Crystal Taylor, Ph.D., Appalachian State University; MacKenzie Sidwell, Ph.D., Mississippi State University
The integration of family and work can be complex for early-career faculty. The pull of tenure, while trying to be a good partner, parent, caregiver (and so on) can create feelings of guilt, burnout, and isolation. We are both in early stages of our academic careers while also managing the complexities of parenthood. While neither of us has perfected it, we strive to create a sustainable and effective work-life integration system.
We recognize that there likely is not anything we will cover here that is revolutionary or something we all haven’t considered related to our careers and lives, as each of the skills we plan to outline encompassing self-compassion, time management, collaborative relationship building, and communication are not exclusive to academic parents. Yet, we find that parenthood has provided us with boundless opportunities to practice these skills with newfound meaning that is quite likely unique to academia or other knowledge-work related professions. This post outlines the professional behaviors and skill sets we have gained while experiencing competing demands of parenthood and career, and how we have leveraged our positions as school psychology tenure-track faculty and mothers to find balance.
Self-compassion
Becoming a parent while navigating the tenure track has reshaped our understanding and recognition of our need for self-compassion. We find that parenthood illuminates the reality that practicing self-compassion need not compete with our career, but rather serve as fuel for persistence when we don’t get the grant, the paper got rejected – again, or despite the hours we spent in our office with the door open, students all seem to agree that we were not available enough outside of class. To us, self-compassion is meeting ourselves with the same level of empathy we award to others. This requires non-judgmental evaluation of our capabilities, which allows for acceptance of what we can and can’t control, recognition of our strengths and weaknesses, and adjusting our expectations to reflect these realities. As early career academics, this practice does not come easily nor naturally. Most of us find ourselves in this line of work because of a commitment to continual improvement of ourselves and the field, and desire for achievement, either driven internally or externally (e.g., family, mentors; certainly we can’t be in this gig for the money). Self-compassion permits us to approach academe like any other skill or set of behaviors in that they are malleable and can be changed rather than predetermined.
We have found that self-compassion allows us to find a greater appreciation for being a professor at this stage in our lives, as I (MacKenzie) write this piece with my daughter on a playmat behind me in my office at work. By no means is it easy, nor do we seek to diminish the challenges we experience, but we would be hard-pressed to find many other career options that allow for the flexibility and autonomy provided by academia. Further, the self-compassion required to be a parent also enables us to find levity amid the stress. Learning to laugh at ourselves in parenting and at work can help to shift our perspective and prevent feeling overwhelmed – it is our first time being human, after all.
Strategies we recommend:
- Use what you already know from psychology to abandon the “p-word” (a.k.a. perfect)
- Engage in positive self-talk or self-compassion mantras (Neff, 2015).
- Identify and reframe irrational or unhelpful thoughts (e.g., “I must always do things right or I’ve failed” becomes “I did my best and now I know what I’ll do differently next time”).
- Defuse perfectionistic thinking by recognizing the thought and reminding yourself it does not control you, or, as ACT practitioners may say, “Write it on a leaf” (Hayes & Smith, 2025).
- Use the Premack Principle to combat perfection-driven avoidance by structuring tasks so that low-preferred activities are followed by highly preferred activities (e.g., “Once I free-write for 20 minutes, no matter how messy, I can walk to get coffee with a colleague”).
- Practice self-care with a focus on restorative rather than self-indulgent activities (but treat yourself every once in a while, too!)
- Instead of scrolling between tasks, practice deep breathing or take a quick lap around your department.
- Find ways to move and engage in physical activity that you enjoy and scrap the “all or nothing” mindset (e.g., a short and slow walk with the dog is better than nothing).
- Develop rituals that protect boundaries and reinforce limits between work, parenting, and personal time (e.g., change clothes when shifting from work to home mode or a wind-down ritual before bed with journaling, tea, and tech-free time).
- Say “no”- protect your time and energy by setting boundaries with others to preserve your capacity for your intentional “yeses”. Consider using a script or leaning on mentors or an accountability colleague.
Time Management
Before parenthood, time management meant fitting it all in efficiently for maximum productivity; now, time management means using systems and values to guide and prioritize our activities, recognizing that there will be trade-offs and not everything that could be done will be done. That is okay (thanks to self-compassion, see above). Parenthood forces us to consider what is truly essential so that we can focus our efforts intentionally across the competing demands of scholarship, teaching, service, and now responsibility for the physical, emotional, educational, and developmental nurturing of another human- not to mention the other obligations to primary relationships we juggle with partners, family, community, and ourselves. In our pre-motherhood lives, fewer life-sustaining commitments meant we had the freedom and fuel of an uninterrupted night’s sleep to power through and take on other people’s priorities as our own for the sake of not missing out on a single opportunity. Now, freedom comes from taking action aligned with our values and priorities within time-based structures we built to balance focus with flexibility when life calls for it.
We have learned that time management only works when it is rooted in clarity about what matters, what can wait, and what simply does not belong. We also recognize that in the urgency of academic and parenting demands, it can be difficult to slow down enough to evaluate our priorities, but when our priorities and values are clear, it becomes easier to say no, delegate, and invest our precious energy where it has the most meaning. Once values are defined, reliable systems for deciding, planning, and executing tasks make it possible to focus our efforts and give space for a little wiggle room when it is needed.
Strategies we recommend:
- Use your values to prioritize and set boundaries
- Clarify your core professional and personal values by starting with a list of your top 3-5 values (e.g., mentorship, travel with your family, service to the field, rest, etc.).
- Use values as a filter to critically evaluate opportunities. When a new task or invitation comes up, ask:
- “Does this align with my current values?”
- “Does it support a long-term goal or meaningful relationship?”
- “What would I have to trade off to say yes?”
- Balance a worm’s and bird’s eye view of your deadlines, plans, and predictable activities. Based on your commitments in the short term and long term, determine what is even feasible based on time available and alignment with values.
- Consult with mentors and trusted colleagues who respect and understand your values when you need a sounding board, especially if you are someone who struggles with setting realistic expectations for yourself.
- Developing systems for planning and executing tasks
- Write it down. This strategy seems incredibly simple, but it was the first system we both identified in the development of this post. Start with a reliable system for capturing all of your projects, tasks, ideas, and responsibilities. This will likely need to be updated weekly or even daily, but if you haven’t captured everything, something will get missed. Use what feels best to you and whatever you will use consistently, i.e., paper, digital, or a combination of both.
- Create repeatable weekly planning rituals. Schedule time to audit your calendar and reflect on how time was spent the previous week, and identify tasks that remain. Then, clarify projects, tasks, and ideas for the upcoming week. Ask yourself what absolutely must get done, and what would be nice to do, but is not urgent. Tip: We both like to do this in the early afternoon on Fridays, so we still have time to schedule meetings next week, and Monday morning is a bit smoother.
- Try low and high-tech task management tools to offload the mental load.
- Low-tech ideas: Pomodoro technique, time-blocking, paper planners, the Ivy Lee Method
- High-tech ideas: Todoist; Trello; Toggl; notes apps; your university’s email/calendar system; etc.
- When in doubt, schedule it. Schedule everything – writing time, teaching time, planning, meetings, time to eat lunch/take a break, etc.
- Use your systems to adapt to changes
- Schedule in “slack” time. In times of transition or uncertainty, I (MacKenzie) will schedule time to panic in my calendar. If there is a chance, I’m going to get stuck or if I have a moment of clairvoyance and can anticipate things will not go as expected, having this “time to panic” allows me the flexibility to waste a little time without it thwarting the rest of my day.
- Automate what you can (e.g., meal prepping, schedule send, use AI).
- Create “minimum viable” versions of your routine (i.e., what is the least I can do to stay on track).
- Be willing to revise the system itself. While we do not recommend changing your system as frequently as your child will be home from daycare sick with the latest viral infection going around, it is good practice to check in with your system regularly. Do you notice you are not using a tool as reliably as you once were, or are you missing appointments because the sticky notes are no longer cutting it? Adjust your system to meet your current professional and personal needs.
Relationships and Collaboration
If parenthood has taught us anything, it’s that we truly cannot do this alone. Asking for help is okay, and often necessary. Before growing our own families, we believed the old saying, “Publish or perish.” Maybe that is true; we all know that publications are important but doing it alone may lead to unnecessary burnout and stress.
Perhaps it is time to reimagine this phrase to instead be “Collaborate, publish, or perish.” We’ve found that collaborating with other academics helps build a community and helps us navigate family and personal life more easily. For us, community is sometimes a venting session in a group chat on a day with no childcare, when you’re teaching on Zoom with a three-year-old in your lap. Other times, it is sharing a syllabus and rubrics with a colleague to reduce the teaching load and increase time for writing and research.
When you build your community, it is important to remember to be gentle with yourself and your partners. We’ve realized much like in a marriage, it is not always a 50/50 split. Sometimes one person gives 90% while the other person gives 10%, and other times it is 20/80. The balance shifts depending on the needs of each individual. Perhaps you can only give 20% on a manuscript because you are on week 2 of snow days. Working with others makes it okay to give what you can; the manuscript gets submitted, and next time, you give 80%. Maybe your teaching load is overwhelming, but a graduate student can take the lead on data collection. When it is time to write, you step back in. Asking for help when you need it is the only way to sustain a long and meaningful career in academia.
Strategies we recommend:
- Find colleagues in similar life stages
- Attend networking events. SSSP-ECF hosts a NASP social each year where you can connect with other school psychologists at various stages in their careers.
- Start a group chat with other early-career scholars.
- Host a brown bag, check-in meetings, or writing retreat in your department or with other early career scholars in school psychology to build community.
- Find research collaborators
- Send that email! If you consistently cite someone or admire their work, send an email requesting a meeting to connect and discuss ideas.
- Don’t recreate the wheel: Share and borrow teaching materials
- Crowdsource syllabi, rubrics, slide decks, etc., on NASP listservs, SPTRAIN, and other forums. Or ask folks in your department for their materials and offer to share your own.
- Plug into existing support networks
- SSSP-ECF hosts monthly writing retreats, socials, and webinars. These events are low-pressure and a great way to build relationships.
- Sign up for the NASP mentoring program to connect with and learn from advanced scholars.
- Attend local, state, and national conferences and prioritize networking.
Communication and Setting Boundaries
Clear, effective communication is the foundational skill required for executing most of the aforementioned strategies. Communication is important for all relationships. When children are involved, clear communication is not only necessary, it is required. Since becoming parents in academia, we have learned to be more direct and transparent with our partners and family, but we’ve also learned that we need to be direct and transparent with our students, collaborators, and colleagues too.
Setting boundaries is instrumental in our ability to maintain a healthy work-life balance. For example, I (Crystal) set firm boundaries with students and colleagues by limiting my availability to 8-5 Monday through Friday. That doesn’t mean I never work outside those hours, but it does mean I prioritize family time in the evenings and on weekends. Emails, papers, and class prep can wait. These expectations are communicated with students at the beginning of each semester and are brought up as needed when communicating with colleagues. So far, communicating this boundary has been well received and respected.
This circles back to time management: setting clear boundaries allows you to protect your time and focus on the tasks that move you towards tenure, on a schedule that works best for you. When you communicate your limits upfront, others know what to expect, and you are less likely to feel guilty. By communicating your boundaries, you permit yourself to have self-compassion. You are literally giving yourself permission to say no, and all early career scholars need to say no eventually.
Overall, you don’t owe anyone 24/7 access to your time. Boundaries allow you to prioritize what is important to you while staying focused and making progress toward your personal and professional goals. We were both under the impression that having a career and family would be difficult, almost aversive. However, in working on this blog post and reflecting on our experiences as parents and early career scholars, we realized that having a family and a personal life outside of work has given us the skills to set boundaries, build community, manage our time, and overall, give ourselves grace.
What are your recommendations for work-life integration? Comment below!
ChatGPT was used to help refine and identify action items under each recommended strategy. The final content is written in the authors’ own words.
References & Resources
Allen, D. (2015). Getting things done: The art of stress-free productivity. Penguin Books.
Burkeman, O. (2021). Four thousand weeks: Time management for mortals. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits: An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. Avery.
Clear, J. (N.d.). The Ivy Lee Method: The daily routine experts recommend for peak productivity. https://jamesclear.com/ivy-lee
Hayes, S. C. & Smith, S. X. (2025). Get out of your mind and into your life: The new acceptance and commitment therapy. New Harbinger Publications.
Neff, K. (2015). Self-Compassion: The proven power of being kind to yourself. William Morrow Paperbacks.
Newport, C. (2024). Slow productivity: The lost art of accomplishment without burnout. Portfolio.