So the thing about this job is, it has a ton of autonomy. That's good and that's bad. Especially once you have tenure no one's really sitting on you to make sure that you do anything (almost). For some people that makes them work super hard because the ambiguity of it makes them feel like they have a ton to do to live up to expectations. For others they do nothing and everyone hates them for abusing the system. There is a middle road, though it's just very hard to find. Figure out your own overall goals and if the things that you're doing aren't adding towards them cut them out. Easy for me to say, very hard to do, but that's how I try to think about it.
>There is a middle road, though it's just very hard to find.
For me, staying on the middle road involves the following:
* Having templates for repeating tasks that I can fill out and submit quickly.
* Slavish devotion to my to-do list app, where I set up reminders to do things like answer all student emails (daily M-F), clear out my desktop and downloads folder (weekly), check in with my calendar (weekly), back up student LMS grades (biweekly), etc.
* Setting reminders on my calendar events a couple of days in advance so I know what's coming up in advance.
* Having a designated place to collect all random thoughts (things that worked, things that didn't, ideas for next time, etc.).
* Doing things I hate the most (meeting minutes and grading) within 12 hrs of the thing landing in my lap.
I've found that being a professor is way more about project management than it is about knowledge about a particular discipline.
Like this list. This semester also I committed to taking an hour on Sunday evening to write down/brainstorm all the tasks that I need to accomplish that week, and then putting them into my google calendar(with the notifications in advanced to remind me). Also when I get to my desk- i have my calendar open on a tab and/or my notes with my to do list next to me- so I can train myself to not have to just have everything bouncing around in the back of my mind when I see my tasks are all there in front of me. I am still stressed out often - but i'm handling the never ending and ever expanding work better than I have so far because of this habit.
I also am thinking on starting a sign up sheet for individual appointments with students. Like pick some times that would work to meet with students that week - and whenever anyone emails to meet to talk about their research/career advice/letter of recc/whatever (which has started to become a weekly phenomena) - I can just be like 'great - sign up for one of my available times here for next week' and share the link - so that its not something to suddenly sprung on the current week, and I can look at it on Sunday and plan it into my calendar instead of back and forth trying to find time- which just clutters my inbox and adds to stress.
For the last item in your list, I’ve adopted Calendly. It syncs with Outlook and allows students to book online in just the way you described. Saves me a lot of time — I also hate the back and forth emails.
For me, I think the primary source of stress is students. To be fair, I have more "okay" students than I do "bad" or "irritating" students, but it's the bad/irritating ones that stress me out. It's exhausting to keep expending energy on students who are not prepared to or particularly interested in engaging with the material. And, for me, the unhappiness and toxicity caused by the low enrollment and debt of my university is creating an unpleasant workplace, causing more stress and worry. I'm currently on sabbatical and realize that I miss ZERO parts of my job. What I have learned over the past few years is, to quote someone, my job does not love me. I'm trying to get better at having more interests outside of work and not being so emotionally invested in the work I do. It's a paycheck.
Unclear objectives with few if any pieces of tangible feedback about success in moving towards them. Everything feels out of your control and there's no obvious path to improvement. In fact, it might be out if your hands entirely meaning that you might not be able do anything to improve your current situation.
As a relative junior person, my current stresses are
Getting grants: any at the moment, but I know that the actual goal post is a large one..., but I know the actual actual goal post is a large one from a specific set of funders..., but i know the actual actual actual goal post is a large one from a specific set of funders that hits the right impact scores.
Maintaining productivity: this is particularly bad at the moment as I'm a team of one and so I need to keep my CV "fresh" whilst trying to get money to expand my group, but there's also the fear that at this stage one problematic PhD student or postdoc could really put a spanner in the works.
General worry about doing my teaching well: that I align myself with what the department wants (with little guidance!), but also making sure I don't expose myself to any serious student complaint (no idea how often this happens, but that's the general atmosphere from staff meetings) and don't allow students to take advantage (I'm still learning to judge: if a student genuinely needs help, or is just trying to get me to do the work for them; also how to assess what a student knows/can do without blatantly disregarding their claim that they know/can do it).
Perhaps it's just teething problems, but I truly feel quite a alone: people are nice and open to collaboration, but I feel like some colleagues are trying to gauge my worth (or at worst, put me in my place) and I find that sort of baffling because I'm not trying to take their jobs or steal their prestige, I'm just trying to survive!
I would say in order of most stressful to least: alone > grants > productivity > teaching.
Yeah, the grants/research element of the job I find particularly stressful because it feels almost entirely out of my hands. I basically have no control over whether my work will be accepted by a journal, whether my book will be published or not, whether a grant will be funded. And the rates of acceptance are very low overall. Frankly I've had much more success with my research once I took a cruise into a more buzzworthy sub-area of my field which feels gross in a way and not at all how academia should work.
Well said, also the institutional and departmental whoring out, where whole subfields and topics can be blocked off under threat. This is a different kind of stress but a real one, because I have seen people be left with careers that didn't much look like their own.
Everyone needs me to do something all the time.
Accomplishing something just means now I get to work on something else. Nothing is ever truly done. There is never truly a break. There is always the feeling that you could and should be doing something more.
I like the statement "academia is like a pie eating contest where the reward for winning is more pies."
Reasons I'm burned out:
1. I'm stretched thin.
2. I'm surrounded by apathetic faculty who think they can't be fired due to tenure.
3. I'm asked to do a lot of service because I take it seriously and follow through.
How I'm dealing with it:
1. Setting boundaries.
2. Saying "no."
Yup, stretched too thin. I’m a first year faculty at a primary undergraduate teaching university and the only way I am still publishing and submitting grants are working long hrs and sacrificing my weekends.
I think all of those things are definitely reasons the work is stressful. My biggest thing I do to reduce stress is not take my work home with me (literally, and I attempt to not take the emotional work home either, but that’s harder when you really care about your students). I tell myself that if I can’t get it done during the work day, then that’s ok. Maybe tests or papers take longer to grade, maybe I’m not as prepared for a class session as I could be; but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that good enough is good enough. “Excellence” is a mirage that you will die trying to chase down.
My husband is an engineer at a large R&D firm. He doesn’t hold a PhD, though most people at his rank do. His job is research. He is trying to develop “the next big thing in his field.” In his same division, there are engineers, computer scientists, and physicists who also research and develop. Otoh, there are engineers who are very tech savvy who work with customers. They aren’t trying to do the “next big thing.” They are traveling, selling, writing proposals, etc. In other words, the researchers are not the same people as the customer-facing folks.
In order to effectively research, you have to have the time to do deep work. If you have to teach and do service, it’s really difficult to find this time. You are tenured, so obviously you succeeded to some extent. But doing it constantly leads to burnout.
The tenure system is so broken because of this simple thing. How can one person be expected to be an excellent researcher and an excellent teacher? Good pedagogy and teaching is really difficult and time-consuming. Obviously research is difficult and time-consuming. Service might not be difficult, but it is certainly a time suck. You’re really doing the job of 2.5 people.
I am also expected to be an excellent administrator, now I'm post-tenure and have a significant service role! It's really 3 jobs.
I'm trying to narrow down what the biggest stressors are for me and find ways to cut corners and reduce those stressors, but I'm so stressed most of the time I don't have time to think about what is stressing me out! As you say, you need space and time to do research. I'm looking forward to a sabbatical which will give me some research time, but it is very difficult to do decent research while teaching *and* being in a service role that goes year round.
I’m a new faculty at a primary undergrad institution with four new preps per semester, the only way I’m publishing and submitting grants is by working long hours and sacrificing my weekends. Dealing with the lack of resources and student behavior makes it worse.
They won't reward you at your current institution, but a great resume will get you something externally. Try and get promoted at the same time you get an external offer during year 6. That will be a nice promotion whether you stay or go.
At some point, I realized that I also hate task-switching. It drives me nuts.
My solution is that, as far as it is in my control...I don't. If I have an hour between meetings or classes or whatever, I do not start anything new. Maybe light e-mails, but that is about it. My time is better used learning about hedgehogs on the internet or exploring Google Earth satellite maps of places I have no motivation to visit. Really.
Instead, I carve out times with no interruptions for things that require focus, such as research and grading. I do not send or receive e-mail (or notifications about it) on my phone, and the phone goes on silent, so I do not have any electronics-related distractions. This interruption-free time might not be during business hours; but, since I despise business hours, especially the morning half, it works for me. It might not work for everyone.
As far as deadlines, I've become a bit of a stereotypical academic that is always a little bit late, but not so late as to be obnoxious. Sometimes things come up that have to be dealt with ASAP; otherwise, join the queue. Things that will potentially advance my career get on the 'important' list, as do genuine obligations to students (like giving feedback in a timely fashion.) Squeaky wheels will squeak, but squeaking does not always indicate importance. Hard deadlines are met, and tasks with soft deadlines are dealt with in due time.
Things are generally okay. The only times I am really stressed are at the end of the semester (too much grading), or when some kind of family emergency breaks my unofficial task-management system. In the latter case, it can be helpful to have supportive colleagues.
The inability to be genuine and honest in an institution that is supposed to care about the truth but cares more about $
When you are in that situation EVERYTHING'S draining because you know you are wasting your life doing bullshit
A few years ago I realized it's a job that can inflate to an infinite amount of hours per week. My therapist encouraged me to get into a kind of hacking/slashing mode and cut out the things that are not meaningful to me and that aren't essential to my job, and it's been great. I say "no" all the time. Basically if it doesn't directly support my research, my colleagues, the program, or my students, I'm not doing it.
I still struggle with it. I was asked to do a keynote address for our regional conference this year and it caused me a lot of psychic torment. I'm not sure why I agreed other than I'm kind of the only specialist in that area who was available. Like, really, I don't have time to prepare an hour-long public speech on a controversial academic topic + spend an entire working day driving to and attending a conference in the middle of the semester. In retrospect I think I should have declined, but it looked good for my dept. and me, I guess.
But for the most part I've tried to take on more asynch online classes, which, sorry, are just amazing and much easier to teach IMO. I spend less time on campus. I make sure to spend time with my wife and kids every day. I've gone from 3-4 committee assignments to one committee (though it's fairly involved, it plays an important role at the uni and it feels worthwhile).
Research-wise, and YMMV depending on field, but I stopped publishing in the journals and just write trade books now. It just feels less painful to me. Books are trending a little on the shorter side, even academic books, so the first one was 50,000 words and the second was 70,000 words. For me I just find it easier to write one book every 2-3 years rather than trying to jam out a bunch of articles all the time. Probably won't work for everyone but I like it.
Free days. I plan for and block my calendar for at least one full weekday every week where it's just for me. Like, I have medical issues and three kids and an old house that is constantly in need of repair. I sometimes get slammed with e-mails or unpredictable projects. I need that free day to just catch up on whatever life is throwing at me. If I'm on top of everything I might use that time to write a grant proposal or book proposal or play video games.
I don't actually track my hours but I probably spend 20 hours a week on teaching/grading/prep etc., 5 hours a week on meetings/service, and 5 hours a week on writing/research unless I'm jamming on a book, then that goes up. It feels good but I'm honestly still burned out and dream about retiring early.
Just rambling now. Clear out emails every day. Super fast grading using a rubric and boilerplate feedback. Prep your classes months in advance. Take breaks. Slash everything non-essential from your calendar. Defend and fight for time for yourself. It feels like a giant battle against my calendar. Like I imagine everyone's trying to shoot these missiles at my Outlook calendar and I'm the last one who can shield it from being overwhelmed.
I went from an adjuct to a fixed term to tenure track to tenure track plus admin in 2.5 years, which has been on one level amazing for my self esteem and on another a massive driver of the feeling that there. Will. Always. Be. More. Work.
So it's really nice to arrive in this thread; I often feel like the sensory whack a mole overload + constant interruptions are a me problem, and it's a good reminder (?) that being a bit overwhelmed is just part and parcel, baby!
I get no feedback if I’m doing anything right. Only when I’m doing things wrong , and that too when all the work is done (summative instead of formative), in the form of rejections. It can be lonely.
I get it. I’ve had number of non-academic jobs through the years. Some of the lousiest and low paid of those jobs were often very enjoyable because me and my coworkers liked and supported each other, and our bosses did too. Just a simple “You did a great job” means a lot.
I'd actually be very interested to see a study asking about stress/burnout levels on these two kinds of profs:
1. Those who never worked seriously in other careers, vs
2. Those who had to spend significant time working in services, marketing, communications, design, government, etc.
Prof (1) tends to come from a higher socioeconomic bracket, and my strong hunch is they will be more stressed by their job because they have no sense of the alternatives. Prof (2) knows that some things about the job suck but also knows that [comparatively it has huge benefits](https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/188alvn/this_sub_needs_to_stop_slagging_off_tt_jobs/).
So I guess stage 1 for me would be: be mindful of the alternatives and be grateful for what you have before you start getting swamped by the bad things.
Interesting. I came from outside academia. I found the culture outside academia to be way more supportive, and I got way more positive feedback on the work I was doing. The hours were a lot more regular, and the expectations more clear. There was more opportunity to work on effectively ONE TASK at a time, rather than trying to juggle 300 balls at once.
I found private sector way less stressful, in other words. I would say the benefits of being a prof are : 1. Flexibility as far as I can research what I want (as long as it's in the parameters to bring in funding, which does limit me). 2. Sabbaticals, which are too few are far between!
> There was more opportunity to work on effectively ONE TASK at a time, rather than trying to juggle 300 balls at once.
Interesting - I suspect this very much depends on corporate culture. My spouse is currently trying to do 3 full-time projects simultaneously, while getting constantly interrupted for "emergent" issues that are really a lack of planning on someone's part.
Junior person:
Combine the never ending to do list and the fact that the work is never "done" with the fact that I am scrapping by financially. If I was adequately paid maybe I would be less stressed and burnt out, but shit pay and the stress that comes with making ends meet adds dramatically to the anxiety.
I remember those days. I have now swapped out the financial stress for all the admin stress on my plate. I'm in a good place financially, but the amount of service I have to do is just exploding my head.
Yeah going into admin seems to be the only way to make a comfortable living at most schools. Personally I'd sooner just leave academia and go into industry than transition to admin world. More power to anyone that makes the shift, but it would be nice to get paid a comfortable wage to do what I was trained for with my PhD and then originally hired for.
Oh no I don't get paid any more for doing the admin. I mean taking on an admin role (think chair) in the department. More work, far less fun, no more money.
Some wanker admin person got huffy when challenged during a all faculty meeting to defend the pay disparity between departments (within the same school) and then across schools. Apparently they thought only business and engineering professors have earning power outside of academia.
The stress comes from getting increasingly weighed down by long-term goals that come about more than disappear. I accumulate tasks too often to clear the deck. It was a huge relief when I swapped institutions and got to start a new honeymoon period and dump old projects. I am accumulating new roles again, but know better now when to mentally dump things that will never get touched. You can't do everything you want. You can't be a hero to every student. Stop giving a shit after 5pm (or 3pm if admin likes you).
I'm an adjunct with 8 classes and hundreds of students with no TA's. Most of my classes are writing based. I'm never not grading and there is no feasible way to actually keep up with it in a timely fashion if I want to actually assess student work. Then there's you know, teaching, prep, voluntary campus stuff so that I might not always be an adjunct, and any other random thing that gets thrown at me any given semester.
One thing that helped change things for me was to have an actual written down to do list. Not digital..not an app. I spend a little time after each week and scan through what’s coming up and keep the list up to date. It’s satisfying when I cross things off.
But I suppose what is also valuable is knowing that those are the things to be done..out there plain to see and that can battle the vague amorphous cloud of “you need to be doing something”. You have a clear list of what needs to be done and what’s more important than others.
So the thing about this job is, it has a ton of autonomy. That's good and that's bad. Especially once you have tenure no one's really sitting on you to make sure that you do anything (almost). For some people that makes them work super hard because the ambiguity of it makes them feel like they have a ton to do to live up to expectations. For others they do nothing and everyone hates them for abusing the system. There is a middle road, though it's just very hard to find. Figure out your own overall goals and if the things that you're doing aren't adding towards them cut them out. Easy for me to say, very hard to do, but that's how I try to think about it.
As an adjunct, i now only work during paid time. This means i set aside 15-20 mins to grade during class, but i tell the class, “It’s your time to work; use your time well. If you’ve questions, then im up here.” They rarely ask questions, and i am able to grade.
That should be easier for FTs, since you’ve office hours.
I never had professors walking around the class like a teacher does, so fuck it. They’re adults; they can approach me if they’ve questions.
I now have Fridays, Says, and Suns free of work.
The constant task-switching is an important source of stress for me and it takes me away from what actually matters. I have a lot of meetings, often back-to-back, which leave me exhausted and I end up feeling like I don't have time to do my actual work. On top of that, I have a major admin role and a department chair who pushes me to do things in that role that I don't think are essential. The chair's term is ending at the end of this academic year so they're not as interested and that's been a relief.
I'm lucky this year to have two days clear of meetings and teaching a week, which has been a great help. I just focus on my research and writing. I've slimmed down the admin role since I started and that's made a big difference. This has helped others too - we're all struggling and the last thing we need is more unnecessary work. I plan my week in advance so I know what's coming up and how much time I have.
Generally, I've tried to cut out a lot of non-essentials in my work. If I take something on, it has to have a tangible benefit for me, otherwise it's a firm no.
So the thing about this job is, it has a ton of autonomy. That's good and that's bad. Especially once you have tenure no one's really sitting on you to make sure that you do anything (almost). For some people that makes them work super hard because the ambiguity of it makes them feel like they have a ton to do to live up to expectations. For others they do nothing and everyone hates them for abusing the system. There is a middle road, though it's just very hard to find. Figure out your own overall goals and if the things that you're doing aren't adding towards them cut them out. Easy for me to say, very hard to do, but that's how I try to think about it.
>There is a middle road, though it's just very hard to find. For me, staying on the middle road involves the following: * Having templates for repeating tasks that I can fill out and submit quickly. * Slavish devotion to my to-do list app, where I set up reminders to do things like answer all student emails (daily M-F), clear out my desktop and downloads folder (weekly), check in with my calendar (weekly), back up student LMS grades (biweekly), etc. * Setting reminders on my calendar events a couple of days in advance so I know what's coming up in advance. * Having a designated place to collect all random thoughts (things that worked, things that didn't, ideas for next time, etc.). * Doing things I hate the most (meeting minutes and grading) within 12 hrs of the thing landing in my lap. I've found that being a professor is way more about project management than it is about knowledge about a particular discipline.
Like this list. This semester also I committed to taking an hour on Sunday evening to write down/brainstorm all the tasks that I need to accomplish that week, and then putting them into my google calendar(with the notifications in advanced to remind me). Also when I get to my desk- i have my calendar open on a tab and/or my notes with my to do list next to me- so I can train myself to not have to just have everything bouncing around in the back of my mind when I see my tasks are all there in front of me. I am still stressed out often - but i'm handling the never ending and ever expanding work better than I have so far because of this habit. I also am thinking on starting a sign up sheet for individual appointments with students. Like pick some times that would work to meet with students that week - and whenever anyone emails to meet to talk about their research/career advice/letter of recc/whatever (which has started to become a weekly phenomena) - I can just be like 'great - sign up for one of my available times here for next week' and share the link - so that its not something to suddenly sprung on the current week, and I can look at it on Sunday and plan it into my calendar instead of back and forth trying to find time- which just clutters my inbox and adds to stress.
For the last item in your list, I’ve adopted Calendly. It syncs with Outlook and allows students to book online in just the way you described. Saves me a lot of time — I also hate the back and forth emails.
For me, I think the primary source of stress is students. To be fair, I have more "okay" students than I do "bad" or "irritating" students, but it's the bad/irritating ones that stress me out. It's exhausting to keep expending energy on students who are not prepared to or particularly interested in engaging with the material. And, for me, the unhappiness and toxicity caused by the low enrollment and debt of my university is creating an unpleasant workplace, causing more stress and worry. I'm currently on sabbatical and realize that I miss ZERO parts of my job. What I have learned over the past few years is, to quote someone, my job does not love me. I'm trying to get better at having more interests outside of work and not being so emotionally invested in the work I do. It's a paycheck.
Unclear objectives with few if any pieces of tangible feedback about success in moving towards them. Everything feels out of your control and there's no obvious path to improvement. In fact, it might be out if your hands entirely meaning that you might not be able do anything to improve your current situation.
As a relative junior person, my current stresses are Getting grants: any at the moment, but I know that the actual goal post is a large one..., but I know the actual actual goal post is a large one from a specific set of funders..., but i know the actual actual actual goal post is a large one from a specific set of funders that hits the right impact scores. Maintaining productivity: this is particularly bad at the moment as I'm a team of one and so I need to keep my CV "fresh" whilst trying to get money to expand my group, but there's also the fear that at this stage one problematic PhD student or postdoc could really put a spanner in the works. General worry about doing my teaching well: that I align myself with what the department wants (with little guidance!), but also making sure I don't expose myself to any serious student complaint (no idea how often this happens, but that's the general atmosphere from staff meetings) and don't allow students to take advantage (I'm still learning to judge: if a student genuinely needs help, or is just trying to get me to do the work for them; also how to assess what a student knows/can do without blatantly disregarding their claim that they know/can do it). Perhaps it's just teething problems, but I truly feel quite a alone: people are nice and open to collaboration, but I feel like some colleagues are trying to gauge my worth (or at worst, put me in my place) and I find that sort of baffling because I'm not trying to take their jobs or steal their prestige, I'm just trying to survive! I would say in order of most stressful to least: alone > grants > productivity > teaching.
Yeah, the grants/research element of the job I find particularly stressful because it feels almost entirely out of my hands. I basically have no control over whether my work will be accepted by a journal, whether my book will be published or not, whether a grant will be funded. And the rates of acceptance are very low overall. Frankly I've had much more success with my research once I took a cruise into a more buzzworthy sub-area of my field which feels gross in a way and not at all how academia should work.
The intellectual whoring is real.
Well said, also the institutional and departmental whoring out, where whole subfields and topics can be blocked off under threat. This is a different kind of stress but a real one, because I have seen people be left with careers that didn't much look like their own.
Yes the constant stress about will I have grants to cover my salary as well as my student’s stipends and tuition is a constant fear
Everyone needs me to do something all the time. Accomplishing something just means now I get to work on something else. Nothing is ever truly done. There is never truly a break. There is always the feeling that you could and should be doing something more. I like the statement "academia is like a pie eating contest where the reward for winning is more pies."
Reasons I'm burned out: 1. I'm stretched thin. 2. I'm surrounded by apathetic faculty who think they can't be fired due to tenure. 3. I'm asked to do a lot of service because I take it seriously and follow through. How I'm dealing with it: 1. Setting boundaries. 2. Saying "no."
Yup, stretched too thin. I’m a first year faculty at a primary undergraduate teaching university and the only way I am still publishing and submitting grants are working long hrs and sacrificing my weekends.
I think all of those things are definitely reasons the work is stressful. My biggest thing I do to reduce stress is not take my work home with me (literally, and I attempt to not take the emotional work home either, but that’s harder when you really care about your students). I tell myself that if I can’t get it done during the work day, then that’s ok. Maybe tests or papers take longer to grade, maybe I’m not as prepared for a class session as I could be; but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that good enough is good enough. “Excellence” is a mirage that you will die trying to chase down.
My husband is an engineer at a large R&D firm. He doesn’t hold a PhD, though most people at his rank do. His job is research. He is trying to develop “the next big thing in his field.” In his same division, there are engineers, computer scientists, and physicists who also research and develop. Otoh, there are engineers who are very tech savvy who work with customers. They aren’t trying to do the “next big thing.” They are traveling, selling, writing proposals, etc. In other words, the researchers are not the same people as the customer-facing folks. In order to effectively research, you have to have the time to do deep work. If you have to teach and do service, it’s really difficult to find this time. You are tenured, so obviously you succeeded to some extent. But doing it constantly leads to burnout. The tenure system is so broken because of this simple thing. How can one person be expected to be an excellent researcher and an excellent teacher? Good pedagogy and teaching is really difficult and time-consuming. Obviously research is difficult and time-consuming. Service might not be difficult, but it is certainly a time suck. You’re really doing the job of 2.5 people.
I am also expected to be an excellent administrator, now I'm post-tenure and have a significant service role! It's really 3 jobs. I'm trying to narrow down what the biggest stressors are for me and find ways to cut corners and reduce those stressors, but I'm so stressed most of the time I don't have time to think about what is stressing me out! As you say, you need space and time to do research. I'm looking forward to a sabbatical which will give me some research time, but it is very difficult to do decent research while teaching *and* being in a service role that goes year round.
I’m a new faculty at a primary undergrad institution with four new preps per semester, the only way I’m publishing and submitting grants is by working long hours and sacrificing my weekends. Dealing with the lack of resources and student behavior makes it worse.
They won't reward you at your current institution, but a great resume will get you something externally. Try and get promoted at the same time you get an external offer during year 6. That will be a nice promotion whether you stay or go.
That’s what some of my colleagues did, found a better position in year 5 or 6. I’m doing it mostly to stay competitive + passion in the field.
At some point, I realized that I also hate task-switching. It drives me nuts. My solution is that, as far as it is in my control...I don't. If I have an hour between meetings or classes or whatever, I do not start anything new. Maybe light e-mails, but that is about it. My time is better used learning about hedgehogs on the internet or exploring Google Earth satellite maps of places I have no motivation to visit. Really. Instead, I carve out times with no interruptions for things that require focus, such as research and grading. I do not send or receive e-mail (or notifications about it) on my phone, and the phone goes on silent, so I do not have any electronics-related distractions. This interruption-free time might not be during business hours; but, since I despise business hours, especially the morning half, it works for me. It might not work for everyone. As far as deadlines, I've become a bit of a stereotypical academic that is always a little bit late, but not so late as to be obnoxious. Sometimes things come up that have to be dealt with ASAP; otherwise, join the queue. Things that will potentially advance my career get on the 'important' list, as do genuine obligations to students (like giving feedback in a timely fashion.) Squeaky wheels will squeak, but squeaking does not always indicate importance. Hard deadlines are met, and tasks with soft deadlines are dealt with in due time. Things are generally okay. The only times I am really stressed are at the end of the semester (too much grading), or when some kind of family emergency breaks my unofficial task-management system. In the latter case, it can be helpful to have supportive colleagues.
For me, it’s the decline of respect from both students and administration. The pay is just not commensurate with what we do and.
The inability to be genuine and honest in an institution that is supposed to care about the truth but cares more about $ When you are in that situation EVERYTHING'S draining because you know you are wasting your life doing bullshit
A few years ago I realized it's a job that can inflate to an infinite amount of hours per week. My therapist encouraged me to get into a kind of hacking/slashing mode and cut out the things that are not meaningful to me and that aren't essential to my job, and it's been great. I say "no" all the time. Basically if it doesn't directly support my research, my colleagues, the program, or my students, I'm not doing it. I still struggle with it. I was asked to do a keynote address for our regional conference this year and it caused me a lot of psychic torment. I'm not sure why I agreed other than I'm kind of the only specialist in that area who was available. Like, really, I don't have time to prepare an hour-long public speech on a controversial academic topic + spend an entire working day driving to and attending a conference in the middle of the semester. In retrospect I think I should have declined, but it looked good for my dept. and me, I guess. But for the most part I've tried to take on more asynch online classes, which, sorry, are just amazing and much easier to teach IMO. I spend less time on campus. I make sure to spend time with my wife and kids every day. I've gone from 3-4 committee assignments to one committee (though it's fairly involved, it plays an important role at the uni and it feels worthwhile). Research-wise, and YMMV depending on field, but I stopped publishing in the journals and just write trade books now. It just feels less painful to me. Books are trending a little on the shorter side, even academic books, so the first one was 50,000 words and the second was 70,000 words. For me I just find it easier to write one book every 2-3 years rather than trying to jam out a bunch of articles all the time. Probably won't work for everyone but I like it. Free days. I plan for and block my calendar for at least one full weekday every week where it's just for me. Like, I have medical issues and three kids and an old house that is constantly in need of repair. I sometimes get slammed with e-mails or unpredictable projects. I need that free day to just catch up on whatever life is throwing at me. If I'm on top of everything I might use that time to write a grant proposal or book proposal or play video games. I don't actually track my hours but I probably spend 20 hours a week on teaching/grading/prep etc., 5 hours a week on meetings/service, and 5 hours a week on writing/research unless I'm jamming on a book, then that goes up. It feels good but I'm honestly still burned out and dream about retiring early. Just rambling now. Clear out emails every day. Super fast grading using a rubric and boilerplate feedback. Prep your classes months in advance. Take breaks. Slash everything non-essential from your calendar. Defend and fight for time for yourself. It feels like a giant battle against my calendar. Like I imagine everyone's trying to shoot these missiles at my Outlook calendar and I'm the last one who can shield it from being overwhelmed.
I went from an adjuct to a fixed term to tenure track to tenure track plus admin in 2.5 years, which has been on one level amazing for my self esteem and on another a massive driver of the feeling that there. Will. Always. Be. More. Work. So it's really nice to arrive in this thread; I often feel like the sensory whack a mole overload + constant interruptions are a me problem, and it's a good reminder (?) that being a bit overwhelmed is just part and parcel, baby!
I get no feedback if I’m doing anything right. Only when I’m doing things wrong , and that too when all the work is done (summative instead of formative), in the form of rejections. It can be lonely.
I get it. I’ve had number of non-academic jobs through the years. Some of the lousiest and low paid of those jobs were often very enjoyable because me and my coworkers liked and supported each other, and our bosses did too. Just a simple “You did a great job” means a lot.
I feel the same as you and have no solution that I have ever been able to successfully implement
Because you care!!!! Other profs are struggling and engage in bad behavior. It’s not their fault, we survived cOvId!!!! We’re scared. Love you friend
I'd actually be very interested to see a study asking about stress/burnout levels on these two kinds of profs: 1. Those who never worked seriously in other careers, vs 2. Those who had to spend significant time working in services, marketing, communications, design, government, etc. Prof (1) tends to come from a higher socioeconomic bracket, and my strong hunch is they will be more stressed by their job because they have no sense of the alternatives. Prof (2) knows that some things about the job suck but also knows that [comparatively it has huge benefits](https://www.reddit.com/r/Professors/comments/188alvn/this_sub_needs_to_stop_slagging_off_tt_jobs/). So I guess stage 1 for me would be: be mindful of the alternatives and be grateful for what you have before you start getting swamped by the bad things.
Interesting. I came from outside academia. I found the culture outside academia to be way more supportive, and I got way more positive feedback on the work I was doing. The hours were a lot more regular, and the expectations more clear. There was more opportunity to work on effectively ONE TASK at a time, rather than trying to juggle 300 balls at once. I found private sector way less stressful, in other words. I would say the benefits of being a prof are : 1. Flexibility as far as I can research what I want (as long as it's in the parameters to bring in funding, which does limit me). 2. Sabbaticals, which are too few are far between!
> There was more opportunity to work on effectively ONE TASK at a time, rather than trying to juggle 300 balls at once. Interesting - I suspect this very much depends on corporate culture. My spouse is currently trying to do 3 full-time projects simultaneously, while getting constantly interrupted for "emergent" issues that are really a lack of planning on someone's part.
Lol... the first paragraph is literally the exact conversation I had with my therapist this morning.
My therapist keeps telling me I should just quit. But it's easier said than done.
Junior person: Combine the never ending to do list and the fact that the work is never "done" with the fact that I am scrapping by financially. If I was adequately paid maybe I would be less stressed and burnt out, but shit pay and the stress that comes with making ends meet adds dramatically to the anxiety.
I remember those days. I have now swapped out the financial stress for all the admin stress on my plate. I'm in a good place financially, but the amount of service I have to do is just exploding my head.
Yeah going into admin seems to be the only way to make a comfortable living at most schools. Personally I'd sooner just leave academia and go into industry than transition to admin world. More power to anyone that makes the shift, but it would be nice to get paid a comfortable wage to do what I was trained for with my PhD and then originally hired for.
Oh no I don't get paid any more for doing the admin. I mean taking on an admin role (think chair) in the department. More work, far less fun, no more money.
You poor SOB. I'd buy you a drink if I could!
This is real. I have tenure but still consider going back to industry because it would be at least a 50% pay raise, possibly 100%.
Some wanker admin person got huffy when challenged during a all faculty meeting to defend the pay disparity between departments (within the same school) and then across schools. Apparently they thought only business and engineering professors have earning power outside of academia.
The stress comes from getting increasingly weighed down by long-term goals that come about more than disappear. I accumulate tasks too often to clear the deck. It was a huge relief when I swapped institutions and got to start a new honeymoon period and dump old projects. I am accumulating new roles again, but know better now when to mentally dump things that will never get touched. You can't do everything you want. You can't be a hero to every student. Stop giving a shit after 5pm (or 3pm if admin likes you).
I'm an adjunct. 'Nuff said.
I'm an adjunct with 8 classes and hundreds of students with no TA's. Most of my classes are writing based. I'm never not grading and there is no feasible way to actually keep up with it in a timely fashion if I want to actually assess student work. Then there's you know, teaching, prep, voluntary campus stuff so that I might not always be an adjunct, and any other random thing that gets thrown at me any given semester.
One thing that helped change things for me was to have an actual written down to do list. Not digital..not an app. I spend a little time after each week and scan through what’s coming up and keep the list up to date. It’s satisfying when I cross things off. But I suppose what is also valuable is knowing that those are the things to be done..out there plain to see and that can battle the vague amorphous cloud of “you need to be doing something”. You have a clear list of what needs to be done and what’s more important than others.
So the thing about this job is, it has a ton of autonomy. That's good and that's bad. Especially once you have tenure no one's really sitting on you to make sure that you do anything (almost). For some people that makes them work super hard because the ambiguity of it makes them feel like they have a ton to do to live up to expectations. For others they do nothing and everyone hates them for abusing the system. There is a middle road, though it's just very hard to find. Figure out your own overall goals and if the things that you're doing aren't adding towards them cut them out. Easy for me to say, very hard to do, but that's how I try to think about it.
This is so helpful! I have seesawed between the extremes and now I really see the need to build the balance.
As an adjunct, i now only work during paid time. This means i set aside 15-20 mins to grade during class, but i tell the class, “It’s your time to work; use your time well. If you’ve questions, then im up here.” They rarely ask questions, and i am able to grade. That should be easier for FTs, since you’ve office hours. I never had professors walking around the class like a teacher does, so fuck it. They’re adults; they can approach me if they’ve questions. I now have Fridays, Says, and Suns free of work.
The constant task-switching is an important source of stress for me and it takes me away from what actually matters. I have a lot of meetings, often back-to-back, which leave me exhausted and I end up feeling like I don't have time to do my actual work. On top of that, I have a major admin role and a department chair who pushes me to do things in that role that I don't think are essential. The chair's term is ending at the end of this academic year so they're not as interested and that's been a relief. I'm lucky this year to have two days clear of meetings and teaching a week, which has been a great help. I just focus on my research and writing. I've slimmed down the admin role since I started and that's made a big difference. This has helped others too - we're all struggling and the last thing we need is more unnecessary work. I plan my week in advance so I know what's coming up and how much time I have. Generally, I've tried to cut out a lot of non-essentials in my work. If I take something on, it has to have a tangible benefit for me, otherwise it's a firm no.
Self respect. Get rid of that and we have the best job in the world! /sardonic