This episode is all about helping academics set clearer boundaries with their jobs.
Hello writers!
Well, by the time you hear this I’ll be on vacation for two weeks with my family.
Normally I would just re-release an earlier episode.
This time I decided to do something different and update an earlier episode about setting boundaries during the semester.
Episode 13 helped listeners figure out what to say no to and how to do it with grace and dignity—and hopefully while keeping all of your professional relationships intact!
So I’ve added on some more ideas to the original episode to create a new one!
I hope it helps as you look ahead to the fall semester.
So let’s get to it.
It’s nearly September. How are you feeling right now?
Most of you are probably looking at your calendars and stressing out about how little time there is left, right?
Let me guess, you’re either beating yourself up for not getting more writing done over the break.
And/or you’re getting worried about how you’re going to manage to fit writing in during the craziness of the upcoming semester.
Today’s episode is meant to help you figure out what to prioritize in your work.
I want you to keep your own mental, physical, and emotional health and well-being at the forefront. And this means SAYING NO to things that do not serve you.
When I talk about saying no to requests, I’m especially referring to service and committee work that can be extremely tiring and time-consuming.
Unfortunately, this kind of work tends to be less valued by institutions and academia in general.
But it can also refer to new research and writing projects that will require a lot of your focus and energy while you’re trying to complete what’s already on your plate.
What I’m going to talk about today pairs really well with Episode 3 that was called “Create Bulletproof Boundaries with Your Job.”
Listening to these together will help you make a solid plan for the next few months that will allow you to keep your own writing and life goals front and center.
Prioritizing your own needs—which sometimes could mean disappointing others—is the best way to ensure that you don’t burn yourself out by giving away too much of your precious time and energy.
I’ll be giving you four different strategies to help you assess whether or not to accept a new opportunity or obligation.
I’ll also give some examples of wording you can use in emails to gracefully and tactfully turn down requests that won’t benefit you much.
This is so important because you want to protect your precious time and energy while still maintaining healthy professional relationships.
And it’s a delicate balance.
Four Way to Assess Whether or Not to Do Something
So let’s talk about four ways of assessing whether you actually want to do something.
Strategy #1: Create a ‘NO’ Committee
The first way is something you may have heard of before, which is to create what’s called a “No Committee.”
This is especially useful for early scholars and junior faculty members who don’t necessarily have clear guidelines on what you can or should decline doing.
It’s also great for those of you who tend to overcommit to things because everything seems like a good opportunity at the time.
The concept of the No Committee was developed by Dr. Vilna Bashi Treitler, Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University.
(And I just want to note that between the time the first rendition of this episode aired until now, she has changed positions and institutions.)
It comes from this blogpost.
Let me start by reading a bit from the post so you can get a sense of why she created this concept.
Dr. Treitler writes, “I had said ‘yes’ to too many things for too long. Sure, all these opportunities sounded great when I was asked to do them, and the deadlines were so far into the future.
After a while, deadlines jam up upon one another in ways that couldn’t be anticipated at the time “yes” is being said.
I wanted to build a successful career, but I only slowly realized that instead I was probably building the shortcut to a cardiac unit.
I had to figure out a new approach to choosing among the opportunities that trickled my way as I went from graduate student to assistant-, associate-, and then full-professor.
I realized that I just could not be trusted to figure out what I should or should not be doing because everything looked like a good opportunity for networking or getting a line on the CV.
Lines on the CV are what we all want and need, right? We also need some limits.”
Okay, so what exactly is a No Committee, and how do you use it?
For Dr. Treitler, a No Committee is a group of 3 people you trust to ask for advice regarding any request you’re unsure about taking.
So here are her rules for creating a successful No Committee:
#1: Your committee must have an odd number of people, ideally three, so you always have a clear answer and majority vote.
#2: Choose committee members who have three qualities.
First, they must care deeply about your well-being.
Second, they must understand the academy and the people around you.
And third, they have to be able to keep things private.
And #3: Choose people who answer their email. (Because we all know folks who don’t, right?)
So how do you use a No Committee?
Dr. Treitler writes that when she receives a request, she emails her No Committee and describes the opportunity, gives any available info about what it entails, and lists out her reasons for saying yes or no.
Often, by the time she’s written out the email, she already has her answer.
But if she does get to the point of sending it, then she always takes their advice!
Strategy #2: Use the PEACE System
The second thing you can do to figure out whether you should say no to something is use what’s called the PEACE system, which was developed by Dr. Roxanne Donovan.
Dr. Donovan is a full professor and the founder of the company WellAcademic, which focuses on creating balance and well-being for women of color in the academy.
You should check out her website!
So how do you use the PEACE system?
Well, when you receive a work request, you can evaluate it by using the following process:
First, Pause. This means that you don’t say yes immediately. This is a reminder that you don’t need to react to other people’s urgency.
Some people will wait 24-48 hours to make a decision.
One mantra I often use during times like this is, “Other people’s urgency is not my urgency.”
Try it out for yourself!
Second, Explore. Figure out, what’s the time and energy commitment?
Ask around to other folks who have taken on this kind of work in the past.
How many meetings are required? How much focus might it take?
And because we constantly underestimate how long things will take, make sure to multiply that number by 2.5 times!
Third, Assess. Figure out whether it fits with your goals and values.
I talk a lot about values and the need to align our work and personal lives with these core qualities.
If you’d like to get a copy of a values exercise I use with my own clients, you can get it here.
But ultimately you need to consider whether this work is something that’s going to help you get to where you want to go—both in your career and in your personal development.
If not, then strongly reconsider taking it on.
Fourth, Consult—with your “No Committee.”
Remember that these are people who care about you, understand academia, and know your life and career priorities so they can weigh in on whether you are taking on too much.
And take their advice! There’s no purpose in having one of these committees if you don’t trust what they have to say.
And finally, Embrace—whatever answers come out.
Oftentimes, saying no means potentially disappointing someone.
But if this opportunity is not right for you, it’s better to disappoint someone now than to disappoint them much more later on when you need a long extension or want to back out altogether.
Strategy #3: Create an Academic Vision Statement
So now we get to the third strategy for assessing whether or not to take something on.
And this has to do with creating an Academic Mission Statement, a concept created by writing coach Cathy Mazak.
As she writes, “If you feel like you are constantly putting out fires, that you are reacting instead of acting when opportunities (and problems) come your way, then you need an Academic Mission Statement.”
It’s basically a sentence where you talk about what your research does and why it’s important to you.
Here’s the template she gives to create an Academic Mission Statement:
“I use [methodologies/theories] to study [population] [phenomenon] [context] in order to [change you want to see in the world].”
Cathy’s own mission statement is:
“I use ethnographic methods to study translanguaging in Puerto Rican university classrooms in order to normalize bilingual content learning and inform theories of bilingualism.”
So what would yours be?
What I really like is that you can use this statement as a guide to make decisions about what to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to.
When you get a new request, the question is not just about whether the work seems fulfilling or exciting or useful.
It becomes: will saying yes to this push my academic mission forward?
Cathy recommends that you revisit your academic mission statement every semester to make sure it’s still in line with the things you care about and want to achieve.
Strategy #4: “To Do” Comparison
And finally, we get to the fourth strategy for assessing whether or not to say no to a request.
This idea comes from Anton Pottegaard, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark whose website was referenced in a large Facebook group of women academics I’m a part of.
He’s got a list of eight practical tools to assist you in saying no.
Many of the strategies I’ve already described are on his list, but there’s one more that is useful to talk about.
He calls it the “to do” comparison.
His advice, “Before accepting a new project, take a look at your current projects and the list of (other) new ideas.
The new project might sound interesting, but is it more interesting/valuable than what you already have going on?
It should be, if you choose to pursue it, as your other projects will invariably suffer from the competition.”
In other words, don’t fall for the shiny objects syndrome!
I know so many folks who create new project after new project, spending copious amounts of time research design, gathering data, and analyzing it.
Then when it comes to actually writing up the results, they lose interest.
They write short conference papers or pieces of articles that they never fully flesh out.
It’s more interesting and exciting to move on to the next big idea—especially if it means working with other people you like and admire—so they shelve that paper and don’t go back to finish it later.
Does this sound like you?
How many unfinished papers do you have on the back burner?
It’s not uncommon for my clients to have 5 or 6 different papers that they always planned to go back to but didn’t.
I get it, writing is often the least fun part of the research process!
But we all know that it’s finished products that move your career forward and really create that internal sense of achievement.
So just know that taking on more new stuff means doing less on what you’ve already committed to.
How to Say No Tactfully
So now that you have these four different strategies, you need ways to tactfully turn down these requests.
My best advice is to keep a separate Word document with crafted statements specifically tailored to students, colleagues, and anyone else you regularly receive work requests from.
Then you can just cut and paste when the situation arises, saving yourself a lot of time and stress.
Here are some examples of quick ways to turn people down:
“This sounds like a really great opportunity, but I just can’t take on any additional commitments at this time.”
“I am in the middle of _________, ____________, and ___________ [fill in the blanks with your most status-enhancing and high-profile service commitments] and if I hope to get tenure, I’m unable to take on any additional service.”
Another one: “I’m not the best person for this, but some other people you could ask would be ______________.”
Or, you can try to negotiate, such as: “If you can find a way to eliminate one of my existing service obligations, I will consider your request.”
Here’s an example of a shorter full-length email provided by Dr. Loleen Berdahl, who sends out a newsletter with really helpful tips called “Academia Made Easier.”
Here’s her “Thanks, but no” message:
“It is nice of you to think of me! I have a number of university service and research project commitments on my plate right now, on top of my work as Executive Director, that have my schedule very full. Because of this, I am not taking on any new commitments at this time. Thank you for the invitation. I do appreciate it.”
And finally, one of my former colleagues wraps up her emails really nicely by writing the following:
“I regret to decline an opportunity as tempting as this. Please keep me in mind the next time an opportunity to contribute arises, and hopefully my plate will be a little less full.”
Summing It All Up
This episode has given four useful strategies to figure out what to say yes to, what you can say no to, and some ways to turn requests down with grace and dignity.
I’d just like to remind you that when you say no to something, you are also saying yes to yourself.
And if you tend to say yes to things to avoid disappointing others, a useful mantra you can use is: “I risk disappointing others in order to avoid disappointing myself.”
Because in the end, you’re the one who has to live with the consequences of your decisions.
So keep your own goals and well-being your main priorities as you move into the new academic year.
It’s easier said than done, but like anything in life, it’s a skill that can be honed over time.
I’ll talk to you again soon!