One of my dear readers recently recommended Dr. Leslie Wang's podcast, Your Words Unleashed. I have been listening to Dr. Wang's sage advice in bite-sized episodes and find her approach to writing and scholarly life to be a kindred spirit with PNP!
In Episode 3 (listen here), Create Bulletproof Boundaries with Your Job, she shares questions to ask yourself at the beginning of the term to determine what sort of things to say yes and no to when they arise. Junior academics are socialized to believe that we must accept any and all opportunities presented to us if we hope to succeed professionally. As I’ve written before,
A lack of transparency, consistency, or equity in hiring and promotion leads us to do more and more work because we are unsure what it will actually take to achieve that goal of secure employment. This precarity drives the culture of overwork in the academy.
Moreover, as Dr. Wang explains below, many of us feel we should accept new responsibilities, tasks, or opportunities rather than truly wanting to do them out of some sort of internal motivation.
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