Academia — Learning to Say No
In academia there are more things to do that there is time in the day.
We can break our work down into three activities: research, teaching, and administration/service.
Ultimately, I need to streamline my activities to enable the best strategic ideas to be in the driving seat, and to enable my research group and teaching activities to truly shine. Part of this challenge is to realise when to say yes, and ultimately to learn to be better at saying no.
In Academia, a strong work balance, combined with a strong work-life balance, are critical for long term growth and success.
Research
As a group leader I have several categories of research, all of which compete for time. As I have developed my career, increasingly my research is not conducted ‘in the lab’. My team do hands on experiments, and I tend to think, scheme, plan and articulate our findings. Hands-on research for me (individually) is largely at the computer. The only saying no I need to learn here, is to say no to exciting ideas that I know I do not have the resource or energy to undertake.
My list of activities is drawn in order of (dream/selfish/ideal) priority:
(1) Strategically thinking of our collective direction. Often in the form of grant proposal writing, scheming, and trying to judge how to pitch and formulate new ideas.
(2) Read other people’s work, to improve understanding, have new ideas and fit our work within the existing literature (or open up new lines of enquiry).
(3) Supporting my research group’s activity. Enabling my staff and students to test out ideas, develop novel strands of research, learn new skills and establish rigour. Support them in their writing, often through my co-authorship and/or edit advice on their work.
(4) Developing my own research. Conducting my own experiments, writing my own code and scoping this within the field to enable (1), supported by (2) and ultimately to help in (3). I would like this to be higher, but I realise I get more done with this lower in the list.
(4) Support my field of research, often through peer review of grants and papers. Provide critical authority and add to the voice of my research.
(5) Build profile, in several domains, e.g.. personal, research group, research theme, Department and University.
Teaching
Lots of teaching activities can be rather ‘bitty’, and each of them are exciting as one off items. Trying to herd them together into fixed ‘blocks’ of time, so that I can focus is the trick here. I need to be better at saying no to activities that split my time and make me loose focus, while understanding that there are jobs that ‘just need to be done’ on the behalf my Department and to support my colleagues.
My current list of activities here can be broadly prioritised as:
(1) Aid students in their development, often through mentor-ship and opening up opportunities.
(2) Develop high quality courses, including course material, lectures, and workshops.
(3) Write exams and assessment. Enable these to be formative and/or summative as appropriate, and to provide an opportunity for students to show off their skills, knowledge and talents.
(4) Marking. Literature reviews, exam scripts, coursework, other forms of written or non-written assessment (e.g. presentations).
(5) Provide strategic development of teaching, in terms of methods and content. I wish this was higher on the list.
(6) Student recruitment and application assessment.
Administration/service
I undertake a fair amount of service work everyday. This is a list I would love to cut down upon and become more efficient with. Increasingly I am aware that just having good ideas is not enough, you need to administer and support them to make them effective and useful. Saying no to new activities, and finding more ways to efficiently manage this list is essential. I also need to find out how to make things ‘good enough’, so that I can get on with the next task.
The list of current tasks can be broadly scoped as:
(1) Managing my research group, including people, money & equipment.
(2) Attempting to manage my email box and diary (and my phone, ish).
(3) Manage a MSc course in Nuclear Engineering.
(4) Support Departmental Administration activities.
(5) Co-run the Centre for Nuclear Engineering.
(6) Administer research & office space, equipment and support.
(7) Expenses. Ergh.
(8) Manage research grants and collaborations.
Writing out these lists is cathartic. The balance is both a blessing and a curse. I’d love to do more research, but I know that being a successful academic is trying to make the whole package work. Next time I am asked to do something, or have a good idea, I am going to make sure that I think about how much time it will take and what this work is displacing.
You can head over to Twitter to follow Dr Ben Britton as @BMatB, or keep up to date with the group’s work via @ExpMicroMech. We can also be found over at http://www.expmicromech.com
