“A high teaching load means minimal time for writing beyond lectures, lesson plans, and marking feedback. But I know my research outputs and publications are the things I need to work on for career advancement, not my teaching.”
So said an anonymous participant in a compelling study by Chris Smith on factors influencing writing productivity and satisfaction among academics.
I’ve heard the same sentiment expressed in different words by many of my clients. They know that writing up their research is by far the most important factor to their success as academics—but who, they wonder, is actually finding time to write these career-changing publications with anything like regularity? And how?
Even if you don’t have a high teaching load, you may find it particularly challenging to write at this time of year. Carving out time for the deep work of writing requires some serious strategy once you’ve entered the whirlwind of a new academic year. With that in mind, here are 4 ways to prioritize writing as a busy academic.
1. Timebox both low- and high-priority tasks
Timeboxing means assigning a task a certain number of minutes and considering the task complete when those minutes run out. Things like course prep, admin, grading, and more don’t deserve hours and hours of your time each day—so don’t let them hog more than they should. For example, give yourself permission to create the best possible lesson plan that you can in 20 minutes (round DOWN; remember that work expands to fill the available time), then keep your promise and stop when the time runs out. This is an excellent way of limiting the time and energy you put toward things that really just need to be done, not done to an outstanding standard. Giving 100% of your effort on 100% of your tasks is not a reasonable expectation, so start thinking about which ones deserve more, like 50% (or less).
Similarly, however, timeboxing can be used to block off adequate space for those things that do require your very best efforts. In particularly busy periods, I’d recommend timeboxing 15-30 minutes early in the day, every day, for writing. The idea here is to ensure you produce at least some writing (whether it’s working to an AI-generated outline, using my class and easy templates to write your outstanding introduction, or typing up the data for a results section) even when there’s a pile of other things demanding your attention. These small but mighty writing sessions will help you feel empowered and motivated, knowing that you can find time for your most important work, even when you’re busy. In addition, you’ll overcome the hardest hurdle of writing, which is just getting started. Inevitably, 15 minutes will often turn into more once you’re sitting down and focused.
2. Streamline your teaching and grading
To use those timeboxes effectively, be sure to design your teaching and grading for maximum efficiency. For instance:
Recycle valuable learning: You may not get to choose what you teach, but you can usually stick to teaching the same classes each year (which allows you to get more efficient each time) or teaching something similar that allows you to recycle valuable info from a previous class (i.e., content, structure, assignments, exercises, etc.).
Create a well-organized course page with clear policies and a list of FAQs. Most student inquiries should then be directed to this page first, your teaching assistant (if applicable) second, and you as a last resort.
Create and use a marking rubric. Grading will be faster and more objective, and you’ll spend less time writing comprehensive feedback. Students who do want more feedback (and these are unlikely to be the norm) can be given the option to book an appointment with you or your teaching assistant, but many will have questions that can be answered by the rubric and 1–3 lines of feedback.
Use graders. Even if your school doesn’t cover them, paying master’s students to help with your grading using your rubric (see above) is well worth the cost. You can buy back hours of your time—without resorting to AI. On that note, a gentle reminder that academic standards go both ways: if you wouldn’t be happy to receive AI-generated work from students, you shouldn’t be returning AI-graded work to them either. Every teacher I know who has experimented with the biggest essay-grading AI tool on the market has found it woefully inadequate.
3. Leverage group learning for effective supervision
Instead of holding 1:1 meetings with 6 students, organize a single longer meeting where all 6 peers join you for a group meeting. This strategy feels like (and is) a tremendous time-saving hack for you, but it also offers immense benefits to your students. By hearing other students’ questions and ideas, discussing their work with each other, and approaching problems together as a group, they’ll unlock new levels of learning that they could never have reached alone. (Bonus: You’ll answer all those most common questions once, not 6 times across 6 students.)
4. Embrace relationships for motivation and accountability
The hardest problems are those faced alone. When you’re struggling to work on something important to you, consider banding together with others for support. Accountability buddies and body doubling can significantly enhance your writing productivity. You can join or form a writing group (virtual or otherwise), or just have a standing agreement with a colleague to confirm that you’ve written for 30 minutes that day as planned. Likewise, writing a paper with coauthors can offer this same benefit. Hold each other to your agreed-upon deadlines and clarify that you trust each other not to let the group down. You can also set a hard deadline to have something for me to edit by a certain date. Alternatively, if this kind of fear-based pressure doesn’t do great things for your nervous system, ask someone close to you (a partner, parent, friend, or coach) to help you celebrate and reward progress on your writing goals. All too often, we breeze right past the many positive things we achieve in any given day or week with a perpetual focus on what must be done next. An outside perspective can help remind you to slow down and even learn to deeply enjoy the writing process: after all, it’s hard to be great at something you hate!
Questions about what you most value, what is rewarded in academia, and how to balance those two things are well worth considering in depth. But for now, focus on staying afloat. If you can keep your most important work moving forward (even slowly) through the busiest periods of the year, you’ll find that many of the disheartening and stressful thoughts that kick up as we head back to school (“I’m behind, I’ll never catch up, no one else is struggling like me, I feel totally lost and overwhelmed…”) will abate. Finally, don’t forget that one of the best reasons to prioritize your writing is grants. Simply put, prolific, excellent writing translates to a better shot at grants—which in turn allow you to further prioritize your invaluable research.
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