My Week As An Endowed Chair

Recently, The Junior Prof shared a typical week in the life of an assistant professor. I thought it would be interesting to follow up that post with a look at the other end of the spectrum — the endowed chair. I’ve been in my position as an endowed chair for a year and a half now. And while I did a lot of things right to land me in this spot, the ideas that Junior Prof discussed about scheduling still apply. They just look different. So it doesn’t matter where you are on the continuum, you still need good planning, organization, and scheduling tools.

My Messy Year

My first year as an endowed chair was a mess. I was excited to be in the position, and I was working on figuring out what I wanted my life/career to look like in it. I thought I would be settled in by December, but the dean told me it would likely take an entire year. He was right. I spent my first year meeting new people, figuring out who helps you with what, and trying to figure out what I wanted to be involved in. My writing took a bit of a hit, but that’s ok. All in all, I had a fun year.

However, I knew that in Year 2 I would need to return to a life of focus and scheduling that looked like what Junior Prof described. I had to get my act together, and I’m definitely feeling more stable now.

So what does a typical week look like for me? Let’s dive in.

The Expectations

In order to understand my schedule, you have to first understand the expectations of my job. Building out a good calendar and setting goals starts with understanding what it is you’re expected to do. For me, my job breaks down like this:

• 60% research; this is things like writing grants and publications as well as collecting and analyzing data
• 25% teaching; I teach one class each semester
• 10% service; this is all the stuff you would expect
• 5% advising; I advise masters and doctoral students

Let’s Break All Those Percentages Down

In trying to make a strong schedule, I first have to know about how much time I should spend in these areas. Some things, like service and advising, have a bit more of a flow to them. Sometimes you do a lot of service or advising in a short span of time, and other times you’re doing little to nothing at all. It balances out over times (ideally). Teaching and research are more fixed, and are things that I should be involved with every single week.

In a 40-hour work week, those percentages above translate into:

• 24 hours per week (minimum) for research activities
• 10 hours per week (minimum) for teaching activities

In addition to those two major components of my job, I also create content. I have two strands of content creation:

• This website and youtube channel which is designed to help academics with their careers. In my last evaluation, this work got counted as service. I honestly doubt anyone knows what to do with it.
• A second youtube channel that is connected to my current research study (although I don’t count this as part of my 24 hours).

All this means that I should be spending three full days a week engaged in research-related activities and just over a day teaching.

Putting The Expectations In Action

For this academic year, I have created theme days. This means that each day first gets assigned a theme (research or teaching). Within that I then have a more explicit plan in place for each day. These are my current themes:

• Research: Monday/Tuesday/Thursday
• Teaching: Wednesday
• Content Creation: Friday

Each day then has its own set up. The research days tend to look like this:

• 7:00–11:00 am (writing)
• 11:00–3:30: Data collection/analysis/research team meetings

That gives me a nice division in my day. I know exactly when I’ll be writing and exactly when I’m doing work with data collection/analysis. Right now, my research is all online so I don’t have to block off for traveling to a site. You might.

Each of those divisions though should have specific goals. For example, recently my goals looked like this:

• 7:00–9:00 am: Finishing revisions on an accepted manuscript and getting final version formatted/submitted
• 9:00–11:00 am: Grant application

For the first block of time, I simply had to work through whatever it was that the editors were asking me to do. For the grant application, I broke it down into components. On one day, I might be working on a very specific section. On another, I might be revising. The point here is this, once you know when you’re writing will occur, and once you know the general purpose of that time, then you have to set very specific goals for what you will be doing. It’s not enough to say that I am writing an article. I need to know exactly what section of that article I am working on that day.

The same thing has to occur with data collection and analysis. I need to have very clear tasks that I am working on for those 4.5 hours. Without these tasks clearly defined, then everything and nothing all looks important. It’s setting small, clear goals that lets me tune out the noise and distractions of other possible tasks and focus in only on what is necessary at the moment.

Wednesdays Are For Teaching

This might sound pretty straight-forward, but I’ve got a schedule on Wednesdays that doesn’t suit my personal preference. So I did what was in my control to make it work for me. Right now, I have to teach a class online from 7:30–9:00 pm. I am not an evening person. I would have zero problems — I would actually be very happy — if that time was 7:30 am instead. But I have tried out a scheduling method that is really working for me and wanted to share:

• 7:00–12:00 pm: This is when I take care of planning and grading. I make sure I am ready for class that night and know what we are doing next week. Because I switched jobs, this is a new prep for me so I have to allow time to get all my ducks in a row. I typically do this in my office although I think I could work from home too.
• 12:00–4:00 pm: I leave. I go get lunch and then take a short nap. No, that’s not a bad thing. I’ve just worked for five hours and got class coming later! After the nap I go to the gym.
• 4:00ish- 9:30 pm: Somewhere around 4:00 (no later than 5:00), I pick back up with my work. I take care of anything that needs to be done teaching related, catch up on email, and eventually, teach my class

Fridays Are For Content

Creating blog posts and youtube videos takes time. One of the best ways to create content is to batch it. For example, it’s far more effective to write two or three posts at once, or shoot five or so videos at once, than it is to do them one at a time. Plus, creating content in a more haphazard manner ends up in me feeling scattered and, ultimately, falling behind. So I put it on the schedule, and it’s working beautifully. Now I don’t obsess about when I’m writing posts or creating videos. I don’t look for chunks of time to make content. I know exactly when I’ll be making content (Fridays from 8:00–4:00!). This makes everything less stressful.

When Friday rolls around I, again, have specific goals for myself. I keep a list of what types of content need to be made so I can see how far out I am. One Friday might be able generating a new series for youtube — simply planning what the content will be. The next Friday I could be shooting the videos. One week all I did on a Friday was make thumbnails for videos (I got way, way, way ahead of schedule that day!).

What About Everything Else?

You might be wondering about meetings, advising, and even how I approach email. The above schedule is how I prefer my week to go, but obviously there has to be some flexibility every once in awhile. I start with Fridays in terms of scheduling meetings and advising students. I typically don’t need all day on a Friday to create content. Normally two-three hours is more than enough. Sometimes I cannot control when a meeting happens that I must attend and, yes, it will disrupt my writing or something else. However, this is rare (once a month at most) so I don’t get too hung up on it. Email, of course, can be a time drain. I’ve moved to a two-three times a day check (first thing in the morning/lunch/right when I am about to leave) and that seems to be working. If I’m in a boring meeting I will absolutely check it. What else are you gonna do?

As you can see, my week looks different from The Junior Profs, but there are some similarities. We both have to think through what we are expected to do in our jobs, map it out, and make it happen. Having a schedule is critical to your success in academia, but you need to drill down into that schedule. It’s a start — but not enough — to say that you will write or do research. You have to know what your goals are for that writing or research during that block of time. Otherwise, you won’t be able to tune in to what you need to do to get your work done and make your impact!