I hope your fall is going well. This is usually my favorite time of year, and I am trying to find moments of solace in familiar seasonal rituals. This month I am sharing a concrete career development exercise, in response to a mentee question.
A Little Help From My Work Friends
What's Your Superpower?
Happy September! Every fall feels like the start of the new year for me. We are still in tough times, and I hope you’re finding optimism in some corner of your life. In August I shared that I did not realize until I went on an extended vacation how much my workload was affecting my brain and body. I've been experimenting with reduced working hours for the last month, and I will report back to you in a future post about whether I can keep it up.
Vacation Revelation
I hope you found time for rest and fun this summer! I'm back after an extended vacation- the longest one I've taken in over 20 years. It was surreal to be completely disconnected. I didn't check email for six weeks, and I did not do any work whatsoever. We had wonderful family adventures, and the most meaningful experience was spending uninterrupted time with my teens.
Summer Reading
I am writing this post far in advance, before my extended, much-postponed travels. I fervently hope that when these words reach you, we are not reeling from more collective trauma. The fatigue and grief have been real. As I prepare for my trip, I’m keeping in mind the words of poet Toi Derricotte, “joy is an act of resistance.”
The Eighth Time's the Charm
I am sending solidarity to all of you in these challenging times. Soon I’ll be leaving my routine, taking six weeks away from work to travel with my family. The last time I took this much time off was back in the twentieth century! I hardly know how to feel. Today I want to share the long and winding road that led to our latest funded grant. I’m putting in some NIH inside baseball, but there are broader lessons too.
Don’t Power Through
The days are getting longer and brighter, and I hope your mood, like mine, has been lighter of late. I’ve embraced a new hybrid schedule. It feels amazing to be together in person as a team, and I love running into people unexpectedly at work. I appreciate my remote work more as a quiet contrast to the office, so my entire work experience has improved, for the first time since March 2020. I wish the same for you.
Don't You Forget About Me
I hope spring is bringing you some peace and optimism as our challenging times continue. This month I want to share some advice that I gave a colleague who is going on sabbatical. Like many of you, this person excels in their work and loathes the idea of self-promotion. We have talked about bragging effectively and using peer amplification to get the word out. I thought of another strategy for staying top of mind that felt acceptable and feasible: the AWARE Share. And yes, it's an acronym (Awareness of Work and Achievements through Relevant Emails). Consider sending quarterly updates to key stakeholders who should be aware of you but are not in your immediate mentoring circle. Here are my tips.
The Best Policy
It’s March 2022, and I can’t say whether time moves quickly or slowly any more. The state of our world is hitting me hard right now, and I am sending solidarity to all who share this feeling. I spoke to a small group of mid-career faculty recently, and they followed up after the meeting with the following question: “We suggest a future blog post on techniques and strategies for supporting excellence on research teams. We admire your ability to maintain high standards for your team.” My first thought was that I don’t do anything to make my team perform at such a high level- they do it themselves. I shared this question with Sarah Lisker, our lab’s program manager, and to my surprise, she pointed out three things that I do that support high standards for our team’s work. Based on our conversation, here’s my advice.
Try Try Again
The Proof Is In the Pudding
I’m writing to you over winter break, looking out at the snowy Sierra landscape. I hope when you’re reading this you feel recharged and ready for 2022. As you may know, I don’t agree with the “New Year, New You” mentality. I like the person you are, and I hope you do too. At the same time, I endorse wanting to learn and grow over time. Setting goals is critical for my personal growth, but when I fall short, I can succumb to unhelpful self-criticism. I want to offer you a different way to think about past and future goals.
One Step At A Time
The end of the year can be a crazy time. Everyone is pushing to get through their pre-vacation to-do lists, and that means things land on your plate just before you head out of the office (figuratively). I am also finding it time-consuming to navigate holiday fun- so many last-minute changes in plans and venue! On top of that, we are still working as though we are in lockdown. I have been asking colleagues how they manage the year-end rush, and here is the best answer I got: “All my strategies went out the window in 2020.”
Hello World
It’s November, and the recent vaccine approval for children has me feeling especially thankful. Let’s hold on to optimism as we look forward to the holidays. Since I last wrote to you, I’ve stepped out into the world several times- I attended two scientific meetings and my college reunion. After all these months of isolation, being with others has been a blessing that has left me mentally overloaded. So, I’m really writing to myself as I process what it has been like to start to re-enter the world professionally.
Braaaaaaaains
It’s October, my favorite month. The mood here is the most cautious of optimism, all of us wondering if our fragile hopes for normality will be dashed once again. This month I drew blog inspiration from an unlikely source- the movie Zombieland, which I just saw for the first time. Quarantine has led me to be more flexible about movie night at home. It’s hardly a cinematic masterpiece, but I did like the protagonist’s Rules for Survival. As I watched it, I couldn’t help thinking that some of the Zombieland Rules apply in our world too.
Throw in the Towel
Congratulations on Your Rejection
Recently I had a conversation with a junior colleague whose career development award is ending soon and whose independent grants haven’t quite come through yet. They are discouraged, and this is natural. They described two different, innovative project ideas that have been submitted and rejected, including one which was “not discussed” at study section, which, as most of you know, means a revised version is unlikely to be funded. The unfunded grants and institutional challenges they described are real and painful, and, at the same time, as I heard them talking, I felt. . .optimistic.
Sound the Retreat
Understanding that we as humans have seasonal rhythms, and taking these into account, has made me both happier and more productive. The pace of work slows down in summer to accommodate vacations, social gatherings, and weather that lures us away from our desks. Instead of setting goals that don’t match this reality, I suggest a work retreat.
Taking Off Our Masks
How are you? It’s been a long, hard pandemic slog, but June- Pride month- is great time to find our optimism. As a Gen Xer, I’ve seen a revolution in my lifetime in how we think about our LGBTQIA friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and it gives me hope that we can make progress towards racial and gender justice. I’m starting to feel like I can see my way through the fog of the past 15 months, and it’s a good time to take stock.
Switching Costs
This month’s topic was inspired by a mentee question about managing simultaneous deadlines. What do you do when you have multiple papers and a grant to push out the door? How do you efficiently work on more than one writing project? The more senior you become, the more critical it is to master this way of working. I don’t have a perfect solution, but I can share a few strategies.
Out of the Office
March was a tough month, wasn’t it? This month I want to talk about time away from work. Whether it’s for parental leave or sudden family needs of a less joyful nature, time away can cause stress for the person who taking time off, their colleagues, staff, and mentors. My underlying assumptions: (1) People experience life events in very different ways; (2) It is not a job requirement to have exemplary coping skills/ resilience in the face of life challenges, let alone personal tragedy.