Head Space

Calm productivity for academics

Category: Essential

  • Start your week with admin to avoid feeling overwhelmed

    Deliberately dedicating Mondays to admin tasks in academia can lead to a more productive week. By containing administrative work to one day, you create mental space and uninterrupted time blocks for meaningful academic work while reducing the anxiety of scattered administrative responsibilities throughout the week.

  • Asking for help is a sign of strength

    Many academics avoid asking for help, fearing it signals incompetence. This reluctance often leads to longer struggles and missed opportunities for growth. Learn why asking for help in academia isn’t just acceptable – it’s essential for career development, and how building a network of mentors benefits both you and others.

  • Transform your workday with fixed schedule productivity

    Discover how fixed schedule productivity can transform your academic workday. By deciding your end time first and working backwards, you can better manage your workload and maintain work-life boundaries. Explore practical strategies to ensure that you finish work on time without sacrificing output.

  • Types of notes

    Knowing about the different types of notes you’re taking helps inform your approach to note-taking in general.

  • Developing a systematic approach to academic skill development

    Discover how academic skill development goes beyond mere experience. Learn the four essential elements of expertise development and how to apply them to crucial academic skills like writing, email management, and meeting facilitation. Get practical strategies for creating your own expertise development system, even without institutional support.

  • Five tips to stop letting email dictate your day

    Email’s dominance can derail schedules and usurp key tasks, causing stress and diminishing productivity. To prevent email from dictating your work life, establish strict boundaries, prioritise messages, reduce inbox noise, use management tools, and safeguard time for high-priority tasks. It’s crucial to reshape your email habits to prioritise your academic output.

  • Write a bad first draft

    Why are bad first drafts essential for academic writing? Discover why embracing imperfect early writing can actually improve your scholarly work. Learn practical strategies for overcoming the perfectionism that keeps many academics stuck in endless preparation instead of making real progress on their writing.

  • Beyond research: Understanding the four types of scholarship in academia

    Many academics feel pressured to pursue traditional research careers, but scholarship encompasses more than just research. Boyer’s model describes four distinct areas: discovery, integration, application, and teaching. By understanding these different types of scholarship, academics can build more fulfilling careers that align with their natural strengths.

  • The key to writing regularly is to write small but often

    Writing small but often increases your ability to regularly produce academic output because the barrier to getting started is so low.

  • Reading as conversation, not consumption

    Transform your academic reading from passive consumption into active dialogue. Engaging with scholarly texts through questioning, challenging assumptions, and making connections can lead to deeper understanding and new insights.

  • Protect your time

    Start with the space you need for fulfilling and engaging academic work and then protect the time you need to do it.

  • Take fewer notes: Why less is more for academic note-taking

    Transform your academic note-taking from mindless collection to meaningful comprehension. Move beyond simply gathering information to developing deeper understanding through intentional note-taking practices, resulting in fewer but more valuable notes that enhance your thinking and support your scholarly work.