Not That Kind of Doctor - How to Get Unstuck
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05/03/2023
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Are academic conferences worth the time, energy, and cost? In this episode of "Not That Kind of Doctor," Guy and Nick dive deep into the world of academic conferences, exploring the pros and cons, strategies for getting the most out of them, and how to navigate the financial and logistical challenges, especially for graduate students and early-career scholars.
We discuss our personal experiences, from the excitement of first conferences to the complexities of choosing which conferences to attend as your career progresses. Whether you’re presenting research, networking, or just trying to keep up with the latest developments in your field, we’ve got tips and insights to help you make the most of your conference experience.
đź“Ś Key Takeaways:
How to decide which conferences are worth attending
Strategies for managing the costs of conference travel
Tips for networking and making meaningful connections
The role of conferences in your academic and professional development
How to avoid burnout and make the most of your conference experience
Whether you're a seasoned academic or just starting out, this episode offers valuable advice on how to navigate the conference circuit effectively.
#AcademicConferences #HigherEducation #NotThatKindOfDoctor #Networking #professionaldevelopment #academia
What are your conference strategies? Share your experiences and tips in the comments below! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more discussions on academic life and beyond!
Conferences - Not That Kind of Doctor with Nick Husbye and Guy Trainin
www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor
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- [00:00:00.094](upbeat music)
- [00:00:09.235]No, no, no.
- [00:00:12.660]Yes, as opposed to how can I maybe make it fit?
- [00:00:16.877]Here's the thing is there's not even space
- [00:00:20.430]to make anything fit at this point.
- [00:00:22.410]Like, I literally had someone in my email going,
- [00:00:27.480]oh, I need an hour and a half for this meeting.
- [00:00:29.040]And I was like that's really cute
- [00:00:31.590]that you think I have 90 consecutive minutes
- [00:00:33.960]free in my Outlook calendar.
- [00:00:36.237]I can get you 30.
- [00:00:38.250]Yeah.
- [00:00:39.656]And that's it.
- [00:00:40.489]And like, what's the agenda?
- [00:00:42.660]Like, what are we actually doing during this time.
- [00:00:46.234]That didn't go over well, but.
- [00:00:50.340]But it's necessary.
- [00:00:51.420]I mean, when you start saying no to things,
- [00:00:53.970]you have to recognize that some people,
- [00:00:58.020]at least in the moment will not react well
- [00:01:00.510]because everybody always thinks
- [00:01:03.330]that you should learn how to say no except to them.
- [00:01:09.180]Yeah, well, and it's,
- [00:01:12.750]I've come to realize after a semester of overage
- [00:01:17.970]and all kinds of different things
- [00:01:20.100]that I kind of let my boundaries slip for a while,
- [00:01:25.860]for a minute, for a hot minute.
- [00:01:27.540]And I've been paying for that ever since.
- [00:01:29.040]And so I'm stuck in this kind of Sisyphean Task
- [00:01:31.320]of how do I continue doing what I've been doing
- [00:01:39.240]in an okay fashion,
- [00:01:41.880]but also like pick up some of the plates I've dropped
- [00:01:45.780]and glue them back together.
- [00:01:47.580]How do I find time for that?
- [00:01:49.770]So I'm kind of stuck in this like,
- [00:01:54.712]weird cycle of I am behind and because I'm behind,
- [00:02:00.870]I can't get caught up, and I'm just stuck,
- [00:02:04.740]which is the topic of today's episode.
- [00:02:07.200]Look at how I segued.
- [00:02:08.430]Yes, and our topic is really how do we get unstuck
- [00:02:12.210]because we all know how to get stuck.
- [00:02:15.000]That is the easy part.
- [00:02:16.920]I mean, and part of the trick is
- [00:02:20.280]do you know when you're getting stuck?
- [00:02:22.710]So essentially this episode is just gonna be
- [00:02:24.930]a whole big therapy session for myself
- [00:02:27.750]that I don't have to pay for, which is nice.
- [00:02:29.670]So thanks for coming and helping me out.
- [00:02:33.390]I'm always happy to help out.
- [00:02:35.760]And maybe, you know, give you some tips
- [00:02:38.820]around how to not get stuck in the first place,
- [00:02:41.310]but also if you do find yourself getting stuck,
- [00:02:43.410]how to get unstuck.
- [00:02:44.712]This is "Not That Kind of Doctor."
- [00:02:47.100]I'm Nick Husbye.
- [00:02:48.210]I'm an Associate Professor
- [00:02:49.620]of Elementary Literacy Education here at UNL.
- [00:02:51.873]I'm Guy Trainin.
- [00:02:53.160]I'm a Professor of Education here at UNL.
- [00:02:55.530]And we are gonna talk about getting stuck
- [00:02:58.320]and then getting unstuck.
- [00:03:00.000]So talk to us a little bit
- [00:03:01.020]about how you are stuck right now.
- [00:03:03.000]How am I stuck right now?
- [00:03:03.930]So, to give some context to this,
- [00:03:07.020]at time of recording, we are what,
- [00:03:09.630]two and a half weeks or two, yeah,
- [00:03:12.033]two and a half weeks away from the end of the semester.
- [00:03:13.140]Yeah.
- [00:03:14.370]I agreed to teach an overage this semester.
- [00:03:22.740]And essentially I doubled the amount of classes
- [00:03:27.210]I am teaching, which I love my teaching.
- [00:03:30.750]I love, I love students.
- [00:03:33.240]I love my work in teacher education.
- [00:03:35.700]Like that's my, that coincides with my area of research.
- [00:03:39.780]Like there were so many good reasons to say yes,
- [00:03:43.336]but I'm realizing that I didn't, when I said yes to that,
- [00:03:46.680]renegotiate my other service obligations.
- [00:03:50.490]And so it's kind of been a semester
- [00:03:55.020]where there's a death by 1,000 paper cuts, right.
- [00:03:57.900]Like individually, these paper cuts don't hurt.
- [00:04:01.980]They're annoying,
- [00:04:03.540]but things just kind of snowball as like,
- [00:04:10.170]oh, I forgot this, and oh, I need to do this.
- [00:04:13.260]And just stuff got kind of lost.
- [00:04:17.190]And so now I'm at this point in the semester
- [00:04:19.950]where I'm finally somewhat caught up on grading.
- [00:04:23.520]I am like fairly okay
- [00:04:26.910]with like what I'm supposed to be doing with my service,
- [00:04:29.790]but it's literally working all the time.
- [00:04:33.270]Yeah.
- [00:04:34.470]Which is exhausting.
- [00:04:37.134]And unhealthy, definitely long term.
- [00:04:39.840]We can all sprint for a while.
- [00:04:42.120]Definitely unhealthy, and I mean,
- [00:04:44.910]I am not the most in shape person,
- [00:04:46.710]so a whole semester of sprinting.
- [00:04:50.094]Yes.
- [00:04:51.292]Does not work.
- [00:04:55.770]And so I'm trying to get myself unstuck.
- [00:04:57.180]I'm trying to get my,
- [00:04:58.140]I'm kind of finally to a point where the end is in sight,
- [00:05:05.220]and I'm trying to,
- [00:05:09.690]what am I trying to, not be bitter
- [00:05:12.000]because I did this to myself.
- [00:05:13.140]Yeah.
- [00:05:14.536]I did this to myself to an extent, right?
- [00:05:15.570]Like there's some level
- [00:05:17.190]of how do systems allow this to happen?
- [00:05:21.134]Yeah.
- [00:05:22.260]But also I didn't have to say yes.
- [00:05:29.100]Which is a little bit different
- [00:05:30.690]than being a graduate student sometimes.
- [00:05:32.910]Oh very.
- [00:05:33.743]Or a young faculty member who's just started.
- [00:05:36.570]And that ability to say no feels a lot more,
- [00:05:41.812]a lot maybe less possible.
- [00:05:43.260]And so being really strategic,
- [00:05:44.790]and we talked in previous shows
- [00:05:46.620]about how do you learn to say no?
- [00:05:49.020]How do you use your mentors to back you up
- [00:05:51.330]and to put boundaries around you
- [00:05:52.770]when you are struggling to do that?
- [00:05:55.290]But once you get to stuck point,
- [00:05:57.810]what do you do to get unstuck?
- [00:05:59.130]So what are you doing right now to get unstuck?
- [00:06:00.911]I mean,
- [00:06:02.188]literally the strategy for the entire semester
- [00:06:06.570]has just been get stuff done.
- [00:06:10.350]Like, it's not gonna be perfect.
- [00:06:12.090]It's not gonna be your best work.
- [00:06:14.190]You're just knocking stuff off your to-do list
- [00:06:17.280]in order to keep forward momentum
- [00:06:22.080]because that's kind of what
- [00:06:25.320]moving through that stuckness feels like.
- [00:06:28.020]Right, particularly when we're talking about teaching,
- [00:06:30.900]service, research, all of that combined
- [00:06:34.140]like it's just a matter of, you know,
- [00:06:37.170]I'd list out what I needed to get done in my week
- [00:06:40.410]and just keep chipping away at those items.
- [00:06:48.000]Here's what I found.
- [00:06:49.200]Oh, there's what you found.
- [00:06:51.360]The key to efficiency mind tools, oh, Siri,
- [00:06:55.380]not listening to us at all.
- [00:06:57.150]Shouldn't be worried about that at all.
- [00:06:59.760]What's going on?
- [00:07:02.400]Right now it's looking like,
- [00:07:04.800]so that's like being stuck, right?
- [00:07:06.810]Like you're kind of in this.
- [00:07:09.270]That's a version of stuck.
- [00:07:11.730]My version of stuck that when I came up with this topic
- [00:07:15.420]is partially that because I'm often over scheduled,
- [00:07:19.320]which is kind of at the heart of this.
- [00:07:22.109]You do love over scheduling.
- [00:07:22.942]I do love over scheduling.
- [00:07:23.970]If his blocks in his calendar are not overlapping,
- [00:07:26.490]he is not happy.
- [00:07:28.500]But eh, for me, what stuck feels like sometimes
- [00:07:33.570]is that paralysis of I have so much to do,
- [00:07:38.100]and I need to find a way out of this maze
- [00:07:42.720]because I have so many obligations,
- [00:07:44.550]which seems reasonable
- [00:07:46.260]as those paper cuts were showing up occasionally.
- [00:07:49.530]But there are moments in time, end of semester sometimes
- [00:07:52.710]or other reporting times for grants, things like that,
- [00:07:56.160]where suddenly you are facing the fact
- [00:07:58.920]that when it all comes together,
- [00:08:01.380]it is more than any one person can handle.
- [00:08:04.290]Yeah.
- [00:08:05.393]And so there's that sense, that rise in anxiety
- [00:08:09.840]and that sense of, you know, what would be a good choice?
- [00:08:13.075]Spending some hours watching Netflix or something else.
- [00:08:18.750]Or building a time machine.
- [00:08:19.860]Or building a time machine.
- [00:08:20.820]Going back in time.
- [00:08:21.750]And saying no.
- [00:08:22.770]Yeah.
- [00:08:24.660]So when you do get to this,
- [00:08:26.820]when Elon Musk builds this machine, that's your solution.
- [00:08:30.233]I mean, but didn't, didn't his last like shuttle
- [00:08:33.600]just explode or something a couple of weeks ago?
- [00:08:35.490]Like, do I trust this man?
- [00:08:37.290]Like the blue check Twitter thing, like, I feel like.
- [00:08:40.800]He's stuck.
- [00:08:41.670]I don't understand.
- [00:08:43.590]He needs to watch.
- [00:08:44.670]The Elon obsession.
- [00:08:46.980]He's got a lot of money.
- [00:08:48.090]He had one or two good ideas.
- [00:08:51.113]We are, we are obsessed with people
- [00:08:52.590]that have a lot of money, but he is also stuck.
- [00:08:55.050]So talk about how you get unstuck.
- [00:08:57.720]Okay, so one of the things that I am proud of myself
- [00:09:03.600]for doing this semester was I avoided paralysis
- [00:09:08.190]by getting my list done.
- [00:09:12.690]Like getting that listed out, moving it over.
- [00:09:17.040]I typically organize myself in a bullet journal.
- [00:09:21.840]So shout out to Ryder Carroll for that whole system
- [00:09:26.991]of really thinking about how to track the work
- [00:09:29.700]that you're trying to get done and giving yourself
- [00:09:34.350]some frameworks for getting it done in.
- [00:09:36.793]It resulted in like I essentially have been working
- [00:09:41.820]from eight in the morning until five or six at night,
- [00:09:48.180]sometimes seven, sometimes eight.
- [00:09:50.250]On teaching days I'm up early because my working hours are,
- [00:09:55.710]I teach back to back.
- [00:09:57.615]Yeah.
- [00:09:58.631]Right, so like that takes a ton of time.
- [00:10:00.570]All of my classes are kind of new-ish preps.
- [00:10:06.780]There's elements that are big and new for all of them.
- [00:10:11.040]And so keeping up with that list has been helpful.
- [00:10:17.340]Like I don't feel like I haven't gotten stuff done.
- [00:10:21.450]I just, there's not enough time in the day
- [00:10:27.780]literally to maintain some healthy-ish boundaries
- [00:10:35.190]and live a life.
- [00:10:41.850]So some things are just going to fall apart,
- [00:10:44.370]and coming to grips with that.
- [00:10:47.340]Yeah, and so I think that in the short term,
- [00:10:49.890]it's managing time.
- [00:10:51.750]I use the system from Michael Hyatt for example
- [00:10:57.535]that really talks about what are the three things
- [00:10:59.190]you must accomplish today.
- [00:11:01.140]In a way, so you still have your lists,
- [00:11:03.780]but you think about what do I have to get done today?
- [00:11:06.960]And if I get those three things done,
- [00:11:09.390]I feel like my day was successful
- [00:11:11.640]even though I probably did another 20 things
- [00:11:14.190]that may have been on my list.
- [00:11:15.570]But that helps you sense the progress
- [00:11:18.330]and also prioritize early and make sure
- [00:11:21.750]that you can get through the day through these hard periods.
- [00:11:24.810]But I think the most important thing is after that period,
- [00:11:27.897]and the beauty and the difficulty of working academic lives
- [00:11:31.530]is that we do have seasons,
- [00:11:33.840]and we do have beginnings and ends.
- [00:11:35.640]And those tend to be stressful in different ways.
- [00:11:39.630]But that gives us the opportunity to also rethink.
- [00:11:41.970]So after that period, the rethinking of what has to change
- [00:11:46.470]so I don't find myself exactly back in that spot
- [00:11:49.274]next year this time, right?
- [00:11:52.170]In your case, it's probably maybe not taking an,
- [00:11:55.876]being over committed to teaching, right?
- [00:12:01.920]Is like thinking, was that last time,
- [00:12:04.350]was that a good choice?
- [00:12:05.730]If I make that choice, how do I have to organize my life
- [00:12:08.550]so it doesn't, so I manage other commitments
- [00:12:12.351]if I do take this extra commitment on?
- [00:12:15.270]And being, I think for me too
- [00:12:17.220]the other thing that I would do differently next time
- [00:12:20.550]is reconfigure.
- [00:12:24.750]Like why are things being done
- [00:12:26.160]the way that they're being done
- [00:12:28.006]outside of this overage, right?
- [00:12:29.400]Like that's.
- [00:12:30.233]Yeah.
- [00:12:32.063]That's another piece.
- [00:12:33.240]Yes.
- [00:12:34.609]But like, I think that prioritizing,
- [00:12:35.910]as you were talking about like the,
- [00:12:38.280]there's the idea of you eat the frog every morning.
- [00:12:43.230]Have you heard that?
- [00:12:44.130]No.
- [00:12:45.769]So like.
- [00:12:46.772]I try not to eat frogs, they're not kosher.
- [00:12:48.240]I mean that is true.
- [00:12:49.530]I don't want to, no, let's not do that.
- [00:12:51.930]But like, it's that notion of
- [00:12:55.410]you do your most difficult thing.
- [00:12:57.960]Yeah.
- [00:12:58.793]First thing in the morning when you're most able to focus,
- [00:13:04.500]and you just get it done, and then it's off your checklist.
- [00:13:11.010]And you feel better.
- [00:13:11.843]And you feel like you've accomplished something
- [00:13:13.920]which then leads to like, you know,
- [00:13:16.500]success happens to successful people, right?
- [00:13:19.290]Like if you're already successful,
- [00:13:20.820]chances are you're going to engage
- [00:13:22.170]in more successful practices later.
- [00:13:24.240]And so if you accomplish that one hard thing,
- [00:13:26.760]then it just kind of snowballs versus putting it off all day
- [00:13:31.170]and you procrastinate all day around that one item,
- [00:13:34.260]and it just doesn't get done.
- [00:13:36.101]And one thing that I see a lot of graduate students doing,
- [00:13:40.500]mostly because they're still young,
- [00:13:42.330]is thinking about late at night kind of activity.
- [00:13:47.670]It's like I am most productive late at night.
- [00:13:49.980]So they don't, to borrow that phrase,
- [00:13:53.280]they don't eat that frog early in the morning
- [00:13:55.020]or in the morning.
- [00:13:57.289]They wait till it's late and then they're anxious.
- [00:13:59.250]They procrastinated all day, and I will tell you
- [00:14:02.310]that as you get a little bit older,
- [00:14:05.310]those late nights and pulling them through time after time
- [00:14:08.520]does not work as a solution.
- [00:14:10.650]They just don't happen anymore.
- [00:14:12.810]Like, when did I get middle-aged?
- [00:14:14.100]When did we get middle-aged?
- [00:14:16.230]I mean, at least you have kids.
- [00:14:17.580]Yes.
- [00:14:19.064]And a wife.
- [00:14:19.897]So I have somebody to blame.
- [00:14:20.730]Is that you're saying?
- [00:14:21.563]No, I'm saying you have markers of adulthood
- [00:14:22.740]versus I'm just out here living my best like teenage life
- [00:14:26.580]with a disposable income.
- [00:14:28.950]You would think I would drive something more exciting
- [00:14:30.690]than a Subaru.
- [00:14:32.028]You know?
- [00:14:33.330]Subaru is exciting.
- [00:14:34.710]Have you driven a Subaru?
- [00:14:36.210]Not anytime recently.
- [00:14:37.890]Okay, so that's where,
- [00:14:39.204]that's where that statement's coming from.
- [00:14:40.770]It is a practical car, Guy.
- [00:14:43.350]It is a practical car.
- [00:14:45.030]All right.
- [00:14:46.325]I once went on a date where someone was like,
- [00:14:47.610]oh, I can't date you.
- [00:14:48.600]You drive a station wagon.
- [00:14:51.270]That's the kind of car it is.
- [00:14:53.670]Yeah, I can see that.
- [00:14:55.170]Just throwing that out there.
- [00:14:57.180]So back to be getting unstuck.
- [00:14:59.520]So try to get it done.
- [00:15:02.160]Have a list of what happens.
- [00:15:04.440]I think that thinking about what must happen today
- [00:15:07.680]has been, when I get to this bottlenecks,
- [00:15:10.380]because I do a lot of, I do a lot of grant work.
- [00:15:14.040]There's always bottlenecks,
- [00:15:15.270]and suddenly everybody wants a report from you.
- [00:15:17.910]So managing your time then becomes critical,
- [00:15:20.940]and of course then the thinking backwards is
- [00:15:23.190]how do I prevent this?
- [00:15:24.330]This is for me the most important thing
- [00:15:26.100]is how do I prevent this from happening,
- [00:15:28.260]or as I feel it happening. I used to,
- [00:15:32.040]I may have talked about this in a previous episode,
- [00:15:33.990]I'm not sure, but I used to do this moment,
- [00:15:37.350]at least once a year,
- [00:15:38.220]sometimes once a semester where we would sit to breakfast,
- [00:15:41.190]Sarah and I and say, and I would say,
- [00:15:43.890]here is everything I'm doing.
- [00:15:46.020]What am I taking off my plate?
- [00:15:48.240]So making that decision to start saying no to things
- [00:15:51.600]and start saying what is really important to me,
- [00:15:54.480]to my ability to be influential and to my career
- [00:15:57.450]and what is just stuff I'm doing
- [00:15:59.820]because I'm trying to be helpful
- [00:16:01.500]or I'm trying to support somebody else.
- [00:16:04.440]And it's great to support other people.
- [00:16:06.180]And right now as a full professor,
- [00:16:07.470]I do a lot of that and I enjoy that.
- [00:16:09.300]But early in your career and when you're a graduate student,
- [00:16:11.910]you have to make sure I'm doing the things I need to do
- [00:16:15.570]for me to become a professional,
- [00:16:17.370]for me to be able to be successful.
- [00:16:19.080]Because if you are not successful,
- [00:16:21.030]all that support you gave other people is not,
- [00:16:24.330]that's not worth it.
- [00:16:25.800]You can, if you take care of yourself in your career,
- [00:16:29.130]you will be able to support people for a long time.
- [00:16:32.430]If you're not gonna be able to graduate with your doctorate,
- [00:16:35.190]you're not gonna be able to get that job
- [00:16:37.200]or you're not gonna be able to get tenure,
- [00:16:39.600]then you're not gonna be able to support people.
- [00:16:41.520]So even if you are thinking about other people
- [00:16:43.400]as a primary concern in your life,
- [00:16:45.660]you still have to get there yourself first.
- [00:16:48.720]And so really thinking,
- [00:16:51.120]I had a graduate who's now teaching at another university,
- [00:16:55.770]and I meet with her about once or twice a year.
- [00:16:59.280]And one of the things I told her about teaching is,
- [00:17:02.769]and we talked about teaching is teaching is great,
- [00:17:06.240]but at the end of every semester think what didn't work?
- [00:17:09.270]What is too much?
- [00:17:10.470]How do I pare this down so I can manage?
- [00:17:13.260]Because she started her career with a class that had,
- [00:17:16.830]that was reduced from six credits
- [00:17:18.930]and all the time that it contains to three credits
- [00:17:22.890]without taking anything out of the syllabus.
- [00:17:25.470]That's a classic, this is how you get stuck
- [00:17:28.530]because you're not getting paid for all of that time.
- [00:17:31.950]You are not being supported for all of that time.
- [00:17:34.290]Students aren't, but you are asking for all of this.
- [00:17:37.050]This is not manageable.
- [00:17:38.730]So you've gotta rethink.
- [00:17:39.900]So use those times, I think, in the academic year
- [00:17:44.225]and in the semester to rethink what you've done
- [00:17:46.590]when you are still feeling the pain, right?
- [00:17:49.470]This is the moment that you need to recall
- [00:17:51.900]is that stuck moment to think back and say,
- [00:17:55.410]I need to not be in this position again.
- [00:17:58.108]Yeah, well, and so my previous strategy and/or tactic
- [00:18:04.770]for getting through with the to-do list,
- [00:18:07.170]just really when things are bottle necking.
- [00:18:09.120]So like three, four weeks ago,
- [00:18:12.810]that was my primary strategy to get unstuck.
- [00:18:16.800]And kind of where I'm at now really works
- [00:18:21.000]with that idea of there's a light at the end of the tunnel
- [00:18:27.210]one, and I can think forward a little bit.
- [00:18:35.580]I can actually engage in some proactive planning
- [00:18:38.130]versus always having to be in the moment
- [00:18:42.209]checking stuff of my to-do list and putting out fires
- [00:18:47.880]and et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:18:49.680]So now there's a little bit of an opportunity to plan ahead,
- [00:18:54.420]and that's been really helpful
- [00:18:59.520]in terms of getting out of kind of a stuck mindset
- [00:19:05.220]because of how much time I've had to invest in teaching,
- [00:19:10.590]how much time I've been able to dedicate to writing,
- [00:19:14.460]how much time I've been able to dedicate to service,
- [00:19:17.943]et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:19:19.320]Like thinking through strategically
- [00:19:22.230]where have I made inroads and particularly with teaching,
- [00:19:25.980]like what has been useful.
- [00:19:29.520]Because of my lack of time
- [00:19:30.900]I've had to figure out some more efficient ways
- [00:19:32.850]around teaching.
- [00:19:33.810]How do I wanna, how do I want to codify
- [00:19:37.230]what really worked well and what didn't?
- [00:19:39.720]What can I get rid of?
- [00:19:43.244]So that's actually been fairly reinvigorating
- [00:19:50.520]in terms of like finishing out the semester.
- [00:19:53.640]Not necessarily strong, but just finishing.
- [00:19:55.530]I just wanna finish right?
- [00:19:57.240]Like no one ever says I ran the race plus,
- [00:20:01.530]or I ran the race minus.
- [00:20:02.610]You ran the race, full stop.
- [00:20:04.560]That's, I just wanna finish, just wanna finish the semester.
- [00:20:08.940]So, but that has been super helpful
- [00:20:12.330]in terms of also setting up, so it's spring semester,
- [00:20:17.430]setting up what is the work that I want to be doing
- [00:20:24.150]for this coming year?
- [00:20:25.860]Like what is most important to me as a professional,
- [00:20:32.520]as a member of the department,
- [00:20:33.720]as a member of the university,
- [00:20:36.120]as a member of the larger field,
- [00:20:38.760]what's the work that I want to be doing?
- [00:20:44.550]And how do I get that done?
- [00:20:45.750]Yeah, and I think that early in your career,
- [00:20:48.510]especially as a graduate student,
- [00:20:50.370]everything feels like an opportunity
- [00:20:52.380]because everything is an opportunity
- [00:20:55.004]because you're new to this and it's all new,
- [00:20:58.050]and you don't know what's hiding behind some opportunity.
- [00:21:01.410]But there is that point where you have to start remembering
- [00:21:04.890]that at the end of the semester,
- [00:21:06.210]if you're a graduate student,
- [00:21:07.590]you're going to have all of these papers
- [00:21:09.540]and projects that are due.
- [00:21:10.890]If you're young faculty members, at the end of the semester,
- [00:21:13.890]there's going to be all of these papers
- [00:21:16.620]that you need to read, all of these assignments.
- [00:21:19.140]So how do you make sure that your other obligations
- [00:21:22.903]will not bring you back to a position where you're frozen?
- [00:21:26.541]One of the things I often say to young faculty members,
- [00:21:30.240]just remember that no matter,
- [00:21:32.790]and graduate students who are teaching,
- [00:21:35.025]every semester, at least in my living memory,
- [00:21:38.820]25 years in higher education,
- [00:21:41.010]every semester ends, and the grades are in,
- [00:21:44.404]and everybody survives.
- [00:21:46.980]At least the teaching part, the teaching and learning part.
- [00:21:49.800]So it feels like you're not gonna get there.
- [00:21:52.680]We all get there.
- [00:21:53.820]There are shortcuts and solutions
- [00:21:56.220]and ways to get there more effectively.
- [00:21:59.430]But again, remember that moment of pressure
- [00:22:02.880]because I think that is the key to not getting stuck
- [00:22:05.550]in the same position later.
- [00:22:08.160]If you don't take that reflective moment,
- [00:22:10.050]then you are bound to repeat it.
- [00:22:12.180]And there's the third part of, the third kind of stuck,
- [00:22:15.900]which you kind of described but not fully.
- [00:22:17.940]And that is the frantic stuck.
- [00:22:19.410]You're always doing something.
- [00:22:20.730]You feel like your time is full,
- [00:22:22.385]but you're really scurrying around trying to put out fires
- [00:22:26.340]and never completing anything,
- [00:22:28.260]never productively getting to a point
- [00:22:31.860]where the tasks are done, and you can move on
- [00:22:33.600]and you can relax,
- [00:22:34.920]and it gives you a sense of forward movement.
- [00:22:36.870]But really without that reflective moment of saying,
- [00:22:39.360]how do I not end up here again?
- [00:22:41.520]You're gonna be back there because we do.
- [00:22:44.070]I mean it is the same principle
- [00:22:47.340]as the closet principle, right?
- [00:22:49.680]If you have a closet, you're gonna fill it.
- [00:22:53.910]Just hopefully not with myself
- [00:22:55.905]cause, you know, been there, done that,
- [00:22:56.738]don't wanna do that again.
- [00:22:58.320]Not that closet.
- [00:22:59.370]But you have a closet, you're gonna fill it.
- [00:23:01.440]Wait, wait, what kinda house do you live in
- [00:23:03.090]where your bedroom has more than one closet?
- [00:23:05.100]Does your bedroom have more than one closet?
- [00:23:06.540]Yeah.
- [00:23:08.044]Wow, you fancy.
- [00:23:09.047]I am fancy.
- [00:23:09.880]I'm super fancy.
- [00:23:10.713]You are super fancy.
- [00:23:12.510]We have two closets.
- [00:23:14.490]And this is where I stop feeling like an adult.
- [00:23:17.250]I only have one closet, and my.
- [00:23:18.900]You need only one.
- [00:23:20.305]How do you need two?
- [00:23:22.360]You need one.
- [00:23:23.193]I would just like to have it.
- [00:23:24.450]Oh, just to have it, okay.
- [00:23:26.343]Why not?
- [00:23:27.825]I think it can be arranged.
- [00:23:29.010]No it can't.
- [00:23:30.044]But then you get stuck because there's too many clothes.
- [00:23:32.541]I mean, I am running into a problem
- [00:23:34.440]where I actually have too few clothes.
- [00:23:38.400]Is it a problem though?
- [00:23:40.650]I mean, how many t-shirts,
- [00:23:42.240]how many shirts do you have, Guy?
- [00:23:44.550]In the comments tell us.
- [00:23:46.200]Yes.
- [00:23:47.251]How many shirts has Guy worn on this podcast.
- [00:23:51.720]I have.
- [00:23:53.250]If you're watching on YouTube.
- [00:23:55.923]I don't know, I have maybe 20, I don't know.
- [00:24:01.650]Probably more.
- [00:24:03.660]But I've just edited.
- [00:24:04.920]I've just gone through editing because I felt stuck.
- [00:24:07.830]It's like I have this closet,
- [00:24:09.360]and there are a lot of shirts in there,
- [00:24:10.770]but I'm wearing a very small sub section.
- [00:24:13.440]Why do I have these other shirts from other times in my life
- [00:24:17.550]before I got fancy and shiny? (both laughing)
- [00:24:24.450]So maybe I need two closets.
- [00:24:26.010]Maybe you do.
- [00:24:27.300]But probably not, there's no room.
- [00:24:29.735]Okay, so thinking about,
- [00:24:35.460]one of the other things that's been really tricky for me
- [00:24:39.630]is when I took on this overage, I really did plan for it.
- [00:24:44.903]Yeah.
- [00:24:46.540]Like I time blocked.
- [00:24:50.280]I did everything I was supposed to.
- [00:24:52.530]And one of the things that has stood out to me is
- [00:24:58.642]because my time has been so valuable
- [00:25:08.220]in terms of being able to get stuff done,
- [00:25:09.840]and I haven't fallen into that like I'm running frantic.
- [00:25:13.110]I haven't fallen into the frantic piece.
- [00:25:15.600]And I think part of that is just like
- [00:25:18.450]I know the semester is going to end.
- [00:25:20.760]Like I had a paper chain at home on my window
- [00:25:25.080]where I'd like, oh look, class day.
- [00:25:27.480]Cut that off.
- [00:25:29.300]Oh, look, that's how many are left?
- [00:25:30.133]Like it's down to, it's down to two now.
- [00:25:34.950]So I did everything right.
- [00:25:37.680]Yeah.
- [00:25:39.179]In terms of like that pre-planning
- [00:25:40.920]and thinking through like what times I would need
- [00:25:44.242]to do a good portion of stuff,
- [00:25:46.920]but the thing that I did not plan for
- [00:25:51.270]would be thinking through demands on my time
- [00:26:01.290]that didn't actually result
- [00:26:03.450]in any kind of meaningful work getting done.
- [00:26:07.320]Yeah.
- [00:26:08.310]Right like there's,
- [00:26:10.530]I was reading some research about effective meetings,
- [00:26:14.460]and it takes the average person two and a half hours
- [00:26:18.750]to recover from a bad hour long meeting.
- [00:26:22.359]Yeah.
- [00:26:23.830]And I felt that this semester.
- [00:26:26.940]Yeah, and my strategy,
- [00:26:28.830]and again as a graduate student,
- [00:26:30.810]and me, I'm a faculty member,
- [00:26:32.010]you have very little,
- [00:26:34.260]you have very little impact on the quality
- [00:26:37.170]of most of the meetings you will find yourself in.
- [00:26:39.960]So at that point, the biggest thing you can do
- [00:26:43.140]is not volunteer for meetings you don't need to be in.
- [00:26:45.600]That is the one thing you can say is, I simply can't.
- [00:26:48.390]I'm sorry, I can't.
- [00:26:50.400]But when you start designing meetings,
- [00:26:52.680]I put a portion of almost every meeting that I have
- [00:26:56.280]into executing on that meeting.
- [00:26:58.140]So if there's five emails that need to be written
- [00:27:01.080]as a result of this meeting,
- [00:27:02.340]they get written during the meeting, not after the meeting.
- [00:27:05.550]This is, the meeting is not to produce more work.
- [00:27:07.980]It's to resolve the work that needs to be done.
- [00:27:10.961]Right.
- [00:27:11.794]It's a different way to think about it.
- [00:27:13.170]But for me that that's a way to do it.
- [00:27:15.480]And those are the invisible things that you start noticing
- [00:27:18.780]when you don't have time.
- [00:27:20.160]Right.
- [00:27:21.501]In a general way, if you have a little bit of time,
- [00:27:24.300]you spend some time on a meeting that's not very useful,
- [00:27:27.030]and you just write it off and play video games
- [00:27:30.570]on your devices maybe.
- [00:27:33.600]Not saying that happened to me.
- [00:27:36.036]How's your Animal Crossing island?
- [00:27:39.360]And so there, but when you are tight for time
- [00:27:44.490]and every minute matters,
- [00:27:46.350]you start feeling those inefficiencies in other ways.
- [00:27:50.220]I did wanna mention something.
- [00:27:51.960]If you are seriously stuck,
- [00:27:53.820]there are really good strategies.
- [00:27:56.910]I always recommend if you are a graduate student,
- [00:27:59.730]if you are a faculty member,
- [00:28:00.870]most universities will have the ability to provide therapy.
- [00:28:05.190]And if you're really stuck, and you're feeling this
- [00:28:07.440]over a long period of time,
- [00:28:08.700]I highly recommend using those resources.
- [00:28:11.280]They're there for a reason.
- [00:28:12.600]They're there to help you.
- [00:28:13.890]Working with somebody else often helps get you unstuck
- [00:28:18.300]or realize that you need to let go of some things
- [00:28:22.230]and help you reframe.
- [00:28:24.000]So that's really, really useful.
- [00:28:25.560]And I want you to use those resources, use them.
- [00:28:28.500]They're there for a reason.
- [00:28:29.850]And those professionals,
- [00:28:31.710]even better than professionals
- [00:28:33.390]that are outside universities,
- [00:28:35.160]you are the kind of people that they meet,
- [00:28:37.470]so they know what graduate students go through.
- [00:28:39.879]They know what young faculty go through.
- [00:28:42.840]So they're able to provide some supports
- [00:28:46.200]that maybe a therapist
- [00:28:49.290]that you're working with from somewhere else
- [00:28:51.180]is a little bit less able to understand.
- [00:28:54.210]It doesn't mean if you have your own therapist
- [00:28:56.340]and you're comfortable with them, don't change.
- [00:28:58.350]But what I'm saying is,
- [00:28:59.610]if you're feeling these feelings for the first time
- [00:29:01.740]because you're a graduate student or young faculty member,
- [00:29:04.230]use those resources.
- [00:29:05.370]They're there for a reason.
- [00:29:06.600]Well, and I think that that highlights
- [00:29:08.700]a really important like figure out the nature
- [00:29:11.760]of what's the cause of your stuckness.
- [00:29:14.820]Yeah.
- [00:29:15.653]Right like my stuckness is my own bad decision making.
- [00:29:21.150]It's not necessarily anything connected to anxiety
- [00:29:26.190]or anything else.
- [00:29:28.050]So like, like I haven't,
- [00:29:31.650]like my therapist knows that I'm busy.
- [00:29:33.810]Yeah.
- [00:29:34.999]Like busy AF and like running around
- [00:29:37.620]getting stuff checked off my list, la la la la la.
- [00:29:40.530]But knows that this stuckness, this like being,
- [00:29:48.300]there's not a sense of Ennui, right?
- [00:29:50.280]Like this, like, oh, I just don't,
- [00:29:53.880]I can't force myself to do anything.
- [00:29:56.550]Like that's a really different kind of experience.
- [00:30:01.500]It's a really different kind of stuck, right?
- [00:30:05.250]Like what happens when you can't power through?
- [00:30:09.750]Yeah.
- [00:30:10.583]Right like I've been through this,
- [00:30:13.320]I've been in this profession for long enough.
- [00:30:16.440]Ugh, that feels weird to say,
- [00:30:19.830]Oh, for long enough to know that yes, this semester will end
- [00:30:23.202]and ultimately it will be fine.
- [00:30:27.300]Yeah.
- [00:30:28.583]Like, no lasting damage has been done.
- [00:30:30.900]It doesn't feel great as you're realizing that, oh, look at,
- [00:30:34.950]look at, look at the field
- [00:30:36.660]in which I have broken all the plates that I was spinning,
- [00:30:39.150]but look at those eight that I still have spinning, right?
- [00:30:41.520]Like I can manage that
- [00:30:44.119]better than I probably could five years ago.
- [00:30:48.990]I can manage that better than I could
- [00:30:50.520]definitely 10 years ago.
- [00:30:52.260]But if it were to the point where I just laid in bed all day
- [00:31:01.230]and was like, oh, I have so much to do.
- [00:31:03.661]Like that would be a moment
- [00:31:04.920]that I would need to go find some help, right?
- [00:31:10.080]Yeah.
- [00:31:10.950]Like to use, I grew up in Michigan.
- [00:31:13.350]So winters crazy, right?
- [00:31:16.260]And when you get stuck in the winter,
- [00:31:21.000]you put chains on your tires,
- [00:31:22.560]like that was a thing that we did.
- [00:31:25.200]Metaphorically, if I can't get the chains on my tires
- [00:31:27.750]to get some traction moving
- [00:31:30.270]that tells me that I need to go do something else, right?
- [00:31:36.060]And so deciding what's the nature of your stuckness,
- [00:31:42.150]I think is important.
- [00:31:43.500]Is it this kind of,
- [00:31:46.299]are there some things that you need to work through
- [00:31:50.310]in terms of just feeling distracted and unable to focus?
- [00:31:57.060]Or is it like literally you've just over committed yourself,
- [00:32:01.800]and you're gonna break some plates,
- [00:32:03.759]and you need to be okay with that?
- [00:32:06.000]Does that make sense?
- [00:32:06.833]Yes, that does make sense.
- [00:32:08.550]Although, so for me, a little bit different
- [00:32:14.370]than you're thinking about this I think.
- [00:32:16.230]For me, therapy can also help at that moment
- [00:32:20.070]where you need to admit that some breaks,
- [00:32:22.110]that some plates are gonna break.
- [00:32:24.480]That sometimes having a conversation with a therapist
- [00:32:27.900]helps you let go, so if you're finding that moment hard,
- [00:32:32.760]that can be really helpful in supporting and saying,
- [00:32:36.570]yeah, well, everything that you've described
- [00:32:40.350]will lead to that.
- [00:32:41.220]Now sometimes you have good mentors or friends
- [00:32:45.150]or people you can talk to that will help you
- [00:32:47.490]kind of process.
- [00:32:48.720]But sometimes, especially I think about graduate students
- [00:32:52.050]who may be in a new, or new faculty members
- [00:32:54.930]who are in a new city,
- [00:32:56.190]they don't have that social fabric that can support them
- [00:32:58.920]in the same way.
- [00:33:00.450]And so you suddenly find yourself needing that ear.
- [00:33:05.154]You can journal.
- [00:33:09.060]You can use other supports, and you can go see a therapist
- [00:33:13.770]even if it's for a few meetings just to help you process.
- [00:33:19.260]It's been an interesting experience
- [00:33:20.940]in terms of like setting boundaries, right?
- [00:33:24.840]And that idea that when you set boundaries
- [00:33:29.370]and sometimes there are boundaries that you set,
- [00:33:31.878]sometimes there are boundaries that are set for you.
- [00:33:34.719]There's going to always be some level of disappointment.
- [00:33:38.370]Right, whether it's you being disappointed
- [00:33:40.950]for allowing your boundaries to be crossed by someone,
- [00:33:44.970]or whether it's someone's disappointment in you
- [00:33:49.170]that you are not giving up your boundary.
- [00:33:53.010]You're not taking down your boundary
- [00:33:54.480]in order to accommodate what the ask is.
- [00:33:57.570]And being okay with that disappointment is probably
- [00:34:10.920]like if I have a superpower, that might be it.
- [00:34:15.030]Like I'm fairly okay
- [00:34:16.680]with a certain level of disappointment in me.
- [00:34:23.357]I have not been in the past.
- [00:34:26.580]I've learned to be very okay with that.
- [00:34:29.190]I struggle with disappointing other people
- [00:34:31.830]because there's a certain part of me
- [00:34:33.570]that is very much a people pleaser,
- [00:34:35.280]and I want to make people happy.
- [00:34:37.860]But I have learned to let go of that
- [00:34:40.080]and to know that not everybody's gonna love me.
- [00:34:43.170]Most people are gonna love me.
- [00:34:45.138]You like it when they do.
- [00:34:46.378]I do like it when they do, but I'm perfectly fine.
- [00:34:48.000]I've learned it's never going to be like that.
- [00:34:50.070]And there's going to be friction,
- [00:34:51.720]and not everybody's going to love everything that we do.
- [00:34:55.260]And when we teach, our goal is to teach
- [00:34:57.563]not for our students to love us.
- [00:34:59.550]I mean, if they love us, it's a bonus,
- [00:35:01.557]and it helps make things easier.
- [00:35:04.560]But it's not a prerequisite.
- [00:35:06.060]And so I've learned to let go,
- [00:35:09.240]and I've become really good at letting go of the semester
- [00:35:12.960]when it's over, and it's a hard semester
- [00:35:14.850]where I've over committed, I've learned to let it go
- [00:35:16.950]and say that semester has happened,
- [00:35:19.110]and a new one will come right after it,
- [00:35:21.480]and we will have a chance to do it better.
- [00:35:23.700]Coming up, it's coming up.
- [00:35:25.080]But I feel like that notion of,
- [00:35:30.300]and particularly in teaching, we cleave to that idea of
- [00:35:34.517]oh, I can't disappoint anyone so hard.
- [00:35:37.320]Yeah.
- [00:35:38.153]That that could be something I could see like
- [00:35:40.720]get some help around that particular issue.
- [00:35:47.918]Yeah.
- [00:35:49.410]That doesn't mean that I'm like off
- [00:35:52.080]and disappointing people left and right.
- [00:35:54.316]No that is not the goal.
- [00:35:55.918]Like here's a disappointment for you.
- [00:35:57.240]A disappointment for you, a disappointment for you.
- [00:35:58.650]I'm just disappointing.
- [00:36:02.220]That says so much about my dating life though.
- [00:36:04.470]Oh.
- [00:36:06.016]That I'm just disappointing.
- [00:36:06.849]I drive a station wagon.
- [00:36:08.670]See that call back.
- [00:36:09.630]Yeah, nice.
- [00:36:10.463]Yeah, that was good.
- [00:36:11.550]That was good.
- [00:36:12.870]Yeah.
- [00:36:14.312]All right.
- [00:36:15.570]It's been, it's been a session.
- [00:36:18.480]It's been a session.
- [00:36:19.980]Will you mail me my bill?
- [00:36:21.000]Will you check with my insurance first?
- [00:36:22.980]How does this work?
- [00:36:23.880]We have the same insurance,
- [00:36:25.230]so you know what you're up against.
- [00:36:26.447]We do, but yes, that is a complicated one.
- [00:36:29.940]So this is,
- [00:36:31.357]But still use the services.
- [00:36:32.190]There's a reason we have insurance.
- [00:36:33.330]Still use the services,
- [00:36:35.256]like that is part of your compensation.
- [00:36:38.490]Yes, use it.
- [00:36:39.323]Therefore, you should be using it.
- [00:36:42.870]Just saying.
- [00:36:43.980]Take advantage of all of the compensatory policies
- [00:36:48.461]that are available to you.
- [00:36:51.030]So, yeah.
- [00:36:53.520]Semester is winding down.
- [00:36:55.890]Winding down.
- [00:36:56.723]Two and a half weeks.
- [00:36:58.200]Yeah.
- [00:36:59.880]I hope this hasn't been construed as,
- [00:37:01.980]the one thing I can't kvetch about.
- [00:37:03.690]Yes.
- [00:37:04.860]Are, I have to say that my students have been amazing.
- [00:37:07.363]So if you're hearing this TACT 311, 313 TACT 302
- [00:37:12.461]and TACT 989, you have been amazing.
- [00:37:17.190]Like (blowing kiss) chef's kiss.
- [00:37:19.410]So smart, super great teachers in practice,
- [00:37:22.530]super great teachers in training.
- [00:37:24.120]I cannot complain about that.
- [00:37:26.365]What I can complain about and have been complaining about
- [00:37:30.030]for the last what, half hour?
- [00:37:33.390]Or so.
- [00:37:34.440]Just the sheer amount of crap that I have on my to-do list
- [00:37:37.650]that's left me with a feeling of just being stuck.
- [00:37:40.080]However, I'm in a point now
- [00:37:41.340]where like I've known it's going to end,
- [00:37:47.446]and now I see it.
- [00:37:48.960]Yes, the light.
- [00:37:51.360]And that has been delightful.
- [00:37:55.140]Like it's this nice feeling of getting a little,
- [00:37:58.860]getting a little unstuck in terms of like the morass
- [00:38:03.360]of a to-do, a never ending to-do list.
- [00:38:06.330]So that's exciting.
- [00:38:07.230]So summer is coming.
- [00:38:09.270]Let's not talk about summer yet.
- [00:38:10.440]I can barely think past Friday.
- [00:38:12.561]All right.
- [00:38:14.670]But if you're stuck, there are ways out, and hopefully,
- [00:38:20.970]hopefully this has been somewhat helpful
- [00:38:22.560]in terms of like thinking through some adaptations.
- [00:38:27.030]I'm trying to think of what the value added
- [00:38:28.560]of this has been, aside from a glimpse
- [00:38:32.130]inside of the craziness that is my head.
- [00:38:34.860]A glimpse at knowing that we're all experiencing this,
- [00:38:39.870]that you're not alone when you feel stuck
- [00:38:43.620]and a little bit crazy and sort of structured.
- [00:38:47.610]A little bit crazy?
- [00:38:48.450]A little bit.
- [00:38:49.784]A lot of crazy.
- [00:38:50.617]A lot of crazy, I think a lot.
- [00:38:51.480]It's all good.
- [00:38:52.470]It's fine, cause you know what?
- [00:38:53.610]The semester's ending.
- [00:38:55.238]Yes.
- [00:38:56.071]Two and a half weeks.
- [00:38:56.904]The semester is ending folks.
- [00:38:58.380](upbeat music)
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