recognised for your hard work.

That is the mistake.

Academia does not - and has never - worked this way. Whilst excellence is essential I can tell you categorically it is not enough. It’s the strategy that counts. And if you are are bouncing around from one thing to the next, strategy is absent because you give no time over to develop it. And you don’t know how to develop it.

The academics who build exceptional careers at some decided to ask: how do I get from here → here. They didn’t leave it to serendipity. And the answer required choices to be made. Some comfortable, some less so.

Academic careers are NOT getting promoted from Lecturer to Professor. They are not a series of accumulated titles.

Imagine if you spent just a little of your time on questions that compound:

  • how to become known for something

  • how to build a publication strategy that builds a coherent narrative

  • how to choose - and make - opportunities, instead of accepting them

  • how to stop confusing frantic activity with progress

It won’t happen by accident: it happens by design. If you’re tired of working harder without reward, it’s time to stop surviving in your academic job, and build the career you want.

Want my FREE TRAINING on how to build that career?

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How Essential Writing Time Gets Lost in Academia

academic writing coach how to manage time

One of the hardest conversations I sometimes have to have with clients is around the idea of setting boundaries around other work to make room for writing. I talk about this topic alot because it is uncomfortable. And it’s not really about boundaries at all.

So what is it really about?

Who you are. What you want your job to be. What you think should be prioritised. Show me your diary, and I will tell you what you think is most important in your job, whether you want to admit it or not. How you allocate time - our most precious and non recoverable resource - tells me what you you cherish. What you stand for, and how you think you should behave.

So when I come in and poke and prod and question…it provokes big feelings. Defensiveness, sometimes a bit of pearl clutching, and eventually quiet reflection on what this all means.

It’s not just what you put in the diary, it is what then actually happened. I can look at client diaries and they look perfect. Time allocated for scholarship and research and yet…they didn’t actually do it, or they were so slow, time slipped through their fingers and nothing meaningful happened, and then the narrative enters: I might have well have simply done my admin/grading/meeting/teching prep because that is still hanging over me, and my writing didn’t progress.

That is a skills gap, not a moment to have an existential crisis. The idea was right, the execution, a bit shaky. That is much further ahead than if you had never put time in the diary, and just had a lot of blank white space where you hoped it would happen.

There’s a disconnect here. Allocating time - choosing to put boundaries in place around the length of time you will devote to any given activity - is not about markers in the diary. It is claiming: this matters and - just as important - I know how to do this effectively. I can put aside 30 mins and accomplish something meaningful, because I have the skills to do so. I know what to do now, what to do next, and how to move from a meeting straight into my writing and move the text forward. This is not magic, it’s skills. Anyone can learn them.

So when you look at your diary (not NOW, in term time) what does it tell you about what you think is the best use of your time? What do you prioritise? What does that say about the identity you are nurturing and the skills you are developing and honing with repeated practice every day? Are you in fact becoming the very best person at answering email, ever?

You are not trained to write in academia, and that is a travesty that I try to remedy, day in day out here at Academic Coach for as many people as I can. But of course writing doesn’t happen in isolation, and it’s but one element of a much more complicated picture. If you’re ready to change how you spend your time and what you want to achieve in the coming academia year, you can join me here:

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Navigating Departmental Politics

Navigating departmental politics takes a type of clear-eyed thinking that is not always available to us in the heat of a particular annoying meeting. So, when navigating departmental politics, please take advice it took my A LONG TIME to learn. Silence first.

Why silence first

In your first year in a new post, you are already at capacity. You are prepping new classes from scratch, grading at a scale you’ve never seen, learning systems, figuring out where anything is, and attending every meeting because you don’t yet know which ones are dispensable. Adding politics to that load is a fast track to overwhelm. Protect your energy. Keep quiet and listen.

What to watch

Your learning lab is the all-hands space, school-wide meetings, board of studies, any room where most academics are present and students are not. You’ll also pick up signals at seminars and informal gatherings, but the big rooms show you the whole chessboard: cliques, alliances, simmering rivalries, and who actually carries weight. Give yourself months. Some people map the terrain quickly; others take longer, and alas some never do. While you watch, do light homework:

  • Put names to faces and look up profiles on the intranet.

  • Note research areas and outputs.

  • Notice who speaks, who abstains, and who everyone watches when decisions land.

Common archetypes you’ll meet

These are rough sketches to help you spot patterns. They are not value judgements on whole people, and remember most colleagues are excellent.

  • Research stars: You may rarely see them at meetings. They model what is rewarded locally: time protected for outputs, sharp boundaries, focus. Study their operating system: where do they say no? How do they structure their weeks? What do they never attend?

  • Teaching martyrs: Deeply vocal about student issues, sometimes on teaching-only contracts, sometimes not publishing at all. If your goal is to write, avoid getting pulled into the gravity well of permanent crisis on behalf of “the children”. Care, yes. Become the department’s emergency line, no.

  • Greasy polers: Advancement at all costs. Will happily take your idea, your labour, and your credit. They do not wear badges. This is why you watch before you partner. Keep a paper trail. Share just enough.

  • Inventors of work: They manufacture new policies, pilots, and projects that look brilliant on a CV while others carry the execution. Treat new initiatives with healthy scrutiny: scope, ownership, resourcing, sunset date.

  • Brittle people: Often outwardly confident, inwardly fearful of being found out. Scheming and undermining are defence mechanisms. Keep distance, keep receipts, keep calm.

And then there is everyone else, the 95 percent who are generous, funny, collegial, and the reason going to work can be a joy. Build your circle of trust there. It takes time.

If you want to take control of your career, head over to my free training here.

Elevate your career

Choose Your Administrative Role Wisely… And Protect Your Writing Capacity

We all do admin. It’s not why you did a PhD. You wanted to teach and you wanted to research. Still, institutions only run because academics also take on collegiate, non-teaching, non-research roles. It’s part of being in a team.

The point is not to do all the roles, all the time. It’s to choose them wisely so you keep time and headspace for writing. Not all admin is created equal, and structures vary by department and country, but these principles travel. As I discuss in more detail in the podcast, here are the big three pitfalls, and how to avoid them.

Roles that are too big for your seniority

Junior colleagues, especially those on probation or tenure track, often feel pressure to say yes to everything. You may be “offered” a portfolio that flatters the ego but outstrips your grade and experience. Do not expect leaders to match roles to career stage. Workload often lands on whoever seems available.

Why this hurts:

  • You lack the hierarchical clout to move senior colleagues. Academia is hierarchical in practice; a junior cannot compel a professor.

  • You lack speed through experience. Seniors prep, grade, and administrate faster. Early on, your core duties already fill the week.

  • You are not paid or buffered, for the fallout. Oversized roles end in tears. Yours, and sometimes the department’s.

High-risk examples for the under-senior: head of department or school, director of research, director of undergraduate studies, head of teaching and learning. If your gut says, “too big,” it probably is.



Roles that clash with your stress profile

Do not choose admin because it’s interesting or because you could be good at it. Choose what suits your temperament. Academic admin maps neatly onto burnout drivers: too many tasks, high expectations with low control, uncertainty, difficult personalities, and low autonomy.

Know your main stressor:

  • Too many tasks with too little time — avoid rolling, reactive workloads with constant micro-deadlines.

  • Expectation stress — avoid high-stakes quality judgements without clear criteria.

  • Risk and uncertainty — avoid fuzzy scope and shifting rules.

  • Toxic people — avoid committees led by people you don’t like.

  • Low autonomy — avoid portfolios where every decision crawls up several layers.

I chose roles that maximised agency over timing and execution. Not the least work, the most control. That preserved my writing.


Roles with the wrong people

Who you work with matters as much as the work. Some portfolios are solo with administrative support. Others tie you into committees across department, faculty, and university. If the team includes your “Brenda” , the colleague who drains capacity, the role will cost more than it looks.

Every admin line signals a narrative. If you repeatedly take pastoral roles, you can be read as less research-focused, fair or not. If you want progression on the administrative path, seek roles with visible leadership and decision-making, not just service.

Protect your career by making intentional decisions.

  • One role at a time. Multiple portfolios are why you can’t write.

  • Get scope, decision rights, support, and workload allocation documented.

  • Prefer predictability. Cyclical calendars beat perpetual firefighting.

  • Match role to your stress profile. Choose for fit, not interest.

  • Choose your colleagues. Less Brenda, more bandwidth.

Choosing admin is just a tiny part of the hundreds of career decisions you need to make to ensure your academic career is progressing. This is much easier when you understand the career map you want to pursue, and how to pursue it. If you want to know about the 8 domains of a successful academic career, you can get my free training - and my eyes on your career map with a free 30 minute consultation, here.

ELEVATE YOUR CAREER

Your Department Has No Memory… And What This Means For You

When I first became an academic, there’s something I wish I’d understood deep in my bones. A senior colleague hinted at it back then, but it only truly clicked after a few bruising years:

Your department has no memory.

Not people; people remember plenty. Departments don’t. And if you’re coming from the private sector, this will feel very odd. In most companies, structure, process, and promotion paths create a kind of institutional memory. In academia, roles rotate, responsibilities shift, and records of who said what to whom, and why vanish into thin air. That absence of memory can cost you if you don’t see it coming.

Here are four areas where the lack of memory bites hardest, and what that means for you.

Promises made for future you

Departments have no memory of things promised. Promotions, seed funding, a lab or institute, a team structure, a lighter teaching load next year to pay back an emergency overload this year. The person promising may mean it at the time, but the ground is always moving. Heads of department rotate. Priorities change. Student numbers jump. Colleagues leave.

Typical scenario: you take on an extra course because someone resigns in week two. You’re told you’ll be “paid back” next year with two courses off. Next year arrives and there are five more departures and 200 extra students. That quid pro quo evaporates. Even if the same person is still in post, the constraints have shifted. There is no institutional memory that binds tomorrow to what was said today.

Deals done under pressure

Sometimes both you and the department have a problem. You agree a trade. You’ll catch a falling course mid-semester if you’re permanently spared a specific committee or partnership that drains your capacity.

It works until the role-holder changes. Handovers are sketchy at best. Your carefully negotiated deal never makes the cut in the baton pass. You’re now the person of record for that course, the hot potato has cooled in your hands, and your “in exchange” is invisible history. To the new workload lead, you’re just asking for a concession without giving anything back.

Problems and “solutions” on repeat

Early on, you’ll see an obvious problem and reach for an obvious solution. Around the table, seniors will rub their temples in silence. They’ve watched that fix fail five times already, and the department has no memory of the attempts, the pilots, the blockers, the unintended consequences. The wheel gets reinvented. Hope rises. Time is spent. The outcome is the same.

Implication for you: before proposing a fix, ask two grounding questions:

  • Have we tried this before here? What happened?

  • What changed since then that would make it work now?

If there are no written retrospectives, write short ones yourself when you run something. Two paragraphs on what you tried, what worked, what didn’t, and where the bodies are buried. File it somewhere obvious. You’ll save your future self months of déjà vu.

Administrative roles without walls

Many academic admin roles have no job description, no handover, and no clear boundaries. You rotate in for two or three years, director of research, chair of exam board, programme lead — and discover a maze by torchlight. The last person knew where the traps were. That knowledge didn’t travel. Sometimes one person stays put for a decade because they hold all the memory. That’s brittle. If they leave suddenly, the function collapses.

Why this all matters now

Years ago, mobility was the promotion ladder. You moved institutions to move up, which meant you were rarely around long enough to be haunted by lost promises or groundhog-day problems. Today, in many fields, there simply aren’t that many jobs to move to. People stay put 5, 10, 20 years. People remember. Institutions don’t. That mismatch is where frustration lives.

Forewarned is forearmed

At some point you’ll be promised something that drifts, trade something that gets forgotten, propose something that’s been tried, or inherit a role with no map. None of this is a moral failing on your part. It’s a structural feature of how departments are staffed and how roles rotate.

You can’t make the department remember, but you can remember they don’t remember. Not holding on to that delusion will save you alot of wasted time and emotional energy.

INSTALL YOU ADMIN PROOF WRITING SYSTEMS

Slow Productivity and Seasonality: Working at Your Natural Pace

In academia, productivity is often linked to constant output, but when constant activity is equated with constant output, this approach leads to burnout. Enter the concept of slow productivity by Cal Newport; a more sustainable way of working that focuses on doing fewer things, working at a natural pace, and prioritising quality.

The Fallacy of Constant Hustle

In academic culture, there’s often an expectation of working at full speed all year round. September to May requires juggling marking, teaching, and research, then the summer months are either posited as the time to get some real writing done, or more likely, the time to lie down and feel guilty about not writing. Constantly pushing yourself to work at maximum intensity 12 months a year is a recipe for exhaustion, but taking the summer off to recover is a recipe for academic career freefall. Slow productivity is a hinterland - it teaches us that it's not about working harder, it’s about working smarter and respecting the natural rhythms of your particular academic calendar.

Slow productivity is about consistency, not intensity: not needing to be at full throttle all the time.

Seasonality: A More Humane Pace

Seasonality, as explained by Cal Newport, involves adjusting your pace up and down based on the time of year and the energy demands of your academic responsibilities. You don’t have to be working at full capacity all year, indeed not everything you do requires your full brain capacity, to think otherwise is to misunderstand the nature of your academic job.

Creating a Sustainable Writing Habit

One common challenge for academics is the struggle to maintain a consistent writing habit because they mistake this for working at full pelt. This often leads to periods of intense, last-minute writing followed by burnout, internalised as rest. A better approach is to create a habit where you show up to write every working day, but without the expectation of maximum productivity each day. Working at a natural pace is about working in a way you can repeatedly do, not on your best day, but every day.

During periods of low intensity, such as when grading, don’t feel pressure to complete massive writing tasks. Instead, focus on smaller, more manageable writing goals without abandoning contact with your project. Even a small amount of writing each day helps maintain your habit without overwhelming you.

Understanding Your Own Intensity Rhythm

Understanding the natural ebb and flow of your work is crucial. For instance, in my own experience, the first semester was the best time for intense writing because I had more energy and fewer external demands. Even though I had consistent teaching all your round, I had fewer drains on my resources Sep-Dec. Conversely, February and March were times of high stress and low energy when I would adjust my expectations and focus finishing rather than starting new projects.

Your experience will be unique, depending on your teaching load, administrative duties, and personal commitments. The key is recognising your own intensity rhythm and adjusting your work accordingly.

Steps to Implement Seasonality

  1. Audit your academic calendar: Take a moment to map out the peak and low intensity periods of your academic year. Identify when you’re likely to have more energy and when you’ll need to scale back.

  2. Adjust your writing goals: During high-intensity periods, focus on small tasks, like editing or reviewing previous work. In slower periods, set bigger, more ambitious writing goals.

  3. Build in rest: Don’t forget to rest and recharge. Rest isn’t a break from productivity; it’s an essential part of maintaining long-term productivity. Recognising when to take your foot off the pedal is just as important as knowing when to push harder.

  4. Reflect and adjust: Regularly audit your progress. Look back at your workload and energy levels to adjust your pace for the future. Are you pushing yourself too hard during a low-intensity period? Could you take a break without losing momentum?

To be able to practice slow productivity, there are a myriad of skills you need to develop so you can unlock working at a natural pace. Slow productivity requires active pipeline management, great drafting techniques that enable you to write without intensity or time, and ways to manage yourself and your choices so that you can protect your writing energy. You can find all these in my Writer’s Collective SCRIBE training.

Explore the Collective

Writing advice: 6 books and a strategy call with me

If you’re looking to improve your academic writing, there’s a wealth of advice out there. But with so many books on the market, it can be overwhelming to figure out which ones are worth your time. In this post, I’ll share six writing advice books that have had a lasting impact on my writing and that I often recommend to my coaching clients.

FIRST: MY SHAMELESS PLUG

My own book, coming soon to all good bookstores 😄 and the internet, ‘Rewriting Academia: Escape from Writing Prison’. A Practical Guide for Academics. 🎉🎉🎉 Early copies will be available to my community first, so if you are not in it, sign up below!

Ok back to the advice.

1. On Writing by Stephen King

Stephen King’s On Writing is a must-read for anyone serious about writing. Although it’s aimed at novelists, the lessons King shares are universal. His key advice? Close the door. This means carving out uninterrupted time for your writing, away from distractions. King’s routine, writing in the morning without fail- can be adapted to any writer's schedule, even if you’re balancing research with teaching. His focus on consistency and shutting out the world is crucial for producing quality work.

2. How to Write a Lot by Paul Silvia

If you’re struggling to stay productive, How to Write a Lot is your solution. Paul Silvia’s no-nonsense approach tackles the mental blocks that prevent writers from getting their words down. The book helps you address the excuses you make and focuses on the psychological barriers that slow you down. Silvia breaks down the habits of productive writers and offers practical advice to get you into the habit of writing consistently.

While Silvia recommends tracking word count, I’m less keen on that method but still find his psychological insights invaluable for overcoming procrastination.

3. Deep Work by Cal Newport

Cal Newport’s Deep Work offers an essential framework for focused writing. Newport distinguishes between shallow work—like answering emails—and deep work, which requires intense concentration. For academic writers, research and writing should be your deep work, where you dedicate all your mental energy. Newport stresses that creating boundaries around your time and focusing solely on high-value tasks is the key to productivity. This approach is incredibly useful for balancing the demands of academia, where distractions are constant.

4. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is a classic, full of both humour and real-world writing advice. Lamott’s most famous concept is the shitty first draft—the idea that you need to get your ideas down on paper, even if they’re not perfect. This book encourages writers to let go of perfectionism and embrace the messiness of the writing process. The key takeaway? You can’t improve what’s not written, so get your thoughts on paper first, and then revise.

5. Write No Matter What by Jolie Jensen

Jolie Jensen’s Write No Matter What is a valuable resource for those who struggle with motivation. Jensen explores the stories we tell ourselves about why we can’t write, from imposter syndrome to life distractions. Her advice is simple: write every day. Whether it’s a rough draft or a final piece, consistency is key. This book resonated with me during a period when I had fallen out of the habit of writing. It’s a powerful reminder that success in writing is about showing up every day, no matter what else is happening.

6. Still Writing by Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro’s Still Writing is a beautifully written book that explores creativity and the writing life. While not an academic writing book per se, Shapiro’s insights into the writing process and maintaining a writing habit are invaluable. She talks about how life’s interruptions can derail your writing routine, but with a good habit, you can return to your work, no matter what life throws at you. This book has been a recent addition to my recommended reading list, offering both inspiration and practical advice for sustaining your writing practice.

Conclusion

Remember, you don’t have to follow every piece of advice in these books, but they can provide the tools and perspectives needed to improve your writing. Whether you’re struggling to start or facing writer’s block, these books will help you make progress.

If you want a writing strategy call with me so we can figure out how to get your writing moving, you can book a call with me by hitting the button below.

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What Makes Academic Writing Stylish: A Guide to Writing with Impact

Academic writing doesn’t have to be dry or difficult to understand. Despite its reputation for being dense and filled with jargon, stylish academic writing is clear, concise, and engaging. In this blog, we’ll explore the elements that make academic writing stylish, focusing on the balance between clarity, voice, and technique.

1. Voice: Be Present in Your Writing

One of the most important elements of stylish academic writing is having a distinct voice. Many academic writers shy away from inserting their voice into their work, often fearing criticism or judgement. This leads to writing that feels bland, passive, and unoriginal.

To make your writing stylish, own your position. Don’t hide behind overly cautious language or hedging. Whether your ideas are controversial or not, your writing should reflect your confidence in your argument. When your voice is clear, your writing feels more authentic and compelling.

Think about it—when you read work by a scholar you admire, you can often recognise their unique voice without seeing their name. That’s the mark of stylish writing. It’s a reflection of your intellectual contribution and presence.

2. Concision: Respect Your Reader’s Time

One of the quickest ways to make your writing more stylish is by being concise. Don’t waste your reader’s time with unnecessary words or overly complicated sentences. While your first draft may be wordy, the key is in the editing process. Great writers know how to cut down the fat and keep their sentences sharp and clear.

Concision doesn’t mean sacrificing important details. It means saying exactly what needs to be said without repetition or excessive filler. Being concise is about delivering your point clearly and efficiently, showing respect for your reader’s time and attention.

3. Clarity: Make Your Ideas Easy to Follow

Closely linked to concision is clarity. If your ideas aren’t clear, no amount of stylish language will help. The goal of academic writing is to communicate complex ideas to an audience who may not be familiar with your specific topic. To do this, your writing needs to be easy to follow.

Clear writing is purposeful. Each sentence should serve a purpose and lead the reader logically from one point to the next. Avoid jargon and overly technical terms unless they’re absolutely necessary. Think about how to express your ideas simply without compromising the depth of your argument.

4. Grammar and Rhythm: Crafting Your Sentences

Good grammar is the foundation of stylish writing. Without solid grammar, your ideas can become lost in awkward sentence structures and confusion. Stylish writing isn’t about avoiding complex sentences; it’s about ensuring that each sentence has a natural rhythm and flows smoothly.

Pay attention to sentence length and variety. Avoid a monotonous string of short sentences or long, rambling ones. Instead, craft your writing like a piece of music, mixing short, medium, and long sentences to create an engaging rhythm. This keeps the reader interested and helps your ideas stand out more effectively.

5. A Wide Vocabulary: The Right Words for the Right Moment

A wide vocabulary is essential to being a stylish writer. It allows you to be more precise and accurate in your writing. However, using complex words just for the sake of it won’t make your writing stylish. Instead, aim for the right word in the right context.

If you find yourself overusing certain words (such as “analysis” or “framework”), it’s time to expand your vocabulary. Read widely—not just academic work but novels, essays, and non-fiction. Exposure to different types of writing will improve your vocabulary and help you express your ideas more effectively.

Balancing Style with Substance

While style is important, it should never overshadow the substance of your work. The ultimate goal of academic writing is to communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively. Style is a tool to help you achieve that goal, not a distraction from it.

There’s a fine balance between using an engaging style and maintaining clarity. Stylish writing isn’t about being overly creative or artistic; it’s about finding the most effective way to express your ideas. The goal is to make sure your writing is both clear and engaging, allowing your reader to easily follow your argument.

Write with confidence

What Makes a Journal Article 4*?

In the UK, academia is shaped by the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which evaluates research outputs, including journal articles, to determine funding for universities. One of the highest marks you can achieve is a 4-star rating on your individual pieces of writing, which is awarded to work deemed world-leading in originality, significance, and rigour. But what truly makes a journal article 4-star worthy?

Originality is Key

A 4-star article doesn’t have to be paradigm-shifting or revolutionary. You don’t need to invent new theories or create groundbreaking methods. Originality is about contribution, not invention. You must present something new and useful, even if it’s applying an existing theory in a new context, synthesising debates in an innovative way, or proposing a conceptual model that moves the conversation forward.

Originality is not about being above everyone else but shifting the conversation meaningfully. Your article needs to demonstrate that it understands and engages with the existing discourse, while also pushing it forward. To get into 4-star territory, ask yourself, what can no one say again after reading my work?

Clarity and Confidence in Your Contribution

One of the biggest mistakes academics make is failing to own their originality. If you’re doing original work, you need to claim it. It’s not about arrogance, but about being clear and confident in your contribution. If you bury the lede or are too modest about your work, readers, including REF panels- won’t recognise it as original. Start your article by clearly stating what makes it original and significant. Don’t hide this information in the middle or end of the paper—claim it upfront. This clarity helps ensure that even those outside your field can recognise the value of your work.

Don’t Assume Readers Will ‘Get It’

Remember that readers, including members of the REF panel, may not have expertise in your specific niche. Make it explicit. If your work is highly specialised, you need to explain clearly why it’s important and how it contributes to the broader academic conversation. Don’t assume the panel will find your originality on their own. You need to highlight it and be specific about how your work advances the field.

The 'So What' Factor

Regardless of your discipline, your work must answer the “so what” question. Why does your work matter? If you’re introducing a new data set, technique, or conceptual lens, explain why it’s valuable. For example, in fields that focus on data or lab techniques, it’s not enough to present new findings—you must frame them within a broader academic context. What makes your findings significant? Why should they matter to your academic peers? In theoretical disciplines, originality might come from offering a new lens through which to view longstanding problems. This reframing of a familiar issue is often what leads to paradigm-shifting work in those fields.

The 4*ness of your paper lives in the introduction

If you want to master articles, the first element you need to perfect is writing the introduction. This is what holds many scholars back from presenting their work in the best possible light. I have some free training for you here to help you along.

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Have You Got Writing Planning All Wrong?

How to plan your academic writing demo

Planning is essential to academic success, but it’s often misunderstood. Many scholars associate planning with rigid schedules or unnecessary complexity, but when done right, planning can be the key to writing more, writing better, and advancing your career.

The Myth of the Perfect Plan

There’s a belief that planning stifles creativity or adds to an already overwhelming workload. But this mindset is limiting. Planning is not about creating the "perfect" schedule or avoiding spontaneity, it’s about taking control of your time, energy, and focus to make meaningful progress in your writing.

Strategic Planning: The Big Picture

The first type of planning is strategic planning, which focuses on long-term goals. This involves asking yourself questions like: What do I want to achieve in the next year, two years, or five years? Strategic planning helps you avoid being a reactive academic, constantly responding to whatever comes your way without a clear direction. It’s about proactively shaping your academic career, ensuring that everything you do aligns with your long-term goals.

Without strategic planning, you’ll find yourself distracted by opportunities or tasks that seem urgent but don’t serve your broader ambitions. Instead of being reactive, you can decide whether an opportunity moves you closer to your goals or takes you off track.

Time-to-Task Planning: Focusing on Daily Progress

While strategic planning focuses on the long term, time-to-task planning is about the day-to-day. This means blocking out dedicated writing time in your calendar and having a clear understanding of what you’ll accomplish during those sessions. The key is not just to reserve the time, but to also decide on the specific task you will complete, whether it’s writing a section of your article, revising a chapter, or reviewing literature.

Many people block out writing time but waste it by not knowing exactly what to do or how to do it wuickly adn effectively - this is a skills issue. Without a clear plan for that time, and the proficient skillset to execute it, you end up wasting precious hours as you cast about working like you are still a PhD student. Successful writers don’t just schedule writing; they make sure they have a defined task for every session and know exactly what’s required to execute it.

Goal-Oriented Planning: Measuring Success

Goal-oriented planning is about setting clear, measurable milestones for your writing and career. Whether your goal is finishing a draft or getting a paper published, you need to track your progress. This is especially important if you're experimenting with new writing techniques or processes. How do you know if you’re on track? Without goals, you can’t measure success.

Incorporating milestones allows you to track your achievements. It’s not about working endlessly without seeing progress; it’s about recognising your growth as you meet each milestone.

Auditing: Reflecting and Adjusting

The final type of planning is auditing, or reflecting on your progress. At the end of each week, month, or semester, take a moment to review how things went. Did you achieve your goals? What got in the way? By doing this, you’ll learn from your mistakes and be able to adjust your approach moving forward.

This reflective practice is crucial for avoiding repetitive mistakes and refining your writing process. It only takes a few minutes to evaluate your progress, but this small step can significantly improve your productivity and help you stay on track.

Planning seems so boring on the outside - everyone thinks they can plan, or they think they don’t need to, but it is a critical component of a successful academic career. If you want to start with 3 essentials steps to making sure you know how to execute your writing slots, start here with my free training.

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Academic Meetings: A Productivity Drain

Academic meetings are often seen as a necessary part of the job, but in reality, many of them are a waste of time. They drive me absolutely mad. They don’t lead to decisions, nor do they move your work forward. Instead, they consume hours that could be better spent on research, writing, or professional skills development. Why are academic meetings so counterproductive?

The Myth of Collegial Meetings

Academia is built on the idea of collaboration and collegiality, but too often, this leads to meetings that feel like a performance rather than a productive exchange of ideas. As I was preparing for another project, I came across a quote from Thomas Sowell that made me laugh, because it hit a nerve: "The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favour of holding meetings."This rings true for academia, where meetings are often called not to make decisions but to discuss what’s already been decided. Decisions are often made elsewhere—whether at a departmental level or higher up in the university’s hierarchy—and meetings are just a formality to make it appear as though opinions are being canvassed.

The ‘Regulatory Meetings’ Trap

In many universities, particularly in the UK, academic meetings such as exam boards and boards of studies serve as an example of what I call regulatory meetings. These meetings are a relic from the past, where staff were actively involved in decision-making. Now, in most cases, the decisions have already been made by a computer or an administrator, and the meeting serves only to read out numbers or confirm predetermined outcomes. In my own experience, I’ve spent hours in exam boards that didn’t make any decisions, because everything was already automated. Yet, we were still required to sit in these meetings, often for hours on end, and review student grades that had already been decided. This waste of time—where no meaningful decisions were made—was a huge source of frustration.

Why Meetings Are Not Productive

The core issue with academic meetings is that no work gets done during them. They often involve listening to updates, reviewing numbers, or having discussions that don’t lead anywhere. In reality, meetings are not where work happens. True productivity happens in solo work—in quiet moments of research, writing, and planning. Meetings in academia can feel like an endless cycle of busy work, with little to no tangible output. They give the illusion of productivity but rarely result in anything substantial.

Time Wasted in Meetings

Here’s the real issue: time in meetings is time you’re not writing or researching. Every hour spent in a meeting could have been used to write a section of your paper, analyse your research, or prepare a grant proposal. If you’re spending your week in endless meetings, ask yourself—what could you have done with that time instead? Let’s say you spend five hours in meetings each week. That’s five hours of writing, five hours of thinking, five hours of deep work lost. This is time you’ll never get back, and when you tally up the hours across a semester or year, it becomes a huge drain achieving meaningful progress in your career.

The ‘Busy Work’ Fallacy

Why do so many people love meetings? The truth is, meetings feel like work, even though they’re often just busy work. When people can’t manage their time effectively or don’t know how to prioritise, they opt for meetings because it feels like they’re doing something.

But meetings are not real work. They take up time and energy, yet nothing is produced from them. People who spend all their time in meetings aren’t the ones who are making meaningful progress in their careers—they’re caught in a cycle of pseudo-productivity.

If you are ready to break out of this endless busywork, head here:

USE TIME FOR WHAT MATTERS

A Common (and Costly) REF Mistake Universities Keep Making

REF Mistakes University REF Training

I want to talk about the REF. Well, not really, but I feel I must. It can be quite stressful for universities and academics alike and yet so few resources are invested in training both the internal panels and the staff around how to excel. Employing senior in-house faculty to give random REF talks WILL NOT DO IT. It is a total waste of time. I have been in the room and heard these talks…they don’t give academics what they need.

One of the hardest conversations I have with universities goes something like this:

“This is clearly a 4* paper — the idea is excellent.”

And then I have to pull it to pieces to show them how this will not pass muster.

Intellectually, they are often right. But REF does not award stars for great ideas that live only in scholars’ heads, or that only a sub-sub-field specialist can recognise. REF awards stars for what is visible on the page.

What I see repeatedly is subfield specialists doing exactly what they are trained to do: recognising high-quality thinking in their exact niche. The problem is that they often overestimate how legible that quality is to REF assessors.

This is particularly common when institutions chose papers to have REF conversations around when:

  • the author is not UK-based

  • the paper was not written with REF in mind

  • the work relies on disciplinary recognition rather than explicit framing

The idea may be 4*. The signalling is not. And REF assessors are not obliged to infer what is not clearly claimed. This is how submissions quietly bleed quality. It’s not bad scholarship, but through misrecognition.

The most effective REF training does one crucial thing: it separates scholarly excellence from REF signalling discipline. Without that separation, institutions rely on potential recognition. And potential recognition is not a strategy - this is borne out time and again when institutions receive their official grades back, and they look nothing like the internal rating that had been applied. And yet, and yet…they do nothing. Rinse and repeat.

For universities, this has an enormous cost. Time, energy, and research capital are invested, but returns are diminished. For academics, it is deeply frustrating: strong work that fails to land as it should, and is dismissed as 2* by the REF panel.

Targeted REF expertise exists precisely to address this gap by ensuring that excellence is visible, defensible, and recognisable within the REF framework. REF outcomes improve when assessment stops being intuitive and starts being legible. If you are looking for REF training, I provide this in workshop form across Universities.

You can contact me via my email for further information.

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The Academic Success Pyramid: Focusing Your Energy for Career Progression

In academia, there’s a common misconception that research and teaching are opposing forces, leading to confusion and burnout. The truth is, you can excel in both teaching and research, but career success depends on where you focus your energy. Today, we’ll break down the academic success pyramid and explore how you can maximise your potential by concentrating on what truly matters.

The Foundation: Quality Writing

At the base of the academic success pyramid is quality writing. Regardless of your field, writing is the cornerstone of academic success. Whether you're working on articles, papers, or grant proposals, quality writing is the foundation that supports everything else in your career. Without a strong writing habit, advancing in research or gaining funding becomes incredibly difficult.

Quality writing doesn’t just happen; it requires energy, discipline, and focus…and let’s say it out loud, TRAINING. These factors are essential to producing work that’s not only publishable but also impactful in your field. Without solid writing, even the best ideas won’t reach the audience they deserve.

Moving Up: Publications and Grants

Once you’ve built a solid foundation with your writing, the next step is to focus on publications and grants. Whether it’s securing grants or getting your work published, both are critical for academic progression. A strong publication record, in particular, opens the door to grants and helps establish your reputation as an expert in your field. Remember, publications and grants are interdependent. You can’t get funding without demonstrating that you have a track record of research through publications.

Career Capital: Building Your Reputation

As your publications and grants accumulate, you begin to build career capital. This term refers to the valuable skills and experiences you accumulate that increase your professional worth. Career capital includes things like your reputation, academic leadership, and the respect you earn within your niche. This is where you establish your professional identity. As you climb the pyramid, you gain more influence in your field, allowing you to make decisions about your career trajectory. Career capital also involves building a network and gaining leadership roles within your institution or field.

The Pinnacle: Choices and Control

At the top of the pyramid is choice. Once you’ve built significant career capital through your publications and grants, you gain the freedom to make decisions about your academic career. You can curate your role to focus on the areas you care about most, whether that’s teaching, research, or leadership. Having career capital also gives you the ability to say no to things that don’t align with your goals, such as unnecessary meetings, additional administrative tasks, or responsibilities that don’t support your long-term success. Choice allows you to work smarter, not harder, and design your academic career around what you value most.

Avoiding the Pitfalls: Energy Drainers

To reach the top of the academic success pyramid, you need to be mindful of where you spend your energy. Many academics get stuck in what I call the maelstrom of busy work—constantly answering emails, attending meetings, or fighting bureaucracy. This energy is misdirected and doesn’t help you climb the pyramid.

Instead of engaging in pseudo-productivity, focus on what matters: writing, publishing, and securing grants. Establish strong boundaries and stop wasting time on tasks that don’t align with your career goals. Remember, your energy, discipline, and focus are finite, so you need to protect them and spend them wisely.

Building an academic career means being cognisant of where you spend your only resource: time. If you want to learn more about the 8 domains to master to build your academic career, I have some free training for you here.

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REF Literacy Is Career Development 

Academic Career Training

REF is often framed as an institutional burden. Something universities must manage, submit, and survive. But for individual academics, REF literacy is something else entirely: career capital.

Academics who understand how REF works, that is, how contribution is recognised, how significance is scaled, how rigour is read across subfields, do not simply write better papers. They think differently about their careers and about research ideation.

They make more strategic publication decisions. They waste less time revising work that cannot realistically perform well in REF terms. They develop clearer intellectual trajectories. And, over time, they tend to progress faster. Crucially, this is not because they work harder or spend more time on their writing.

REF-literate academics understand that REF-fundable work does not take more time to produce: it requires different thinking. Without that understanding, many scholars fall into a trap of producing more and more outputs in the hope that quantity will compensate for uncertainty. It rarely does.

In a system where promotion, workload, research time, and institutional value are all REF-adjacent, not understanding REF creates a structural disadvantage. Talent alone does not protect against misrecognition.

REF training, at its best, is not about chasing stars. It is about learning how your work is judged in the system you already inhabit  and using that knowledge to work in your best interest.

For institutions, supporting REF literacy is not just about improving submissions. It is about developing staff in ways that align effort, ambition, and evaluation.

You can contact me via my email or message me here.

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Teaching vs Research. But if you care about research, aren’t you the asshole?

Academic writing training

Yep I said what I said. This is a topic that drives me mad.

In academia, the teaching versus research mindset is common, yet it’s also deeply flawed. The belief that you have to choose between being a “good teacher” and a “serious researcher” creates unnecessary division - amongst colleagues and mentally for you. But the truth is, you can excel in both areas.

The Myth of the Dichotomy

In many departments, there’s a division between those focused on teaching and those focused on research. This is especially true in departments with a lot of precarity—where short-term contracts for teaching staff dominate. These teaching-focused academics often feel they have to prove their worth by dedicating themselves exclusively to teaching, fearing that research will not lead to career advancement. This creates a toxic environment, where teaching and research are seen as opposing forces.

At the same time, there’s a growing narrative that those who prioritise research are somehow morally inferior. The idea is that “good” academics care about students and teaching, while “bad” ones focus on research and are seen as out of touch with student needs. This idea not only creates division within departments, but it also fosters guilt for those who enjoy research but care deeply about teaching.

Teaching and Research: Different But Not Opposing

In reality, the ability to be an effective teacher and an accomplished researcher is not only possible, it’s essential for academic success. The misconception that these two roles are mutually exclusive needs to be dismantled. Teaching is vital to the academic experience, but research is equally important to career progression, particularly for those on teaching and research contracts.

As an academic, you can be committed to both teaching and research without compromising one for the other. In fact, when managed properly, these roles can complement each other, and research-informed teaching can benefit both the students and the academic’s career.

The Real Challenge: TRAINING, Not Morality

The key to succeeding in both areas is training. Many academics are not trained to teach and therefore they internalise the idea that spending endless hours in preparation, over-preparing for classes or constantly revising content is what makes a good teacher. But it doesn’t. A lack of training makes you think way because you don’t have other more useful proxies for measuring commitment or success. Think about that. This isn’t about you.

Efficient teaching means focusing on student outcomes and their intellectual growth rather than obsessing over the amount of time spent preparing.

The same applies to research. Effective research doesn’t require working endlessly without breaks; it requires structured and focused effort. It requires good training. A writing habit, a proper research process and system, great editing skills, proper ideation, great technique at articles, books, or grants, imbibing the formulas so you are making good decisions, creating and protecting pipelines. So many skills needed, none taught to you.

If you are serious about becoming a better teacher and researcher, you can come into my Collective and realiagn this narrative into one derived from training. You will have the skills and you will understand the difference between effectiveness and effort.

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The Problem with In-House REF Training 

REF Training For UK Universities

Most in-house REF training is delivered by excellent scholars. That is not the problem. The problem is that they are often too close to the system and to the institutional politics surrounding it to teach REF well. They don’t spend their days thinking about writing training or how to teach it, because that is not their job, or their expertise.

What I see repeatedly in universities is a familiar pattern. REF sessions led by senior colleagues with impressive CVs but no explicit model of quality they can articulate. Advice that collapses into folklore (“REF panels like these journals”, “this just feels 4*”). Workshops that either reassure or demoralise, but rarely sharpen.

The result is predictable.

Staff leave sessions motivated but unequipped or worse, quietly despondent. Internal reviewers disagree wildly, depending on whose work and whose sub discipline is ‘rated’ within the professorial hierarchy. “Quality” remains subjective, political, and opaque. REF readiness becomes something people feel rather than something they can diagnose.

This is not a failure of goodwill or expertise. It is a structural problem.

REF requires diagnostic precision. It requires the ability to separate scholarly excellence from REF signalling. And that is exceptionally hard to do from inside the room particularly when hierarchies, relationships, and institutional histories are in play.

External REF training works not because it is magically better, but because it does three things internal provision often cannot:

  • it disrupts assumptions about where scholars and subfields “should” sit

  • it separates intellectual quality from REF legibility

  • it operationalises assessment criteria instead of mystifying them

  • it’s led by people who train academics to write, and are dedicated to this only

REF readiness is not about confidence or seniority. It is about clarity.

And clarity is difficult to generate when everyone involved is embedded in the same institutional narratives and pressures.

For budget holders and research leaders, this is might not be welcome knowledge.

Without targeted, external REF expertise, institutions risk mistaking reassurance for readiness.

Whether you’re responsible for REF training at an institutional level, or navigating REF expectations as an individual academic, this is the work I do. 

You can contact me via my email or message me here.

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Managing Chronic Illness in Academia: How to Thrive Despite the Challenges

Navigating academia with a chronic illness is no easy feat. The pressure to perform, the competition with peers, and the constant expectations can leave you feeling drained. However, there are ways to manage and thrive, even with the added challenge of chronic illness. In this post, I’ll share insights based on both my personal experiences and the strategies that can help you manage your academic career while dealing with health challenges.

1. The Fears of Managing Chronic Illness in Academia

When you have a chronic illness, the fears are real. The first fear is falling behind. Academia is competitive, and the constant comparison to peers—whether in promotions, publications, or job applications—can make you feel like you're always lagging behind. Even though institutions are meant to support diversity, the system doesn’t always accommodate chronic illness.

The second fear is the inability to fulfil your potential. Unlike temporary barriers, chronic illness presents permanent challenges. This can create a sense of frustration when you see your peers achieving more, often without the same physical limitations. The fear of not living up to your own ambitions can be incredibly demotivating.

The third challenge is the unpredictability of chronic illness. Unlike the typical ups and downs of work, chronic conditions mean that some days you feel fine, and other days you don’t. This inconsistency makes it hard to set a reliable writing schedule or career goals, especially when your physical capacity fluctuates. You might wonder then why, as a person with a chronic illness, I obsess over systems and planning that seem to fly in the face of this inconsistent reality.

2. Reframing Productivity

A major shift is needed in how we view productivity. Many people equate productivity with long hours and constant output. Instead, productivity should be defined by the value of your work and the way in which you produce it, not the volume. Focus on the quality and impact of your contributions.

You can still achieve your goals, but you must do so strategically. Plan your career around your energy reserves and create realistic expectations. For example, consider the next five years of your career, not just the immediate future. This approach allows for a sustainable pace that accommodates your health, while still achieving your ambitions. You can see my other blogs on slow productivity and why I think that is a much more useful lens to think about your work through.

3. Adapting Your Work Routine

Adapting to chronic illness in academia requires strong boundaries and time management. Without these, you’ll quickly burn out. Start by tracking your time—how long do tasks actually take? Use time blocking to structure your day, ensuring that you protect your writing and research time. Prioritise tasks based on urgency and importance, and be honest about your limitations.

A regular writing routine is vital, but it doesn’t have to be rigid. Some days, you’ll have more energy to write, while on other days, it might be a reading or note-taking day. The key is consistency—not in hours worked, but in showing up daily, even if it’s just for short bursts of focused work.

4. Changing the Narrative Around Chronic Illness

Finally, it’s important to change the narrative around chronic illness. Many academics feel shame about their condition, but it’s important to understand that chronic illness doesn’t define your potential. It’s not about working harder or longer hours—it’s about refining your technique and making smarter choices with your time.

You may not have the same energy levels as others, but with the right strategies in place, you can still excel in your career. Work smarter, not longer, and be strategic with your energy to avoid burnout. Remember, it’s not about matching the pace of others; it’s about creating a sustainable approach to your academic work that aligns with your energy levels and long-term goals.

The reality is most academics and not trained properly, and use time in place of training and techniques to produce their work. But when time is not available, the need for better training is impossible to ignore. If you’d like help building better work practices that protect your health, mind and wellbeing, as well as teach you the techniques to create a working life that produces quality work, you can start here with my free training.

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Why REF Training Is No Longer Optional

REF TRAINING FOR UNIVERSITIES

Over the last six months, I’ve worked with 4 universities delivering REF-focused writing and research training. What these institutions have in common is simple: they recognise that REF literacy is no longer optional.

Whatever our personal views on the REF - and many academics have strong ones, including me - it remains a defining feature of the UK higher education landscape. It influences funding, reputation, workload allocation, promotion, and strategic planning. Pretending otherwise doesn’t protect institutions or staff; it leaves them exposed.

And yet, many universities still underinvest in REF training despite having REF ring-fenced budgets.

In-house provision is often informal, ad hoc, or based on the individual assumption that academics should “just know” how REF quality works. They don’t, and not because they lack intellectual capacity, but because REF quality is not the same thing as scholarly quality alas.

REF is a specific evaluative regime. It has its own logics, signals, and failure modes. It asks assessors, who are often non-experts in a given small niche, to make judgements based on what is visible, legible, and defensible on the page. When interdisciplinary work is at stake, forget it.

REF assessors do not ask:

  • “Is this competent scholarship?”

  • “Is this a world-leading idea in the sub, sub sub field?”

They ask:

  • “Is the originality, significance, and rigour identifiable on the page?”

  • “Is the contribution clear to someone outside the immediate subfield?”

That distinction matters enormously.

When universities fail to train staff explicitly in REF literacy, several predictable things happen. Outputs hover on the borderline. Internal review discussions become subjective and political (and often completely wrong). Staff feel uncertain about expectations. And, inevitably, the institution experiences last-minute panic as submission deadlines approach.

By contrast, institutions that invest in explicit REF literacy tend to see:

  • fewer borderline outputs

  • clearer, more productive internal review conversations

  • less last-minute pressure

  • and a higher proportion of genuinely strong submissions

This is about understanding how quality is read within a particular system, not a moral judgment.

At an institutional level, REF training should be treated as core infrastructure and not a discretionary extra or a favour delivered by over-stretched senior staff at research away days. Without it, universities rely on assumption, folklore, and hope. And hope is not a REF strategy.

If your university is thinking seriously about REF readiness, the question is no longer whether to invest in REF literacy, but how well that investment is designed.

I offer REF-focused writing training for universities. If you’d like to discuss options, you’re welcome to book a call. You can contact me via my email or message me here.

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Recovering from Academic Burnout: How to Reclaim Your Energy and Focus

Burnout in academia is a reality that affects scholars at all career stages. Whether you’re a junior academic adjusting to the pressure or a senior scholar drained by the constant demands of teaching, research, and managing others, burnout can manifest in physical, emotional, and cognitive ways. If you're feeling disengaged, exhausted, or overwhelmed, you're not alone. The good news is that burnout is recoverable. In this blog, we’ll explore how to overcome burnout and return to a sustainable, enjoyable academic career.

Recognising the Signs of Burnout

Burnout doesn’t happen overnight. It creeps in gradually, often masked by the daily pressures of academic life. Some common signs include:

  • Physical fatigue: Constant tiredness, sleep disturbances, and frequent illness.

  • Emotional detachment: Loss of motivation, irritability, and cynicism.

  • Mental exhaustion: Difficulty making decisions, lack of focus, and feelings of being overwhelmed.

If you’re experiencing these symptoms, it’s crucial to acknowledge them and take steps to recover. Ignoring the warning signs only prolongs the process and leads to deeper burnout.

Taking Time Off: The First Step to Recovery

The first step in overcoming burnout is to take time off. This isn’t just about physical rest but also about giving yourself the mental and emotional space to recover. Aim for a minimum of six months off, if possible. During this time, focus on recharging and disconnecting from the pressures of academia. It’s important to recognise that returning to work too quickly can result in another burnout episode. When you’re ready to come back, ensure you return phased, avoid jumping back in full throttle.

Reconnecting with Your Purpose

Once you’ve had time to rest, it’s essential to reconnect with the reasons you became an academic. What motivated you to pursue a career in research and teaching? It’s often the joy of learning, discovery, or helping students. Reflect on what excites you about your work, but also think about how to pursue that purpose within a manageable, 40-hour week. Reassess how you work to ensure your job aligns with your core motivations without overextending yourself.

Prioritising and Protecting Your Time

A major contributor to burnout is failing to prioritise and protect your time. If you're constantly saying yes to demands, you’re likely overworking. The key is learning to say no to tasks that don’t align with your priorities. Tracking your time and blocking out your schedule is crucial. If you’re unsure how long tasks like grading or preparing lectures take, start keeping track of how much time each task consumes. By having a clear picture of your time, you can protect it and ensure you don’t overcommit.

Setting Boundaries

Setting strong boundaries around your work is essential to prevent burnout. This means protecting your work hours and learning to switch off outside of those times. If you’re in a job where you’re expected to be constantly available, it’s crucial to establish limits. Don’t let work spill over into your personal time. For example, avoid checking work emails on your phone outside of office hours. Boundaries help maintain a healthy work-life balance and prevent the emotional drain that leads to burnout.

Delegation: Letting Go of Control

Academic burnout often occurs because scholars take on too much. Delegation can help manage this. If you're in a position to do so, delegate tasks where possible. For instance, a PhD student or research assistant can help with some of the research work, or colleagues can share administrative responsibilities. If you’re leading a course, ensure responsibilities are shared among your team.

Learning to delegate is not about being lazy; it’s about recognising that you can’t do everything. The more you delegate, the more time you’ll have for what truly matters.

Redefining Productivity

In academia, productivity is often measured by how many tasks you complete. However, real productivity is about the value of your work, not the volume. Shift your mindset from simply ticking off tasks to focusing on producing quality, impactful work. Rather than obsessing over deadlines and KPIs, focus on your long-term goals and the value of the work you're doing.

By redefining productivity, you’ll feel less pressure to constantly be "busy" and more fulfilled in the work that truly matters to you.

Building a Support Network

Burnout can lead to isolation, but having a strong support network is vital for recovery. Whether it’s colleagues, mentors, or friends, having people you can rely on helps combat the feelings of loneliness that often accompany burnout. If you’ve been away from work, don’t hesitate to reach out to others and share your challenges. Opening up is an important step towards healing.

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Coachable vs Uncoachable: What Makes a Successful Coaching Relationship?

Academic Writing Coach
PODCAST EPISODE HERE

Coaching is an essential tool in academia, helping individuals achieve professional growth and overcome challenges. But what makes a client coachable, and are there problems that are simply uncoachable? In this blog, I explore the dynamics of a successful coaching relationship and discuss the conditions under which coaching can thrive.

The Key to a Successful Coaching Relationship

I was recently asked, when being hired by a University to coach their faculty, about numbers. About successful outcomes. I looked back at my work with over 800 academic clients at that time and I could only find around 10 where I can genuinely say that I felt that coaching had not helped them moved forward.

The results are clear: coaching is incredibly successful when the conditions and relationship are right, but no matter how skilled the coach, there must be buy-in and commitment from the client. The client, not the coach, makes the changes. Most clients who are self-funded, that is, those who pay for coaching out of their own pocket, see great results. This is largely due to their motivation obviously: they are committed to making the changes required and are ready to do the work. They are typically proactive, attend sessions regularly, and implement the strategies discussed. They are hungry for change, and are commited to doing the work.

Those clients who are funded by universities or departments can also be highly successful, but this should always be a competitive process. Motivation remains the key factor, regardless of who pays for the coaching, and I encourage departments to make access to the coaching competitive to ensure that motivation is in place.

Coachable Problems and Uncoachable Problems

Most problems in academia are coachable - whether this is around tools and techniques, full on training, mindset, accountability or developmental editing, I tend to go beyond generic coaching and veer into the coach/trainer identity. Because I am an experienced academic, and experienced in teaching writing and career success. Processes, systems, habits, career decisions and writing techniques are absolutely coachable. Developmental editing of papers really teaches someone how to improve their writing through better decision making. However, some problems are not about writing per se, or in fact academia at all, but turn out to be more personal, rather than professional, in nature. These problems, often related to personal struggles or emotional barriers, require a trained therapeutic intervention rather than coaching, but to the prospective client, these differences may not be obvious. For example, trauma or deep-seated psychological issues may manifest in difficulties at work. This is not appropriate territory for a coach.

The Role of the Coach: What to Expect

The role of the coach is to provide you with the environmetn that enables you to flourish by diagnosing the blackages and giving you a roadmap through it. That can range from the very specific - developmental editing of papers and books - or the much larger goals of career acceleration. An experienced writer can train you in techniques. The most important thing is to leave you with all the skills you need to move on from the coaching itself.

But it’s also important to set realistic expectations at the outset. Coaching doesn’t promise overnight transformations, and it’s essential for clients to recognise that results require time and consistent effort on their part - it’s why I run 12 month programmes, because changing fundamentally what you are doing and how you are doing it is not a quick intervention. It requires repeated iteration until it is internalised. A coach helps by giving structure, guidance, and accountability, but it’s the client who must take the action.

Choosing the Right Coach

Not all coaches are created equal. When choosing a coach, it’s important to ensure they understand the unique challenges of academia. Academic coaches, like myself, have experience in the field and are well-versed in the specific demands of academic work. Coaches without this experience, particularly those from corporate backgrounds, might struggle to provide relevant advice or guidance.

The Importance of a Strong Client-Coach Relationship

The success of coaching largely depends on the relationship between the coach and client. A good coaching relationship is built on trust, open communication, and a mutual commitment to success. Clients need to be honest and open, sharing their struggles so that the coach can offer the best possible solutions.

Conclusion: Coaching as a Tool for Growth

Coaching is a powerful tool for growth and development in academia. It allows you to address the challenges that hold you back and equips you with the tools needed to improve your writing and how much you thrive in your job. While most writing problems are coachable, deeper personal issues may require additional support. If you’d like to explore how coaching might help you, you can book a free strategy call with me here.

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