Free time? What is that? Usually I just wait for it to show up…

When I’m coaching and teaching academics, I recommend that they designate and protect four kinds of time:  Free, Fixed, Focus, and Flow.  In this short article, let’s look at Free time.

Since part of the definition of Free time is that it is guilt free, Free time is often a difficult kind of time for professors to set aside.  There is always so much work to do and the bar is set so high, it seems impossible to set aside free time.  This feeling pervades regardless of whether the bar is set high in one’s department, discipline, or in one’s own mind.

Free time? What is that? Usually I just wait for it to show up… Read More

TAA Vice President’s Message: Take a Networking Challenge in 2019

I am the worst at hiding in my office and working over lunch. Yes, we all have lots of work to do and not enough hours in the day to get it done. Why should 2019 be any exception? I should spend more time out of my office. Some would call it socializing, some would call it networking. Whatever you call it, getting out has got to be better for me than staring out the window (I know, at least I have a window).

With you as my witnesses, I have decided to get out regularly and have lunch or coffee with someone in my workplace. We all have to eat or caffeinate, right? There are over 1,400 employees where I work and I know at least a 10% of them, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Would it kill me if once every so often I had lunch with a colleague instead of never? There might actually be some benefits.

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2019 TAA Council elections – Cast your vote

Seven candidates are running for five open positions on the TAA Council, the association’s governing board. Three are officer positions, Vice President/President-Elect, Treasurer, Secretary; and two are Council positions. Terms begin July 1, 2019. Officers serve two-year terms and Council members serve three-year terms.

A link to the ballot was emailed to TAA members on March 8. To be eligible to vote, individuals must be members in good standing. If you are a TAA member and cannot vote electronically, contact Kim Pawlak at Kim.Pawlak@TAAonline.net or (608) 687-3106 to request a paper ballot. The deadline for voting is Monday, April 8, 2019. Winners will be announced April 19.

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Q&A: What types of services do university libraries offer to support faculty authors?

University librarians offer a wide range of services to faculty and students to support their research and scholarly writing projects. Many of these services are used widely by faculty on campuses across the country, while other services may be little known and little used. As dean of libraries at William and Mary, I make it a priority to work with library staff and faculty to identify needs, develop useful services, and then communicate their availability to faculty. Here I highlight a few of our library services and suggest how faculty at other institutions can work with their university librarians to access services and support.

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Most useful textbook and academic posts of the week: March 8, 2019

This week’s collection of posts from around the web includes practical advice from past experiences balanced with ideas to move us forward. We start with practical advice on mistakes to avoid when doing your PhD, what nobody tells you about ‘minor corrections’, strategies to manage work and enjoy life, and reviewing literature to situate it in a research tradition. We then share some articles with new ideas for mapping a text (beyond the traditional mind map or concept map), addressing global imbalances in scholarly communication, and training PhD graduates for jobs outside of academia.

Celeste Alexander once said, “I haven’t finished writing my book, but it’s on top of my list.” This week focus on that item on top of your list. What can you do to move closer to crossing it off? Happy writing!

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Should we succumb to ‘the mood’ to write?

We all have trouble getting to the desk. Loads of articles, blogs, chapters, and seminars by writers for writers advise how to get to it, stay at it, and finish the damn thing. And some of them help, like Schumann’s (2019) dictum to do fifteen minutes a day or the pomodoro method (Cirillo, 2018) of twenty-five minutes on, five off. Schumann and others also counsel that inspiration is a cheat. If you believe you must wait to write until the right mood strikes, you’ll never get much done. Many writers nevertheless persist in this myth, supporting it with impressive rationales. Some blame external circumstances:

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