Productive (adj)

Last time I talked about attending a conference with a baby. Many of you gave me great feedback about your own experiences. Unfortunately, some women shared stories of departments or committees which weren't supportive of students having babies during graduate school, or even talking about being parents. Frankly, that attitude is a symptom of dysfunctional PhD program culture, something Sarah Kendzior explores in an excellent piece in Vitae from this past summer. Perhaps all we can do through discussions like these is to share our experiences, support each other through the tough stuff, and  slowly change the culture of academia  together. Now there's a nice thought. In this post I'll be describing how you can hold a family-friendly conference. More and more conference committees are ensuring that parents of babies and young children can participate in their events. It's not difficult to make things much, much easier for parent attendees, and they'll really a...

Preamble: the title of this post officially "gives it away": I'm ABD with a B-A-B-Y. Most everyone I interact with professionally knows this, and I wasn't keeping it secret from the internet , but there's still a disadvantage to being a  mother in academia , and many hesitate to talk about being parents publicly. I think that's unreasonable, and I hope that this and similar posts can be helpful to other academic parents facing similar issues. Last week my family attended HSS / PSA in windy Chicago, and it was a great example of a conference that took families with babies into consideration. My next post will be about the good choices those conference organizers made, but this one is directed towards the parent(s) conferencing with a baby in tow (note: some of these tips may not apply to multiple/older children or other types of dependent care, areas in which I'm not experienced). 1. Be baby-travel savvy.   There are plenty of usefu...

We've all been there: things are chugging along fine, until everything grinds to a halt. Your productivity measures aren't working anymore. Your writing goals feel more and more out of reach. Unhelpful or challenging feedback makes you doubt yourself. The emails are piling up, as is the marking. It's even more frustrating when you've devoted energy over the years to building systems for getting to work, getting things done, and keeping yourself accountable, and things are still not progressing. For me, the low point was a few years ago . I was working on a major paper and I'd utterly lost momentum. I hadn't written a thing in days, and I barely had the drive to open a book. The project was so big and unwieldy that I didn't feel like I could make a dent. I realized how bad things were when the most I could muster the energy to do was take out the garbage. On the walk back up the steps, I realized that the pride I had in accomplishing such a minor task ...

Do your days seem to get busier and busier? Do you have no idea where the time goes? Are you committed to projects you don't really care about? Do you wish you had more time for the people and activities that mean the most to you? After having read that last sentence, are you currently thinking, "Oh yeah, how come I never spend any time with my favourite people/activities?" You might need to work on your priorities. Here are five ways to help with this very common problem.  1. Take stock. Here's a trick from a team building exercise to illustrate your current workload. Draw out a typical week of your life (or use a calendar or day planner): 7 days of 24 hours each (168 hours total). Mark the time you spend at work or, if you have numerous smaller projects, how much time you devote to each of these in a day. Mark down your sleeping, meals, leisure time, commute, workouts, everything. Add any TV watching/internet time. Try to be honest; the point is to get an...

Here is the second part of my previous post on reducing your food costs. 6. Coupons Companies want you to buy their products, and they will entice you with coupons. This includes the companies that make the products you are already buying. To save money, you need to find and use these coupons. A good place to start is your grocery store flyer. Scan the coupon section and cut out any coupons that interest you. You can also find coupons online , on consumer websites , company social media pages , and so on. You may be tempted to buy things just because you have a coupon, but that would be a mistake: if you never buy that product, you are spending money in order to save (less) money. However, if you find a really good deal on a product you've been meaning to try, go ahead. Watch for expiration dates and small print on coupons: they're tricky! 7. There's an app for that! Recently a series of grocery apps have made it easier to find a good deal. Some grocery stores...

If you're not a farmer who grows, harvests, cans, stores, raises, & butchers her own food (plus whatever verb applies to beekeeping) you need to pay others for their efforts in those areas. And unless your time is so valuable that you'd rather pay a butler/cook to shop and prepare meals for you (or more likely, eat at restaurants all the time) you need to buy food. Here are my household management tips for spending less money on food. 1. Budget (and hold yourself accountable) No matter your level of income, it's important to have a general idea of how much discretionary spending you can afford each month. You can use online budget tools like Mint , a simple spreadsheet, a pen-and-paper system, or watch a few episodes of Til Debt Do Us Part to figure out your grocery allowance: income minus fixed expenses (like rent, utilities, transportation, other bills, and savings) will tell you what you can spend on food, plus your "fun money" for entertainment, c...

No one enjoys having unpleasant chores to do. Being on maternity leave means I have more time around the house, and I've taken it upon myself to be responsible for a greater share of the non-baby-related household chores as well. Here are some initial thoughts on chores, based on the last few months; some of these were surprising to discover. -As anyone who struggles with productivity knows, finishing a task can be immensely satisfying. Having a discrete chore to do and having the time, energy, and opportunity to take care of it are a recipe for self-satisfaction. Floor needs sweeping? Done. Flour on the counter? Wipe that down. Full dishwasher? Stack those plates back in the cupboard. You feel like a champion. The link between cleanliness and procrastination is well established. -But there's only so much you can tackle. Work on our  finite willpower , decision fatigue , or more enjoyably this classic Hyperbole and a Half post , illustrate that you can't chug alon...

Those of you who read my resolutions for this year already know that I'm trying to do much more bulk cooking. For anyone with even rudimentary cooking skills (if you can chop, stir, and not get distracted while everything is burning) and a few free hours, bulk cooking is the way to go. You can make a double or even triple batch of your favourite recipe without doubling the time, and with the help of extra time-savers like a food processor (to slice, grate, chop, or puree) and an immersion blender (no need to lug out the hard-to-clean full-size blender) you'll have dinner on the table, plus up to a week's worth of future meals to freeze. Here are my tested, go-to recipes, from my own trial-and-error cooking or from trusted websites, to fill your tummies and freezers. *For all recipes below, when reheating leftovers you can save time by defrosting the serving in the fridge for a day. Reheating from frozen works too, but it will take longer. Make sure leftovers are heate...

Last week's post  resonated with many of you, so I'm happy to present part 2. It turns out that the things I'm writing about, and that I thought I was clever enough to have thought up on my own, are already on the radar of universities , grad students, and alt-ac professionals . They are known as transferable skills, and many people more informed than I am have written great   pieces about them . But I'm certainly happy to add my voice to the chorus that, besides your research, you are gaining useful and valuable skills as a graduate student. Here we go: 6. How to communicate effectively.  This might seem lame, but you have been engaging in intense multi-platform communication while a student, and you surely have come across instances of poor communication. Sometimes extremely poor communication. Busy professors whose emails are indecipherable, undergraduates who can't form a coherent paragraph, department-wide memos advertising a talk that don't prov...

In addition to some extra letters after your name, the ins and outs of grad school should leave you equipped with the following set of peripheral skills. And they're nothing to sneeze at; grad students are hard workers and their own greatest critics, but we often overlook the boring professional development going on behind the scenes. Many of these build on skills from elsewhere in life or from previous education. They translate well to the outside world, especially to whatever your eventual career will be. 1. Giving a talk. This is no small feat; people in general are terrified of public speaking. We learn from experience how to pull a chunk of research and make it digestible to an audience of experts or nonexperts; how to organize it; how to deliver it in an allotted timeslot and how to answer questions. The best way to work on this skill is to practice: at informal presentations and local conferences. Then you're ready for the big leagues. Remember, no one likes...

Here are my tips for putting together a successful panel for an academic conference. Committees are happy to get panel applications rather than individual abstracts because it means less work for them. These are simple tips that have worked for me in the past. Your experiences may differ, of course, depending on your field of study and the particular conference, the vicissitudes of the conference committee, and the "trendiness" of the topics that year. -Find another person whose work and your own have the same broader subject matter or approach. It helps if they are from a different institution or department from your own, but it's not necessary. Don't be afraid to venture outside your own level: professors and postdocs and grad students can happily be housed together. I have found it best when you are at least acquainted beforehand. -Ask them to join your panel. If yes, you are now a twosome, and it gets easier. (If no, repeat step one.) -Brainstorm for ...

Following in the footsteps of my friend Sarah Kriger , here are my new year's resolutions. 1. Post something worthwhile on Productive(adj).  Links to other online stuff I do (see 2 below) don't count. A year off with a new baby is a unique time to take stock of how things are going research- and life-wise, and I ought to take advantage. I know those of you who have followed this blog long term (and it would have to be long, since my update schedule has been outrageously bad) have heard some of these before, and to them I apologize. All I can do is try to do a little better. With a year off to look after the strangest & most adorable baby ever, and all the time off from parenting that her 6 naps a day afford me, I think I have a chance to decrud my blogging. [weekly] 2. Keep on with the Weekly Roundups over at the Bubble Chamber . I say "keep on" because by and large this has been something I've been able to stay on top of during school. So, stay the ...