Garret J. Hall, Florida State University
Sally L. Grapin, Montclair State University
As a first-year faculty member, deciding how to allocate your time can be challenging. Many faculty are expected to balance scholarship, teaching, and service responsibilities, all while acclimating to a new institution. At the same time, academic schedules are often quite flexible and afford faculty considerable discretion in how they spend their time. This can leave new academics (and even more experienced ones) feeling lost about how to schedule their days and plan for accomplishing short- and long-term goals. The following describes tips for new faculty members seeking to use their work time efficiently and realistically during their first year in academia.
- Identify and clarify your institution’s priorities and expectations around faculty responsibilities.
Universities vary considerably in their expectations for research productivity, teaching loads, and service responsibilities. Having a clear understanding of your institution’s expectations is critical for determining how to spend your time. For instance, faculty at institutions with substantial scholarship expectations should be especially intentional about carving out time for research and writing. Similarly, faculty who are expected to contribute heavily to academic programs and/or teaching may benefit from spending more time on these activities.
Unfortunately, institutions can be vague in communicating productivity expectations, especially in regard to research. This is due, in part, to the fact that scholarly pursuits (and thus evidence of productivity) vary considerably across disciplines and among scholars within those disciplines. For example, most universities do not explicitly specify a minimum number of publications or amount of grant funding needed to secure tenure and promotion.
Speaking to as many colleagues as possible at various institutional levels (e.g., department, college) can help clarify expectations. More experienced faculty members often have knowledge of institutional precedent that can be helpful for surmising university expectations. Moreover, examining CVs and other professional profiles (e.g., Google Scholar profiles) of colleagues at your level (e.g., pre-tenure) or more advanced levels (e.g., tenured and promoted) can also be helpful for gauging expectations.
Clarifying tenure and evaluation timelines and requirements is, of course, an important consideration in allocating your time. Being knowledgeable about these processes will allow you to determine how much progress you need to make over a given period. For instance, learning more about whether and how often periodic pre-tenure evaluations occur can help you pace yourself.
Finally, balancing university expectations with your own career goals is important as well. For instance, faculty with primarily teaching and clinical appointments who ultimately aspire to obtain more research-oriented positions should be mindful of balancing institutional priorities with their own research pursuits. Likewise, faculty who aspire to more teaching-oriented positions may wish to focus on refining their teaching philosophy, mastering effective teaching practices, and building a strong, diversified record of university instruction.
- Focus on your existing pipeline of scholarship while maintaining an eye toward building your long-term research agenda.
Building a long-term research agenda at a new institution can be time intensive. As you work toward this goal, consider making progress on writing projects that are already in your research pipeline (i.e., with data that are already collected and/or analyzed). This will allow you to maintain a fluid, consistent record of scholarship as you settle into your new faculty position. If you do not have a robust pipeline of scholarship to draw from, consider undertaking writing projects that do not require a full lab setup or established research partnerships. For instance, you might consider working on conceptual papers, book chapters, or other types of manuscripts while you prepare for new data collection. Working closely with existing collaborators can also help you maintain publishing momentum while also affording you time to set up longer-term projects.
As you build your long-term research agenda, it can be helpful to set tangible, short-term goals and to avoid starting too many new projects at once. You might consider identifying a few short-term research tasks and committing to finishing them (e.g., finishing a literature review, submitting an IRB application). You might also identify projects that will allow you to document clear progress along your tenure timeline (accounting for interim reviews). At the same time, consider how these short-term projects will contribute toward your longer-term publication pipeline and grant funding goals (if relevant).
- Work steadily toward building your lab and research infrastructure while also being mindful of the work required.
Spending time building your lab and/or research team infrastructure can be time-consuming. If you are fortunate to be awarded start-up funding or space for a lab, setting up this space (and even spending down funds) can require quite a bit of time and administrative effort. Likewise, setting up lab routines and protocols, preparing Institutional Review Board (IRB) applications for a new university, establishing external research partnerships, and recruiting and training new lab members can also be time intensive. While these activities pay dividends in the long run, they often do not result in tangible products or evidence of productivity. Be patient with yourself as you navigate these processes and remind yourself that you are still making needed progress. Moreover, consider the above tips for maintaining research productivity while building your lab/research infrastructure.
- Intentionally pursue collaborations within and outside of your university.
Collaboration both within and outside of your university can be one of the great joys of academia; nevertheless, identifying collaborators with whom you are compatible and share common interests can take time. Consider building these relationships as early on as possible. Internal colleagues might appreciate your reaching out to get to know them and to discuss potential collaborations (even if these collaborations are not realized immediately). Outside of your university, attending conferences and connecting with committees and/or interest groups through professional organizations can be a great way to build relationships and identify potential collaborators.
- Choose your service activities carefully.
Service is an important part of contributing to your university and larger profession; however, extremely heavy service loads can make it difficult to balance other roles in your first year and beyond. Typically, first-year faculty are (or at least should) be expected to take on relatively less service than their more advanced peers, as new faculty need time to prepare for research and teaching. While it is important to be a good citizen of your department, university, and profession, be sure to protect your research and teaching time as needed during this early stage of your career.
Ultimately, you will likely take on some service responsibilities in your first year, and choosing activities that are aligned with your other professional roles can be helpful. For example, serving on internal grant review committees may allow you to become familiar with procedures and evaluation criteria for these funding mechanisms. Likewise, becoming involved in editorial service (e.g., serving as an ad hoc reviewer, editorial board member, or editorial fellow) for peer-reviewed journals may sharpen your skills in critiquing and designing research studies as well as familiarize you with publication standards for various journals.
- Identify optimal times for productivity and prioritize them.
Your unstructured time can quickly become filled with impromptu meetings or other unplanned tasks. Imposing your own structure on large blocks of time can help prioritize specific kinds of tasks at different points in the day or week. Some faculty prefer to write research papers on certain days of the week and/or during certain times of the day, but those days/time might not be the same ones conducive to accomplishing other important tasks (e.g., class preparation). It might take some trial-and-error to identify those times of day that are best suited to specific tasks—not all 3-hour blocks are ideal for the same activities. You might not have the same motivation to finish that Discussion section on a Friday from 1-4 p.m. as you would on a Tuesday. Everyone works a little differently, and that’s OK, but it might take time to figure out what works best for you—especially when the obligations pulling you in different directions as faculty will be very different than those as a graduate student, postdoc, or practitioner. Finding time to write with other friends and faculty can help provide structure and accountability; for instance, the SSSP ECF monthly writing retreats may help you build writing momentum.
Another strategy for prioritizing writing time can be to write during small blocks of time between other commitments. Those 15 minutes between meetings could be used to make some incremental progress on a smaller writing task. We know that saving a large task for a large block of time can feel daunting. Breaking down writing tasks into those smaller chunks to complete in between other commitments can help keep the writing momentum going and prevent you from becoming overwhelmed with the writing projects you have.
On the other hand, try to also be flexible with your time. That impromptu lunch with a colleague during your planned writing time is also important for your social and personal satisfaction at your job. You may feel like you are getting distracted from your writing plans, but being too task-oriented can burn you out. Many fruitful ideas and collaborations have come from unplanned meals, coffee breaks, and hallway conversations. Moreover, save time to think and read about your ideas. What “counts” as writing is not just the act of writing itself; thinking and reading are investments in writing. Don’t underestimate them. It’s OK to stare at the wall for 2 hours if it brought you clarity on how to approach your next project or write your next paper introduction (it’s also OK if it didn’t).
- Finding a way to balance work and life takes time and needs to be intentional.
You worked hard for many years, and you finally landed the academic job you were hoping for. Starting your first academic job is exciting and likely also stressful. There are many new responsibilities to balance. Depending on your teaching load, faculty meeting schedule, and research workflow, you could be left with a substantial amount of time to conduct your research or seemingly very little. You may have also moved a long distance to your new institution. Through all of that, you have to find time to live your life outside of your job.
The lack of structure to academics’ time can make it difficult to draw the line between your work and your personal life. As faculty, we are also passionate about what we do, and even when we are “done” with our workday and close our laptops, many of us are probably still thinking about our teaching, our new exciting research project, or that frustrating comment we received in a manuscript review. As passionate as we might be, it’s important to remember that this is still a job. Some might integrate their life with their job more than others, but that does not work for everyone, nor should it.
Finding structured time to separate yourself from your work can be extremely helpful, but this looks different for everyone. Some might choose to have activities with specific time commitments during the week that force them to be away from work. Others might choose to work only in specific spaces/locations (e.g., coffee shops or work/home offices but not other rooms in their home or on campus). Some are fine working on the weekends, and others don’t open their laptops between Friday afternoon and Monday morning. Establishing these boundaries and habits early on in your faculty career can help you prioritize non-work activities that promote your personal wellness, which will ultimately help you identify how your new faculty position fits into your preferred lifestyle.
Do you have any other good tips for planning your time in your first year of academia? Share below!