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...

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...

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 ...

My supervisor warned me recently about how small responsibilities can pile up. Her strategy is to take 3 straight days to work on a project (a paper, proposal, etc.) because by day 3, your focus is so concentrated that it's much more efficient than continuously returning to the same project for many days over a few weeks. But when things get busy, distractions eat away at your ability to focus. One of the worst, she said, was email: administrative, teaching, and miscellaneous emails pile up and erode productivity, meaning that she doesn't ever have 3 straight days to focus on one project. Things work a little differently for me. I like to move between projects, to tackle multiple things in a day. I enjoy the feeling of crossing things off my to-do list, and since email is the biggest part of my graduate assistantship, I like to read and respond to any that come my way ASAP so that they're not hanging over me (leaving small tasks undone for days, on the other hand, ...