How to create a plan for success that allows flexibility
Plus an abundance of emojis, despite the fact that my teenagers warn me about the risks of “using emojis like an old person.” Viewer discretion advised.
Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here.
Earlier in my academic career, when I was both more ambitious and more delusional about what I could accomplish in a given amount of time, the end of the winter term created a challenging tension for me. On the one hand, I was pressuring myself to get a lot done in the four non-teaching months ahead, including conference papers, data collection, writing, and preparing my classes for the fall term. On the other hand, I was exhausted from two terms of teaching and Saskatchewan’s long, cold winter, and craving outdoor time and sun.
“No problem,” I would think. “I will just work on the patio with my laptop!” I would then proceed to create ambitious (read: fantasy) summer plans for both work (“write all the things!” “redesign all of my courses!”) and life (“run more and faster!” “adopt minimalism!”), celebrating my commitment to work-life balance.
As long-time Academia Made Easier readers know, I have a history of being an asshole to myself.
After years of failing to meet my ridiculous plans and then feeling like a failure despite all of the things I actually did accomplish, I learned to add flexibility to my planning. (“Write some things!” “Update my courses!” “Run!” “Declutter some stuff!”). I now see a successful summer as a continuum of sorts. I say “of sorts” because unlike a normal range of low to high, with more and more activity meaning an ever-improving outcome, my continuum defines over-activity as worse than inactivity.
This continuum reflects my own lived reality, which is that productivity and effort are great – until the point where they aren’t, and I fall off a burnout cliff.
Now, your mileage may vary. You may be a work machine. You may take a high level of joy in always achieving, always striving, always hustling. And if that is the case, you do you. More power (and publications and 10K personal bests) to you.
But if you are like me and find that too much is, in fact, too much, today’s small thing to try immediately might present a kinder option.
One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Create a Success Rubric
In my teaching, I love using rubrics. The beauty of rubrics is that they explicitly clarify my expectations, both to students and to myself. Creating a rubric forces me to get specific about performance standards: I need to think through what categories are important to me and then, within the categories, the distinction between poor, satisfactory, good, and excellent work. In my experience, designing a good rubric takes a bit of time at the front end but saves considerable time in communicating expectations to students, grading, and managing discussions with students about their grades.
The Success Rubric helps establish your performance standards for personal success over a time period. It allows you to think more holistically about life and work goals over the time period, and to consider success on a scale rather than as a binary. Give yourself 20 minutes or so for this exercise.
Select your evaluation categories and your rating scale. I suggest keeping it simple, with two categories (life, work) and the rating scale I outlined above (not good, good, better, best, worst). Again, you do you. But if you know that you have a tendency to complicate things and then get bogged down in perfectionism, please give the simple approach a try, just this once. You can go back and complicate it later if you must.
Create a rubric table template. To make this easier for you, I created a worksheet that you can copy or print; alternatively, you can use pen and paper, or create your own file.
Start with the “Life” row. For each cell, list observable, measurable criteria in neutral language. To keep it simple, I suggest a maximum of four criteria items.
Start with the “Better” column. Possible items to include: vacation time, relationships time, sleep habits, eating habits, fitness habits, outdoor time goals, household goals. For any item you include, be specific on what would count as a pretty damn good outcome. Example: fitness 4x per week.
Complete the “Good” and “Best” columns. Adjust each item to identify what would be an acceptable outcome (“Good”) and an exceptional outcome (“Best”). Example: fitness 1-3x per week (good)/5-6x per week (best).
Finish with the “Not Good” and “Worst” columns. Adjust each item to identify what would represent a lack of success (“Not Good”) and what would be likely to create burnout (“Worst”). Example: fitness 0x per week (not good)/over-training (worst).
Move to the “Work” row. Again, I suggest a maximum of four criteria items.
Start with the “Better” column. Possible items to include: writing, research, outreach, teaching, service work. For each item, specify what would count as a pretty damn good outcome. Example: write for 1+ hours per day, 3 days per week.
Complete the “Good” and “Best” columns. Adjust each item to identify what would be an acceptable outcome (“Good”) and an exceptional outcome (“Best”). Example: write for 1+ hours per day, 1-2 days per week (good)/4-5 days per week (best).
Finish with the “Not Good” and “Worst” columns. Adjust each item to identify what would represent a lack of success (“Not Good”) and what would be likely to create burnout (“Worst”). Example: no writing (not good)/writing 6-7 days per week (worst).
Review and revise. Your first draft rubric won’t be perfect, so revise it as needed. (The options in my writing example above are non-exhaustive, for example.) As you review, consider if your “better” column is actually more appropriately your “best” column and if your “best” column is actually a recipe for burnout (aka “worst”). Hint: if this question makes you defensive, consider this possibility carefully. Twice.
Plan for formative feedback. At the end of each week, check-in on your progress and adjust your actions accordingly.
Don’t like rubrics? No worries: here are some quick takeaways for you: (1) Think of “success” as lying on a continuum, rather than as a binary. (2) Include your personal wellness as part of your definition of success. (3) Don’t be an asshole to yourself.
What is your own definition of success? Please take a minute to comment and let me know!
Chipping Away: What I Have Been Up To
A quick update on some of my own activities since my last newsletter, since I have your attention:
I had the pleasure of completing an on-site university unit review. This was my first on-site unit review since the March 2020 Covid shutdown. Travelling and meeting new (masked) people in person was pretty exciting.
Twice a year, I receive a drug infusion to lower my immune system in order to reduce MS disease progression. (If you are thinking that having a lowered immune system during a pandemic is non-awesome, science agrees with you. Go figure.) The infusion takes most of a day and leaves me exhausted due to Benadryl, steroids, and massive amounts of drugs attacking my B-cells. Last week I had my infusion and decided (stupidly) to not reschedule some of my (online) meetings for the following two days, as I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. It was exhausting and made my recovery longer than it needed to be. I report this not to be a martyr (yuck) but rather to be transparent about the fact that my “don’t be an asshole to yourself” tip is one that I keep learning, again and again. (I am fine now, and grateful to anyone who continues masking to protect those of us who are immunocompromised.)
I finished grading (huge thanks to my amazing TA!) and wrapped up my teaching for this academic year. 🎉 It was a great class and I have many ideas to make it even better next year.
Until next time…
Transitioning out of the end of term can be a challenge. For this reason, I encourage you to check out my April 2021 Academia Made Easier post, How to end the semester on a high note (or at least a neutral one). It includes an easy process to debrief your semester, complete with its own worksheet. If you are leaving the semester feeling a bit exhausted and disoriented, please check it out.
Also, a reminder: this spring I am co-facilitating the Centre for Higher Education Research and Development (CHERD) program, Heads and Chairs: Leading Academic Departments. If you are (or are soon to be) a department head or chair, or an associate or assistant dean, please take a look and see if the program might be of interest to you.
Stay well, my colleagues.
P.S. As I write this, Saskatchewan is once again transitioning from winter to spring. Second, third, and fourth winters are common in the Canadian prairies. I am not sure what number we are on at this point, but I am hoping it is the last one.
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If you are interested in having me lead faculty success and/or graduate student success workshops at your campus, please ask your university to contact me!
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Loleen Berdahl, Ph.D.: I am a twin mother, wife, runner, cat lover, and chocolate enthusiast. I spend far too much time on Twitter and binge-watching television, and my house could be a lot cleaner. During the work hours, I am the Executive Director of the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. I am the author of the University Affairs Skills Agenda column and my most recent books are Work Your Career: Get What You Want from Your Social Sciences or Humanities PhD and Explorations: Conducting Empirical Research in Canadian Political Science.