Head Space

Calm productivity for academics

Tag: focus

  • Design your academic workflow to do less

    Improving your academic workflow isn’t about squeezing more things into less time. It’s about spending more time on fewer things.

  • Writing is the work: Rethinking the academic writing process

    Many academics view writing as the final step of research – something to do after the ‘real work’ is done. But the academic writing process is not just about documenting completed work. Writing is thinking, and engaging with writing throughout your project helps clarify ideas and strengthen your research outcomes.

  • [Note] The clarification of meaning

    Each sentence, each line, each clause, each phrase, each word, each mark of punctuation, each section of white space between the type has to contribute to the clarification of meaning. Donald Murray

  • From collecting to creating: Managing your reading backlog

    Many academics struggle with managing reading backlogs – collecting papers, articles, and books that never get read. While gathering resources feels productive, it often becomes a substitute for real engagement. Learn how the one-week rule can help you break free from collecting and start creating meaningful academic work.

  • Prioritising tasks with the Eisenhower matrix

    The Eisenhower matrix helps with prioritising tasks by helping to make decision about which tasks are important and which are urgent.

  • [Note] Consistency is underrated

    “In the short term, you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are only as good as your consistency. Intensity is overrated. Consistency is underrated.” – Shane Parrish

  • Device ‘notifications’ are really ‘interruptions’

    Instead of trying to manage “notifications”, the better approach is to manage “interruptions”. Start by taking an audit of the notifications on your devices and ruthlessly eliminate anything that isn’t essential. Then be intentional about setting boundaries around when and how you’ll allow your focus to be interrupted.

  • Academic freedom requires cognitive freedom

    Academic freedom creates a protected space for you to think about – and talk about – challenging and controversial ideas. But there’s no point in having academic freedom if you spend your life in your inbox.

  • Being busy is not the same as being productive

    …busyness and exhaustion are often unrelated to the task of producing meaningful results… Cal Newport. The 3-hour fields medal: A slow productivity case study. Being busy is not the same thing as being productive. One of these is about filling time, while the other is about creating value. Be careful that you’re not confusing busyness…

  • Academic workflow for writing: From first note to publication

    In this video, Dave Nicholls and I talk about the tools and services we use in our writing process, as well as our intentions that guide our choices. Ultimately, we decide that ‘academic workflow for writing’ is about creating space to spend more time on the work that matters, rather than simply doing more.