Burnout

[SkippettyDoDah]

Has anyone managed to come through this and stay in academia? I have just run out of energy and feel unsure if I will ever cope with the insecurity, negativity and rollercoaster of constantly having to apply for funding and failing.

Sorry you are struggling, from talking to colleagues, you are far from alone. I'm recovering from burn out at the moment. Trying to take a day at a time but have given myself permission to look elsewhere if it doesn't work out. Hope others have more helpful things to share!

Have you read the productive researcher by Mark Reed? That was written after a period of burnout. He's very successful and sticks to paid hours. Not a woman's perspective though!!

Thanks for the recommendation, that looks a good start. And sorry to hear you have been having a tough time too. When I read a couple of other bits, the solutions were things like 'ask your manager to be taken off a project' but in our workplace that would be read as a request to go part-time (which would be refused)

I generally refuse to do research that I am not funded to do. i.e. my continued employment depends on bringing in research funding to cover my salary and delivering on these projects. So I do this. Being asked to do the unfunded, uncredited work on someone else's project fundamentally doesn't actually benefit me. So I usually say no. I sometimes also quite clearly point out that I am being asked to do unfunded work, and then I say no - just to make it clear.

Not remotely collegial at all. And now mostly people don't bother asking.

I also consciously try not to get cross about other people getting a better deal than me. Someone gets an unfunded RA for 6 months to deliver their project ... not my problem and at least I am not being expected to do the work. The research group has run out of money - again Not My Problem as I am managing my bits of work and not someone elses. Someone else gets well supported to make the next career step. Well good for them. At least if I do make it I will be able to say it was my own work.

And then I get pissed off about the insecurity and no-one having my back - but on the up side no-one bothers me either. And I will take this trade off.

Also means that during Covid I have been able to underperform as a solution to managing the constant school closures etc. as no-one is relying on me.

So that's one approach to avoid burnout. Not sure I would recommend it, but it is what I am doing at the moment.

PS the biggest predictor of grant funding success is applying for grants