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Building and sustaining momentum
Sustainable productivity comes from finding your natural rhythm, not from being busy all the time.
Ask your coworkers to push back
“Ask your coworkers’ to push back. The most basic way to understand what people think of you is to ask them. If you’re not soliciting dissent, it’s unlikely you’re hearing the truth about what it’s like to work [with] you.” – Ron Carucci
Arbitrary and ossified processes
“…how we work in the knowledge sector today is ossified into tradition and conventions, some of which are arbitrary and some of which are borrowed from different, older types of work.” – Cal Newport
Treat perfection like a process
“Treat perfection like a process, not an achievable state. Perfectionism is crippling to productivity. I’ve known academics that can’t even start projects because of perfectionism.” – Matt Might
Iceland embraced a shorter work week
Olesya Dmitracova. (2024, October 25). Iceland embraced a shorter work week. Here’s how it turned out. CNN. Iceland’s economy is outperforming most European peers after the nationwide introduction of a shorter working week with no loss in pay… Another data point to support the idea that it’s not about spending more time at work, but doing…
Something sustainable and humane
“I want to rescue knowledge work from its increasingly untenable freneticism and rebuild it into something more sustainable and humane, enabling you to create things you’re proud of without requiring you to grind yourself down along the way.” – Cal Newport
When time management was easy
https://calnewport.com/when-time-management-was-easy/ “…in my own work on these topics, I describe more complicated time management strategies with reluctance. My bigger wish is to help reform office work to the point that they’re no longer needed…” The goal is to design different systems of work, not engage in more complicated time management strategies.
What if good scholarship looks like laziness?
How many of us accept requests for our time knowing full well that what we’re being asked to do isn’t going to move the needle on the high-value work we know is important?
Productive workflows
Look for opportunities where one piece of work becomes a foundation for other outputs. For example, a faculty development presentation can be converted into a blog post, which might include an annotated bibliography, which can form the foundation for a podcast. Try to coordinate work into phases, where adding a bit more effort at each…
Judging by speed, instead of by quality
“We find ourselves adapting to machines and hold ourselves to their standards: People are judged by the speed with which they respond, not the quality of their response.” – Robert Poynton. Do pause: You are not a to do list.
Hobbies for academics
Even the best jobs create stress. Hobbies release this stress before it explodes. My hobbies resemble my work, but this doesn’t bother me because work is what my employer pays me for, while hobbies are what I enjoy in my own time. The similarity in ideas isn’t a problem.