This is a guest post by Kevin Timpe, Jellema Chair of Christian Philosophy at Calvin College
My writing a post on how to say ‘no’ is roughly like my writing a post on how to drink less coffee. In some ways, I'm the last person that should do it given that I struggle with it so much. But I’m hoping that my own struggles (which, to be honest, continue) might provide some useful guidance or discussion.
I’m a pluralist about the kinds of scholarship we ought to engage in (e.g., for the academic guild, but also for the general public); the kinds of projects that people should engage in (e.g., I think that articles and books and edited collections and book reviews are all worth doing). As I tell my students when we discuss Augustine, most times we have to decide not between obviously good and bad choices, but between different good options. The trick is in figuring out how to weigh those goods properly, especially given their opportunity costs.
In terms of knowing what to do (and thus how to better know how to say know), one needs to know the details of one’s position. What you should say ‘yes’ to and ‘no’ to is shaped, in large part, by what your position expects of you. My department has a very helpful document on what we expect in terms of scholarship for promotion and tenure. It’s 8 pages single spaced, discussing the purpose, scope, audiences, and expectations for scholarship. It includes four different sample scholarly dossiers that might be sufficient for tenure in our department. It’s a very helpful document, and I’m grateful to the colleagues that put it together before I arrived. But my favorite line of the whole document is this gem from page 2: “Policy can never replace phronesis.” This is good advice.
If you don’t have tenure, your focus in scholarly projects should be those projects that are more likely to earn you tenure. (The pragmatic advice in the previous sentence is defeasible. Some things are worth doing despite the opportunity costs even if they won’t help earn you tenure.) Only do a book review, for instance, if you know it’s a book that you know you need to read anyway. And maybe not even then. Obviously, once you have tenure you have a fair bit more freedom to do what you want, and this makes it easier to say no to some things and harder to say no to others.
For me, the biggest trick has been to not let side projects get in the way of my main research focus. I’ve long used some papers, especially co-authored ones, as ‘fall-back’ projects—papers to work on when I have time and energy to write but am stuck on my main projects. I let my co-authors know this. I think having projects like these help increase one’s productivity. But one has to be careful to not have too many side projects—especially when they come with deadlines, such as for an edited volume. For the past three years, for instance, I’ve had an idea for a book I want to write and a press that’s interested in it. But I’ve taken on too many other projects that are keeping me from turning directly to it. Don’t do that. For me, focusing on the main trajectory makes it easier to say no to other things.
But I also realize that the number of opportunities that come one’s way depends on the stage of one’s career. I think it’s harder, psychologically, to say no to invitations earlier in one’s career than when one’s more established. If at all possible, one should prioritize those side-projects that can feed into a larger project, or leverage invitations toward things that will feed one of your larger projects.
I think it’s also good for your larger projects to be those you love in some way--because you think the problem is more interesting than others, or because it matters (in some important sense of "matters") more than others. As I said above, most times we have to decide not between obviously good and bad choices, but between different good options. Discerning what projects have this kind of importance, rather than just being a problem to crank away on, should also help you decide what to take on verses what to pass on.
To help not take on too much, I keep a printout of my current deadlines and obligations on the wall next to my computer. Looking at those on a daily basis not only helps me know how to prioritize my writing, but also motivates me to say ‘no’ to lower priority projects more often. You’ve likely heard that “the good is the enemy of the perfect.” I think when it comes to prioritizing, a version of this is “the lesser good is the enemy of the more important.” And be upfront, and honest, about your commitments and time-frame when people ask you about a project. Sometimes your timeline just doesn’t align with that of the project; in these cases I try and see the decision as made for me by those constraints.
I think it’s also important to know how to say no appropriately in the teaching domain. I’ve been at schools where I’ve had a 3-3 teaching load, a 4-4, and now I’m fortunate to have a 2-2. At the first two schools, I’d try to not have more than a single new prep each term if at all possible. Even when I wanted to redesign a course the next time I taught it, such as my intro course, if I was doing a new prep that next term the redesign would have to wait. And whenever possible, I try and have my teaching feed into my research. That way, teaching prep isn’t just teaching prep but also serves as laying the foundation for scholarship. For instance, I’ll be writing something on topic X this summer; so one of the books I assigned in a graduate course was one of the books on X that I knew I’d have to engage. Time for things like book reviews is limited, and it’s best if it can serve you in some other way. (Why do one thing when you could be doing two things by doing that one thing?)
Figuring out how to best say no to service is perhaps the trickiest to figure out how to do, even if one knows when one should do it. The people that ask you to do service projects in your department, such as your chair, or at your school, such as your dean, are those that will evaluate you for reappointment. Saying no in these cases can be tricky, and greatly depends on the relationships you have in your department, with your chair, and with your college/uni.
(Of course, service expectations are skewed in ways that disproportionately affect some faculty over others. For instance, service expectations are often gendered in ways that typically make this harder for female faculty than for male. For those of you that are male, please try to make sure that your department’s service expectations aren’t gendered. Something similar is true of faculty of color, who are not only disproportionately asked to do service related to diversity and inclusion, have additional advising demands, are seen as more troublesome in various ways, and so on. Coordinate with your department chair or diversity officer to explore ways of securing official recognition for hidden service demands. How much you invest in institutional change, especially if the institution doesn’t seem interested in such, is a deeply personal matter in additional to a professional one. Your own conscience and institutional culture, including the resistance you might face, will be important to navigating these issues. These issues are extremely complex. And I think they’re moral issues, not just career issues.)
Try and keep in mind the relative ratios of your job that are supposed to be spent on various tasks. One of my schools aimed for 30% research, 60% teaching, 10% service for tenure/reappointment. So I tried to have no more than 10% of my time in service, with that split between the department and the guild in general. If I was asked to do a service project that I didn’t want to do or which I didn’t think was in my best interest, I’ve asked my chair which of the other service tasks they want me to give up to free up the time to do this. But that can get dicey, depending on the relationship and power-dynamics.
We might try to do everything that we can. But that’s often not healthy--for us, for our families, for our relationships. Realize that saying no isn’t just permissible but sometimes required can help us not feel like we’re failing those around us when we pass on a project or service opportunity. (My failure to follow my own advice is nowhere more evident to me than that previous sentence.)
Of course, none of this advice amounts to a formula for knowing when to say ‘no’ or a policy about how to spend one’s time. As indicated above, “policy can never replace phronesis.” And I definitely fail to consistently follow my own advice. But I hope that the above suggestions provide a start to some useful guidance or discussion.
(I’d like to thank Helen for the opportunity to write this. I’d also like that thank Michelle, Sameer, Tasia, and Hilary for helpful conversations that made this advice better and more thorough.)
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