Academic Woman Amplified

So often our (lack of) writing makes us feel guilty and overwhelmed. Why is that? What can you do to change it up by changing the way you think about your writing and how it fits into your academic career?  Guilt is the biggest killer of writing productivity for academic women. In this episode we are learning how to cultivate a positive relationship with writing by fighting back against the guilt. I’m giving you concrete ways to shift your mindset, move writing up on the priority list, and show your writing a little love. Why Do We Feel Guilty? Academic women often share with me a sense of guilt around their writing process. No one wants to do something out of a sense of guilt. The first step to eliminating those negative feelings is to drill down to some of the reasons we feel guilty in the first place. The ‘shoulds’. We as women are often plagued by a long list of ‘shoulds’. We feel like we ‘should’ have gotten more done than we did; we think we ‘should’ be able to manage “all the things”, and we can’t; we

Sometimes it feels like writing and teaching are at odds in our academic lives, but they’re not! There are ways to level out your teaching tasks, create more room for all your responsibilities, and give yourself a more comfortable semester experience.  When you are in the throes of the busiest times of your semester, you may feel overwhelmed, like you can’t possibly keep balancing all the different plates you have in the air. You might be behind on grading, swamped with prep, and doing more hand-holding for students who are also feeling the crunch. On episode 10, I talked about how to approach these times in the semester and still keep your writing in your plans. On this episode, I’m talking about teaching; survival tips to manage your teaching right now, and ideas for creating more space in the future.  Creating Breathing Room in Your Teaching Right Now Here are some ways to manage teaching to give you a little space to breath. Remember that tweaking things to make them doable at this stage in the semester i

Academic years ebb and flow; some parts of a semester are much busier than others. As your semester ramps up, your writing might need to take a backseat, but make sure you have a plan to bring it back to the center. Semesters have pretty predictable pattern. In a traditional North American semester system of 15 weeks, things start coming to a head around week 10. You may notice any of the following:   You have more than one assignment waiting for grading. You’re officially “backlogged.” There are so many meetings and reports due. You consider pushing the reports until the end of the semester, after grades are in, which means they’ll be late. But something's gotta give. Panicked students are starting to show up at office hours, which means you can’t use that time for other things. Your lesson plans used to be typed out neatly, but now they are jotted on a sticky note on the back of your hand, or stuck to your growing pile of grading. You’ve been making time to write, but now those 1-2 hours once or twice a we

Nothing feels worse than having a piece of writing you’ve worked hard on rejected or criticized. But, it’s part of the academic life, so I’m teaching you how to deal with it in a healthy and positive way that will improve your writing and help get your message out there.  On this episode we’re going to talk about 3 different types of feedback you might receive, how to spot the differences between them and how to respond. I’ll also tell you about an excellent resource to help with your mindset, and why you should consider disconnecting from both praise and criticism.    3 Types of Writing Criticism and How to Respond   1. Posturing  It should come as no surprise to anyone that there is a lot (I mean A LOT) of posturing in academia. The pressure is always on to sound smart, to respond to other people’s work in a way that shows what you’ve read and where you situate your work in the world. That’s not necessarily bad and it’s certainly part of the job. But sometimes that pressure to posture seeps into everything,

Burnout is a real thing for academics. I know you know this, but you might not know exactly what “pre-burnout” looks like, and what to do if you feel like you might be on the edge of a burnout. On this podcast episode, I’m sharing the stories of two times that I got very close to burning out, how I dealt with it, and what I’m doing to keep a comfortable pace right now. I’m sharing some red flags to help you recognize the signs of pre-burnout in yourself, as well as an exercise to help you control the pace of your academic life so academia feels good to you.  My stories My first burnout situation came when my infant son became extremely sick. About two weeks into the semester, after I went back to work from maternity leave, my 10-month-old son stopped breathing while I was nursing him to sleep one night.  This was the beginning of the 10 most horrible days of my life.  By late October I was so exhausted and strained that I could not continue. If I didn’t take action I would end up in the hospital myself. So I

Continuous learning through professional development is a key way to accomplish the goals that you and your university share. On this podcast episode, I’m sharing tips and ideas for how to get funding for professional development from your institution.  Although it sometimes might not seem like it, your administration really wants you to succeed--to get tenure, to get promoted, and to stay at your institution. They spent a lot of money finding you. They definitely want to keep you. So guess what? They should be paying for your professional development! But they never will unless you ask. Not sure where to start? Let’s jump in. Here are three steps you can take to successfully request professional development funding from your university.   Step 1: Identify all the Possible Sources I have been offering professional development to women professors for a long time and I have seen everyone from students to full professors get funding, even when they thought they couldn’t use start-up or grant money, or their univ

As an academic woman, your writing needs to be at the center of everything. On this episode of the podcast, I’m making the case for why it’s so important to prioritize your writing, and giving you the steps to take to make it happen. You know your writing and publishing is important but it doesn’t feel urgent; writing always falls to the bottom of your list; you put writing off until you have “enough” time, and end up doing frantic writing binges instead of making steady progress; thinking about your writing gives you a pit in your stomach; you have a pipeline full of unfinished projects.  Sound familiar? Maybe you haven’t put writing at the center of your career.  In this episode, I’m showing you what having your writing at the center can be like: you always know when your next writing session is and what project you’re working on; you feel happy and invigorated when you think about writing; projects flow smoothly through your pipeline (and out of it); you feel empowered and in control.  That sounds better,

How do you feel when you think about writing? You are never going to write and publish as much as you want if you feel yucky about your writing. But feeling good about your writing doesn’t just happen randomly or by accident. You have to create that positive relationship with your writing.   In this episode I’m talking all about creating a positive relationship with your writing in order to get more writing done and feel better doing it. I call this creating “positive feedback loops.” It means that when you write, you feel positive feelings, which make you want to write again, in a super-happy loop of unicorns and rainbows.I exaggerate, but you get what I mean. These positive feelings are created by you by implementing certain writing behaviors.  Actions to Take to Cultivate a Positive Relationship with Writing It doesn’t happen on it’s own, and it doesn’t happen by wishing for it, but you can take actionable steps to make yourself feel better about writing, with reinforces your desire to do it.      Start w

Do you have too much going on? In all seriousness, can you fit everything that needs to be done on your calendar? If you feel like there are simply not enough hours in the day, this episode is for you.   More and more of what we are expected to do in academia is “shallow work”: paper pushing, email, useless meetings. This means that we are finding less and less time for “deep work” (terms explained by Cal Newport in his book Deep Work): the thinking and creating that we were trained to do, the reasons many of us got into this profession in the first place. The market is flooded and if you don’t have time to write and publish or to bring in the big grant money,someone else is: someone who is willing to work nights and weekends, or who has home-care built in, or is turning themselves inside out to try and do it all.  I want you to see that the fact that you feel overworked and overwhelmed is not a reflection on your personal character. It’s not your fault. You are part of a system that is set up this way. But w

For successful execution of the day-to-day tasks of academia, especially writing, we need to be good project managers.      As academic women, we are required to balance multiple projects at the same time, from writing and publishing to course prep to service work. The day-to-day project management tasks of the academic life are not part of our training. In some cases, these tasks are modeled by excellent mentors,but most of the time we’re making it up as we go along.   If you’ve been following along, you know that I’m on a one-woman mission to reveal all the “secrets” of how to do academia successfully so that we can all be happier, healthier, and more fulfilled in our careers. In this episode, we’re looking at how project management can help accomplish these goals.   “Without a system for project management, you’re going to feel overwhelmed and exhausted all the time, no matter how much progress you’re actually making.” -Cathy Mazak   Understanding the Basics of Academic Project Management Before we jump in

This might shock you, but I’m a writing coach that doesn’t believe you should try to write every day. In fact, writing every day could be counterproductive to your writing goals.    Everyone wants to write and publish more. Academia demands it; it’s how we get jobs, keep jobs, and get promoted. More importantly, it’s how we influence our field, get our message out to the world, and spread knowledge that can help change lives. But how do we do it?    Many sources push a system of writing every day, no matter what. In this episode, I’m going to share why trying to write every day can be a bad idea, and what you can do instead.    Writing Every Day isn’t for Everyone When you research how to be more productive in your writing, you might find answers like: “Do it every day. Don’t miss a day. Hit a word count. Get accountability systems so that you continue to write every day.”    If the “write every day” method appeals to you, then please, do it!   But as an academic mom of three, this has never worked for me. An

Are you an academic woman ready to amplify your voice in your field, say goodbye to burnout and overwhelm, and harness focused energy to reach your writing goals? You’re in the right place.    In this introductory episode of the Academic Woman Amplified podcast, I’m sharing my story with you from my first love of writing to becoming a fully tenured professor while raising a growing family. I share lessons I’ve learned as an academic and a woman and how those experiences have shaped my life and career.    On this podcast, we’ll talk about writing as the currency of your academic career, and I’ll share advice on how to manage all the moving parts each semester.    My Beginnings as a Writer I have always loved writing and reading. From the time I was a little girl I’ve wanted to make my living writing, but didn’t know how I would do that. In college I followed my love of writing and teaching from being an ESL teacher to earning my PhD in English language learning. After that, I went on to become a tenured profes

Are you an academic woman who knows she needs to write more, but writing keeps falling to the bottom of the list? Do you feel overworked and overwhelmed and not sure if you can sustain this pace anymore? Academia was not built for women, but I believe it can change. As academic women, we have the power to create the life and career we want. This podcast is about helping you write and publish more, but it's also about much more than that. It's about changing the culture of academia and how women experience their academic career. In this trailer episode of the podcast, find out what Academic Woman Amplified is all about and how you can be a part of this movement. Connect with me: Website Facebook Group Facebook Page