New piece on: How to Balance like an Academic
Editorial on: How to Balance like an Academic
The academic’s tasks are usually succinctly described as research, teaching, and service. To be successful in one’s career, each of these must be kept in balance, and prioritized correctly. This is challenging, as the tasks usually are running in parallel, all are time demanding, and any one task can become overwhelming as deadlines approach. In this editorial, we first take a deeper look at the various tasks that must be balanced by the academic. Following that discussion, we provide a series of suggestions for how junior academics can become good at prioritization and other skills that help them achieve the desired balance between the tasks of research, teaching, and service.
Some of our suggestions include:
- To Prioritize between Importance of Tasks
- To Prioritize between Urgency of Tasks
- To Look for Synergies between the Tasks
- To Manage Time Efficiently
- To Manage E-mails Efficiently
- To Build a Network for Collaboration and Support
- To Drop Collaborations that Do Not Work
- To Be Inspired by the Best
- To be Sure About an Idea before Embarking on It
- To Find One’s Wow Factor
We conclude our editorial by discussing how academics can achieve an acceptable balance between work and personal life. Many academics report that they have a poor work-life balance. In addition to following the above suggestions, some of our advice include having realistic expectations to the job; celebrating successes in research, teaching, and service; and combining research interests with one’s other interests in life.
Please visit:
Lindgreen, A. and Di Benedetto, C.A. (2020), “How to balance like an academic,” Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 88, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.03.002.