How do some people apparently do "everything"?

[resistingreality]

Hi all, I've been thinking about this lately. I have a new job and I am under pressure to publish and generate research funding (I am in the social sciences - my research does not need that much money but my institution does). I happen to do quite a lot of public engagement and impact work, and of course have all the normal teaching and admin etc.

I just cannot work out how people find time to do everything - and I know some people do. I have a family (and a life!) but so do many other people, so that's not entirely an excuse.

I have ideas for new projects but I desperately need thinking time to execute those ideas properly. I just don't know how it works. I feel like a headless chicken who doesn't get anything done (publishing for me is also VERY slow).

And then I look on Twitter* and right left and centre people are announcing book deals, and awards, and new papers, and funding bids they have won. It makes me feel utterly overwhelmed and a bit depressed. Does anyone have any amazing time management strategies? How do you carve out the thinking time you need?

(*I recognise I would have a bit more time if I don't look on Twitter).

Hi @aridapricot - I submitted a 4 impact case study in the last REF. I had no collaborators but it was still pretty strong. One of the things I find frustrating is my previous institution said they valued it (a lot - they were weak on impact) but it didn’t get me promotion. Even though my ref return also included 4 papers and a lot of public engagement including national media. I am sort of vaguely ‘known’ in my field in that sense. I think I have now made this worse by moving in a way - I will generate a ref case study again and I don’t expect it to be less strong but I have cashed in those chips for now!? And I don’t publish enough partly because the other stuff takes time!!! Grrrrr. I feel like I’m not playing a good game, if you know what I mean.

sorry - the 4s should have a * after!

You really do not know if those Twitter people are doing 'everything'. Their engagement & teaching may be highly minimal, for instance. Their personal life may be shallow or non-existent. They may have 5000 unread emails in their inbox (from last 6 months alone). Book deals... honestly, most academic books are extremely late delivered and out of date by time delivered. Grants is a magic box to me, and a lot of the funding bodies (research councils) go by institutional rep and little else, especially since UK left EU.

I have seen glimpses of 'writing circles' where a group of academics seem to just stick their names on each other's papers.

That annoys me, too.

However, I don't think of myself as a 'natural' academic at all. I still find myself capable of reading journal papers and finding them utterly incomprehensible and also, for example, failing to be able to write in what I feel is an academic style. I use theory, I'm not great at developing it. Essentially, I feel a deep sense of imposter syndrome and so the idea of collaboration which could increase productivity carries the risk of exposure. I guess it's easier to stay 'small'?

OK, buck up ! Think about what a mediocre white man would do ...

But seriously, this is the way I think about it. When I was appointed to my first chair, I was appointed as chair & HoD. I'd been HoD before, and didn't particularly relish doing it again, but hey ho, it was a Professorship at a big RG university with amazing resources. There was a lot to do to pull the department together - it had been a leading place, but was languishing.

I probably got my chair a bit earlier than most people (in those days), so the imposter syndrome was rather too present. But I realised, very early in the job, that other people - my colleagues, my students - relied on e getting over myself, and being grown up & disciplined about not indulging myself in "imposter syndrome." I needed to be the grown up, to support & develop my department.

Sometimes, women's socialised & conditioned fear of failure (because that means we're just terrible people, right?) gets in the way of us being the best we can be.

So think about it as growing up, taking responsibility for yourself, and for the others you can bring along with you.

However, I don't think of myself as a 'natural' academic at all. I still find myself capable of reading journal papers and finding them utterly incomprehensible and also, for example, failing to be able to write in what I feel is an academic style. I use theory, I'm not great at developing it. Essentially, I feel a deep sense of imposter syndrome and so the idea of collaboration which could increase productivity carries the risk of exposure. I guess it's easier to stay 'small'?

Argh, forgot to bold this statement from @resistingreality

And also to say, I sometimes don't understand the theoretical stuff other people throw around. And I'm about to start on a really really big grant I won last year, partly based on my own incomprehensible theoretical framework ...

You're quite normal in all of this!

Belated thanks again for comments above and congrats on your big grant @EveryWitchWaybutLoose. My latest dilemma is that I have been assigned a mentor who does not answer emails. We are meant to be discussing shared teaching for example, for which I need to prepare quite urgently, and a paper I wrote (they offered to provide friendly review). I have sent three emails on related subjects (not all on the same subject I should add) in the past month and not one has been answered. I know this person is extremely busy and important but .... hmmm. I guess I chase one or all three up. Or maybe I take a leaf out of their book and refuse to answer emails too, then I might get more done. 😀