In our April "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
I'm a tenured associate professor (9 years post phd), going through a bit of a post-tenure slump. Life has got in the way of research recently, after the big push to get tenure. I was steadily producing an article a year until about 2020, but the pandemic hit me hard.
That's all context for a specific question: how many hours a week do you, and should you, work on your research? I mean what they call 'deep work', so writing/revising or seriously reading material directly relevant to your work. When I was in grad school I was often told that 20 hours a week is about right for the PhD, but that's 4 solid hours per weekday and I don't think I'm at that now! (I use the pomodoro method and am counting very rigorously, so I'm not including eg bathroom breaks.)
Relatedly, do you tend to have multiple papers in different areas you're working on at the same time, or do you focus on one until it gets sent out, before moving on to another? I've always done the former strategy, but I seem to have ended up with a lot of 'pretty much done' papers in different areas that have been presented at a few conferences maybe, maybe rejected with comments from a journal, but I've not quite pushed them over the line to being published. A nice place to be in some ways, but as I said, it feels slump-y!
Any advice appreciated.
Believe it or not, post-tenure malaise is a real thing. Its existence may be hard to understand or empathize with, especially if you are an academic struggling on the job market or without tenure or a tenure track position. But still, as someone who spent a horrible 7+ years on the market myself, I can attest that post-tenure blues are real. While they were nowhere near the horror show for me that was the job market, I've been through them a few times (they seem to come and go). I don't know if I have any great advice for grappling with it well, other than that I try to find new philosophical issues that interest me and to finally pursue other things in pursuit of a more well-rounded human life that I just didn't have the time or emotional energy to do when I was on the market or seeking tenure.
In terms of answering the OP's questions, I don't have much time for research during the fall or spring semesters due to my teaching load, but I try to work on research pretty consistently during the summer (3-5+ hours a day on the weekdays, I'd say, depending on how inspired or not I'm feeling--sometimes I have research ideas I'm excited about, other times not). On that note, I also usually work on a few different projects simultaneously, as I usually get tired working on the same project all the time.
Anyway, I wish that I had better advice, but again, this is something that I struggle with a bit too! Do any readers have any helpful tips of insights for the OP?
Recent Comments