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:
Continue reading:
Your Department Has No Memory… And What This Means For You
Academic Meetings: A Productivity Drain
Teaching vs Research. But if you care about research, aren’t you the asshole?
Managing Chronic Illness in Academia: How to Thrive Despite the Challenges
What Leads to Academic Burnout: Understanding the Key Triggers
How To Improve Writing Through Deliberate Practice
4 Things Successful Academic Writers Do (Pt 4): Constant Improvement of Writing Skills
4 Things Successful Academic Writers Do (Pt 3): Writing First
4 Things Successful Academic Writers Do Pt 2: Writer Identity
4 Things Successful Academic Writers Do Pt 1: The Power of Time Control
Academic Training (or lack of it)
When Writing is Your Hobby, Your Academic Career Dies
The Drainers and the Drivers: A 10 Minute Writing Hack
Expanding capacity as a tool of writing
The self-care narrative, gaslighting and academia
How to make time for reading as an academic
Realism and Time Tracking: a feasible pipeline
Understanding your Publication Pipeline: What goes in?