Defensively Scheduling Your Way to Work-Life Balance
Using productivity tools to get away with doing less.
I’m an academic, and let me tell you, the academy doesn’t “get” work-life balance at all. If you want to be taken seriously as a professional intellectual, you aren’t supposed to complain about your workload, or express a desire to cut back on any responsibilities. After all, you are fortunate to be living a life of the mind. That means you don’t get to complain about being exploited.
In academia, faculty are constantly expected to join new initiatives and committees, and take on an ever-expanding array of administrative and mentorship duties, all while teaching a full course load and conducting research. Saying “yes”is the only way to show you care about the work. If you think students need more writing support, you must volunteer to be on the writing assessment committee. If you think first generation college students deserve mentors, you better sign up to become one. If you are a person of color, or you are LGBTQ, you better be willing to lead anti-bias workshops and attend meetings about diversity and inclusion.
This doesn’t just happen in academia, of course. I see it all the time in nonprofits and arts organizations, too. If you are lucky enough to be working in a job that is creatively or morally fulfilling…
