Head Space

Author: Michael Rowe

  • Balancing institutional demands with sustainable practice

    Discover how embracing academic productivity through quality over quantity can transform your work life. Instead of constantly expanding workloads, learn to focus on meaningful impact, sustainable practices, and deeper connections. Doing less, but doing it better, can lead to more valuable academic outcomes.

  • Schedule personal time first, work second

    Most academics make the mistake of scheduling work first and trying to fit life around it. Discover why reversing this approach is key to achieving better academic work life balance. Learn how prioritising personal commitments in your schedule can lead to more focused and productive work hours.

  • Start your year with calm productivity

    Discover how sustainable academic productivity can emerge from small, intentional changes rather than dramatic overnight transformations. Head Space offers practical guidance for academics seeking to build calmer, more focused workflows through its courses, now available at 25% off for new newsletter subscribers this January.

  • My “do not do” list for the holidays

    Transform your academic break with a novel idea; create a ‘do not do’ list in preparation for the holidays. Instead of filling your time off with catch-up work, embrace genuine rest without the guilt and resist the urge to turn your break into another working period.

  • A guide to accountability partnerships for academics

    When it comes to academic career development, the journey doesn’t have to be a solitary one. Accountability partnerships are powerful tools for maintaining momentum and achieving goals in academic life, transforming personal ambitions into shared commitments through regular checkpoints that honour both visible progress and the invisible work of scholarly development. Key takeaways Practical steps…

  • Building a community of calm academics

    You can now find Head space on several social media platforms where I’ll be sharing regular insights, practical tips, and thoughtful reflections on creating space for meaningful academic work. Please consider following these accounts and sharing them with colleagues.

  • Text expanders for academics save time and enhance communication

    Discover how text expanders can transform your academic workflow. Learn how these time-saving tools can help you compose professional responses to prospective students, create consistent email templates, and manage repetitive academic communications – all while maintaining quality and professionalism in your correspondence.

  • Steven Pinker: The sense of style

    The Sense of Style, by Steven Pinker, is an evidence-based guide on writing that blends linguistics, cognitive psychology, and practical techniques to help writers achieve clarity and readability. This modern approach, suited for academics and professionals, emphasises the “classic style” that presents ideas conversationally to engage and inform readers.

  • From balance to harmony

    Work-life harmony suggests that different parts of our lives work together, creating something more complete, rather than cancelling each other out.

  • Building and sustaining momentum

    Sustainable productivity comes from finding your natural rhythm, not from being busy all the time.

  • Google Scholar PDF Reader updated

    Google Scholar has introduced AI outlines in its PDF Reader to help users read papers more efficiently. These outlines provide an extended table of contents with bullet points for each key section. Users can skim the outline for a quick overview or click on specific bullets to dive deeper into topics of interest.