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You've been going over it for weeks. Go for the promotion, or step back from it. Put your energy into research, or into teaching. Stay where you are, or start looking. You've made the lists and talked it through. You've lain awake running the options. And each time you think you're close, you end up back where you started. If that sounds familiar, it can help to ask yourself who it is that you are trying to satisfy with these decisions. Two judges For many of the academics I

When I was working as an academic, my dentist noticed that I was grinding my teeth. I had no idea. I had also stopped exercising regularly, and when I noticed that, I let myself off. I was busy. Everyone was busy. Looking back, ‘I’m so busy’ was the reason I gave myself for ignoring what my body was telling me. When busy becomes normal If you’re an academic, busy is probably an accurate description of your week. Often that’s because you care about doing the job properly. UCU

This is a free, one-hour workshop to look at the year ahead and decide, before it decides for you, what you actually want it to hold.

If the title of this article made you wince with recognition, I see you and I understand. We all do it. For the most part, we know it's not helping us, and we'd rather have a clean break from work. Yet for one reason or another, we find ourselves there; on the beach, in restaurant loos, during family dinners, 'just' quickly checking to make sure we're not missing something. "I choose to check my emails on holiday." Last year, 98 academics responded to my poll about annual lea

One reason why you might find yourself continually disagreeing with decisions in HE. It's the end of the academic year. You've just come out of a meeting where, once again, a decision went nowhere. It feels like the same conversation, the same friction, and the same sense that you're pushing against a wall and not being heard. Before you conclude that the problem is a person, I'd like to introduce a different possibility. What if you're not actually disagreeing about the deci

This is a free, one-hour workshop to look at the year ahead and decide, before it decides for you, what you actually want it to hold.

This free workbook helps you rebuild the foundations so boundaries actually hold. You will need: 20 minutes, a printout or some paper, and pen. This workbook offers a new way of understanding why saying no feels impossible as an academic. You've tried everything You've set the boundary five times. No emails after 7pm. One work-free weekend day. Protected writing time. Then someone asks for help and you say yes anyway. You turn off notifications. You block your calendar. You p

"I've never done this before. I don't know how." An old colleague said this to me last week about writing a curriculum review document. She's been an academic for twelve years. It struck me that we don't get taught how to be academics. Academics must learn by watching others, by googling examples, and sometimes by working it out at 10pm on a Wednesday when it's due Thursday morning. Yes, maybe you did a PhD so you know research. You have done a PGCert for teaching skills. B

"I don't have time for coffee chats—I barely have time for my actual work." This sentiment has become the unofficial motto of modern...

I spent my first summer holiday as an academic re-reading a textbook for a new module I was teaching in September. Not because anyone...

This free webinar recording will help you cut through the LinkedIn confusion so that you can get visible online without adding another overwhelming task to your day. You know you "should" be on LinkedIn. Your head of department mentions it. Colleagues share articles. Job applications ask for your profile link. But every time you log in, you feel overwhelmed. What should your headline say? How do you write about your research without sounding like a CV? Which posts actually ma

As academics, we're trained to think critically about research methodologies, theoretical frameworks, and empirical evidence. We can spot...

"Love has fear baked into it," I read to my son last week from Katherine Rundell's Impossible Creatures . I loved the phrasing and the...