Creating a Clearing in the Woods

Faculty Life

Each of you are exceptionally trained, intelligent, driven, and insightful. As individuals, we are acutely aware of how change and uncertainty is rippling through our lives, our country, institutions, organizations, neighborhoods, and families. Recent conversations in our community of scholars reveal common threads:

  • Fatigue from suppressing the emotional underpinnings of thoughts about things like worst-case scenarios, separation from extended family, necessity of working in risky clinical environments, disappointment with halting key projects, and challenges of working/teaching from home.
  • Sense that we could and should do more, ranging from ambitions for writing productivity to reaching out to students, colleagues, family, and friends.
  • Feeling “wound up” and working more hours than typical, though eager for fewer demands.
  • Frustration with the content and quality of media coverage.
  • Anger about impact of policies and social changes, whether that’s because the approach seems wrong or the effect has cut us off from things we enjoy that are woven into our lives.
  • Temptation to add new goals to “redeem the time,” despite awareness of risk for becoming overwhelmed.
  • Mixed responses to video conferencing, which sustains connections and keeps activities on track, but is draining and undermines the ability to flexibly plan time to match personal plans.
  • Trouble valuing “unnecessary” activities and enjoying pleasant pastimes.

Our lives are moving both too fast and too slow. We recognize demands but are more restricted and more stationary than ever before. The multiplicity of advice and resources for protecting mental health, supporting self-care, working and parenting from home, connecting with those with similar interests in virtual space, and helping others is growing exponentially (unlike the COVID-19 outbreak and chronic misuse of the word – yes, the media irks me too). We can even feel guilt for not finding time to investigate and share good information and positive messages.

Candor, grace, patience, and level-headedness are crucial for how we work, relate in community, and most of all treat ourselves. I have one wish for you. Create a clearing in the woods soon that is measured in hours, if not a day or more.

Do what you know works for you to turn off the interior and exterior noise: journal—list your fears, hopes, sources of anger, opportunities and random thoughts; exercise; create something…you know the list. The key is to DO IT soon, even if you are not feeling unsettled. Regardless of title and specific roles, you are leaders and we need you to be able to go the distance. Ensuring you are off the path to burnout and setting a sustainable and even enjoyable new pace is key. Be well.

More Resources

Acting on the Essential

Balancing on the Edge

Feeling Powerless in the Age of COVID (Part I)

Just Breathe: Mindfulness Apps

Faculty Life

Our phones can be a source of anxiety, but during anxious times we can also turn to them as a source of comfort.  A seemingly limitless supply of help awaits in the palm of your hand.  Looking for ways to adjust, cope, and rise above?  Our smartphones connect us to a never-ending barrage of how to’s:  How to stay fit, lead a flawless Zoom meeting, keep an eye on your research team, attend a virtual class, stay productive, pick up dinner curbside, raise chickens.  During the pandemic, countless tips and tricks became available to move us forward together while keeping us safely at a distance.

Yet, while we’re staring at that screen, anxiety and panic swirl in our heads.  Weather analogies come close to describing the onslaught of information:  tornado, hurricane, avalanche, tidal wave, etc.  Too much, all the time.  Our minds spiral to the depths.  Sleeping is difficult.

Meditation might help.  And of course, there’s an app for that–over 2,000, in fact, according to Headspace, one of the leaders in the mindfulness app race.

As COVID shutdowns began, an article in Adweek reported that meditation apps were seeing a significant spike in downloads.  Many were responding to the demand by creating content specifically geared towards coronavirus-related stress:

Headspace offers a curated selection of meditations, available for free, called Weathering the Storm. The entire Headspace collection is free for healthcare workers.

Simple Habit offers a meditation collection specifically geared towards coronavirus-related anxiety.

Insight Timer and Bond Together offer free meditations for children.

The non-profit PsyberGuide provides expert reviews on mental health apps (both credibility and user experience) and offers solid recommendations.

I downloaded Calm (another top dog) to experience a mindfulness app for myself.  LeBron James provided me with a soothing, 10-minute “Intro to Mental Fitness” session.  I now receive a daily “mindfulness reminder” on my phone.  Today’s, in tranquil blue font, reads: “To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” Just what the doctor ordered.

Scott Rosenberg, Backchannel/Wired contributor, noted in a pre-pandemic blog post : “Some people need to become monks to tune out the world; others pursue tranquility from inside the chaos of life. Smartphones just confront us with the latest version of this choice.”

To cope, the experts advise us to “Connect, Connect, Connect!”  Their drumbeat is relentless.  Rather, we might consider disconnecting for a bit.  Download a mindfulness app that works for you and relax into the simple act of inhaling and exhaling.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Repeat.

More Resources

Meditation: It’s Not What You Think

Feeling Powerless in the Age of Covid (Part I)

Balancing on the Edge

Working Parents: Emergency Supplies for 30 Minutes of Quiet

Faculty Life

My coworkers and I are in a routine now. We drink coffee together and chat about last night’s stellar Uno game. We settle down quickly to the serious work of resubmitting an R01 and creating content for Edge for Scholars. Middle management naps in the window.

The interns roll in around 10 AM and, after reviewing our mission, vision, values and goals, embark on training and development with frozen waffles.

At the intersection of Zoom conferences and melt downs are the glorious You Tubers who have valiantly posted hours of distraction content.

Here are emergency supplies for 30 minutes to 5 hours of quiet time:

 

Mark Rober

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1kMZp36IQSyNx_9h4mpCg

Former NASA engineer delivers quality content with clear explanations. Mark Rober is a family favorite and has just started science class 3 days a week. His monthly videos are impressive.

 

Oversimplified

https://www.youtube.com/user/Webzwithaz

When your kids are engrossed in learning about the French Revolution, you can’t tell them to turn off the TV and clean their room. The most entertaining of history lessons.

 

Popular Mechanics for Kids (PMK)

https://www.youtube.com/playlistlist=PLnmVcIr9eFnJ5SP6saNJlL8HXiZeUHk7Y

Canadian TV show from the late 1990s that shows how things work. A little dated, but still a favorite in our house.

 

King of Random

https://www.youtube.com/user/01032010814

Videos dedicated to all kinds of life hacks, experiments, and random projects. Less focused on science, but entertaining.

 

Colin Furze

https://www.youtube.com/user/colinfurze

His description: Mad vehicles. Epic projects. Crazy inventions.

My kids are still talking about treadmill stairs and catapulting out of bed. Perhaps don’t try these at home.

 

Kara and Nate

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4ijq8Cg-8zQKx8OH12dUSw

Geography, adventure, and kindness. Kara and Nate spent 4 years visiting 100 countries and documented every single moment.

 

Moriah Elizabeth

https://www.youtube.com/user/GeniunelyMoriah/featured

Rainbow art projects with a little ‘tude. Tween heaven.

 

Most Dangerous Ways to School

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEJpkEctSEA

These eye opening family-friendly episodes had my kids thinking about school in a very different way.

Recommendations from my colleagues with younger kids

 Go Noodle

https://www.gonoodle.com

Fun movement and mindfulness videos for when the interns are jumping off the couches.

 

Scholastic

https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com

Daily projects based on grade level.

 

Adventure Academy (annual subscription)

https://www.adventureacademy.com/

An educational and interactive game.

 

Brainpop and Brainpop Junior (annual subscription)

https://www.brainpop.com/ and https://jr.brainpop.com/

Short, animated, educational movies for kids of all ages.

 

PBS Kids

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrNnk0wFBnCS1awGjq_ijGQ

Enough quality programming for a good 6 years of social distancing.

Favorites: Sid the Science KidDoc McStuffinsSuper Why, Daniel Tiger, and Dinosaur Train.

 

MORE RESOURCES

Staying Productive and Patient

Awesome Science Videos

How to Make an ESI Extension Request for Childbirth/Adoption

Faculty Life

You’re a new parent and a scientist. Somewhere between the sticky hands, tantrums, and lack of sleep, you’re 10 years into your academic career from earning your MD and/or PhD and you haven’t made the transition to an R yet. Your circadian rhythm is messed up from dealing with night feedings and nightmares (occasionally your child’s), so you’re starting to eye 4 AM as grant-writing time to quiet your funding anxiety. Sidebar: Don’t. Even superhumans need sleep. Sound familiar?

Exhale. As it turns out, the NIH recognizes this impossible tap dance derails your career progress a bit and has offered a temporary stay of execution: the Early Stage Investigator (ESI) extension request. If you gave birth, it’s an automatic 12 months per child. Dads, partners, adoptive parents, listen up, this is for you too. More on this later. Here are step by step instructions to complete this request in under 5 minutes. If only teaching your kid to deposit feces somewhere other than their pants were this easy!

  1. Log in to eRA Commons
  2. Click on Personal Profile

  1. In the Education Section, click Edit

  1. While in the Education section, scroll down to Early Stage Investigator Status and click ESI Extension Request.

  1. Enter the number of months you’re requesting. The NIH automatically approves 12 months per each child you gave birth to during the ten-year period after your terminal degree. For example, if you had two kids, enter 24 months. If you did not give birth, you can also request an extension in the same manner, but it will be reviewed on a case by case basis. The length of time they are likely to approve for these scenarios was not clear.

  1. Answer “Yes” to: Are you requesting an extension for childbirth(s) during your initial 10 years ESI period?
  2. Select a gender answer.
  3. Indicate # of children and their birthdays.
  4. Click save and submit.
  5. Breathe sigh of relief. Convince yourself the ballpoint pen scribbled all over your laptop and keyboard by your toddler is “chic” and fire it up to start working on your next grant with a newfound sense of optimism. Commit to doing something fun with your adorable children (disaster muppets?) this weekend too.

For more information (see Section IV): https://grants.nih.gov/policy/early-investigators/faqs.htm#5358

Additional Resources

Grant funding strategy: Which grants to apply for?

What the F?: Funding for Childcare Costs Now Allowable

How a Flyer Changed Our Lives

The Thrills and Perils of Living on the Edge – Anxiety Edition

Faculty Life

Life as a scholar is demanding. When you fulfill one demand, another pops up. Or more likely, you’ll actively pursue greater and greater challenges. This creates stress and leads many to seek tools or skills for coping with their resulting anxiety about failing to meet an endless array of deadlines and expectations.

Yet when it comes to anxiety, “skills” can only help so much. With enhanced coping skills, most highly driven individuals will simply pursue further demands to exhaust their newly increased capacity, the way that extra lanes on a highway become congested shortly after they’re constructed. In the battle against anxiety, it’s not greater knowledge or skills, but rather a change in attitude that’s key for helping a stressed scholar live a more peaceful existence.

It’s hard to change our attitudes, or ways of thinking and feeling towards something. We usually developed our attitudes for good reason, and even when they lead to panic attacks and keep us up at night, we’re hesitant to let them go. What good reason is there to develop an anxious attitude? The answer is that anxiety is often an extreme form of responsibility.

Responsible people take their obligations seriously, think before acting, try to avoid mistakes, and are mindful that the quality of their work impacts their reputations. Irresponsible people, by contrast, don’t care about those things and go around with no concerns for the consequences of their actions. Clearly, it’s better to be responsible.

If we plotted a distribution of responsibility levels in the population (see graph), our typical scholar would be on the upper end of the curve. (Juvenile delinquents would occupy the lower fringe.) Yet at the very edge, around two standard deviations above the mean, too much of this desirable trait becomes pernicious. Effort to avoid mistakes becomes a paralyzing fear of failure. Thinking before acting becomes constant rumination. And concern for one’s reputation becomes fear of conflict or disagreement of any kind.

If any of those descriptors fit you, then you could benefit by scaling back your responsibility levels – not extremely, but just a little bit, moving perhaps from the 99th to the 95th percentile. That may not sound like a big ask, if you judge your attitude against the population. However, you aren’t the population. You’re an individual, and individuals only have their own experience for reference. When you’ve spent your whole life cultivating a highly responsible attitude (see the smaller curve within the graph), downshifting a few percentile points relative to the population constitutes a huge change internally. Moving away from anxiety can feel like a move towards delinquency, and I recommend leaning into that, despite the temporary discomfort.

This means submitting a paper even though you know it’s not perfect (it’s going to be picked apart anyway), and ignoring someone else’s crisis because you’d rather not deal with it right now. It means unapologetically doing something fun and “unproductive” despite your full plate.

If you suffer from “Hyper-Responsibility Disorder,” the hardest part of the attitude-adjustment process is tolerating the feeling that you’re being irresponsible. Go ahead and do it anyway. Sure, you might work a bit less, but without the stress of meeting every possible expectation, you’ll be more efficient and relaxed when you do work. Plus, you’ll enjoy your leisure time more, and you’ll be less inclined to worry about things. So take a deep breath, and step back from the edge of anxiety. You’ll still be highly responsible, just not abnormally so.

More Resources

Staying Mentally Well in Academia is a Balancing Act

Emotional Connecting While Social Distancing

Feeling Powerless in the Age of COVID (Part 1)

Strong Performance

Faculty Life

Mike Boyle is a legendary strength and conditioning coach whose athlete clients include the US Women’s Olympic Soccer and Ice Hockey teams, Boston Bruins, Boston Breakers, and service on coaching staff for the World Series-winning Boston Red Sox. He’s the coach of coaches via his consulting business – a full professor of how to enhance physical performance.

At FitCon 2019, Coach Boyle pivoted from speaking about training methods to sharing what it takes to succeed as a fitness professional. What struck me was how universal his advice is for those who are in early career and launching their own enterprise.

Here’s an even more boiled down version of some already highly concentrated strong advice:

  1. Understand that aspiration requires knowing your purpose and putting it into words.
  2. Read daily and not only those with whom you agree.
  3. Get a firm grip on the idea that happiness is an attitude for your journey, not the destination.
  4. Honor your relationships and invest in making them work. Be the partner your spouse needs.
  5. Always pay it forward. Reject a scarcity approach to collaboration and sharing your ideas.
  6. “Cheat” by taking up ideas that work. Don’t reinvent. Do network and seek mentors – it’s the best way to get better at what you do faster.
  7. Don’t be in partnership with people who aren’t trustworthy.
  8. Don’t be a dick. Understand early on we are likely to be most confident when we are least competent.
  9. Remember that smart people: change their minds, use simple language, talk less and say more, and listen well.
  10. Sustain daily habits that feed your life and career: exercise, read, nap, and pause to be grateful.
  11. Recognize much of what we worry about doesn’t matter. Decide what you will not worry about, which should include those things you don’t control.
  12. Pick the right people. Be sure team members on your staff love what you’re building. Cut them loose fast if they’re arrogant or not a good fit. Explicitly teach staff and mentees what you expect.
  13. Keep your finances in order. Take a personal finance course because financial options are career freedom.
  14. Take the biggest chances when you’re young.
  15. Stay connected to your clients. Check in often to be sure you are delivering what they need to meet their goals.

If you’re not sure this connects to life as an academic biomedical researcher, read Coach Boyle’s advice again.

While we are building our science and our research groups we are small business entrepreneurs who aim to deploy our knowledge for its highest and most viable use. In some ways we may work alone but we are surrounded by others available to teach us the ropes. We need to assess our aspirations and align them with what the funding market wants while being creative, taking chances, and staying connected to what is current in our field.

Coach or scientist, the basics are basic. We can’t afford to take our eye off that ball.

Reading Suggestions from Coach Boyle:

Aspire: Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words, by Kevin Hall forward by Stephen R. Covey

The Happiness Equation : Want Nothing + Do Anything=Have Everything, by Neil Pasricha

Never Eat Alone and Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time, by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz

How to Not Be a Dick: Everyday Etiquette Guide, by Meghan Doherty

Seven Keys to Being a Great Coach, by Allistair McCaw

InSideOut Coaching, by Joe Ehrmann

Craving more coaching? Cruise his website: www.strengthcoach.com

Designing Your Career

Faculty Life / Mentoring / Trainees

This post condenses a talk by Mark Denison, MD, at a Vanderbilt Translational Bridge meeting.

For many trainees, and occasionally even the senior faculty who mentor them, career development is a black box: You put in papers, grants, teaching, research, and other career-helping things, and out comes a postdoc, a faculty position, research independence, a deanship, or whatever you’re aiming for.  You’re not quite sure which conferences you should plan to attend, or when you want to have that paper submitted, but it’ll probably all work out somehow.  Right?

Wrong.  A bunch of random experiments do not a Nature paper make (unless you’re really lucky).  Similarly, a bunch of loosely related posters, papers, and grant proposals do not equal a career development plan.  Much as you start an experiment or grant proposal with what you want to test, you should start your career plan with where you want to end up.

Knowing your desired goal (a great fellowship? faculty position? R01?) lets you decide what you need to achieve that goal.  If most K awardees in your field have X publications when they submit their grant, you know how many papers you need to get out.  If you know you need to submit your first R01 no later than the third year of your K to avoid a gap in funding, you realize which application cycles you have to target.

Plotting all the steps on a career timeline, ideally about nine years out, makes them concrete and demonstrates exactly how much time each is going to take.  (Rather like another timeline process…)  Dr. Denison calls this “positive disillusionment,” as timelines often put into vivid relief exactly how long it takes to write a paper, dissertation, or grant.

Timelines benefit you also as a tool for mentor committee meetings.  Once mentors know your career goal and what you think will get you there, they can reel optimistic timelines back to reality or suggest specific conferences to attend or colleagues to meet to advance your career.

Finally, if you’re at that stage, timelines make a great addition to a career development award.

Example timelines:

A possible postdoctoral career timeline. Make full size.

Another potential career timeline for a postdoc. Make full size.

Download the template to make your own and share it with your mentors.

More Resources

Grant Funding Strategy: Which Grants to Apply For?

Tales of Career Development Awards

Tales of Developing a National Reputation

Why and How to Plan a Creativity Escape

Faculty Life

You have a hundred good ideas that need exploration. But they compete with a thousand perpetually accruing tasks – some key, some trivial. The psychological weight of the latter can dictate your life and grind creativity to a pitiful nub of chewed up pencil waiting in a drawer. The owner of the pencil feels unfulfilled and frustrated because time and effort is increasingly diverted from the passion and intensity that best fuels their work.

Time to systematically plan a creativity escape. Get yourself to the beach, the woods, the dessert, or an Airbnb around the corner to have a monastic experience of solitude and focus. Bill Gates takes annual book binging retreats.  Among his top picks for 2021 are: “Making the Modern World” by Vaclav Smil; “The Better Angels of Our Nature” by Steven Pinker; and “On Immunity” by Eula Biss, in the top 12.  Richard Feynman escaped to Brazil learn samba drumming and to have time to “play with physics,” and productivity gurus sing the praises of renewing escapes.

Retreats are not an exclusive luxury of CEOs, senior faculty, and entrepreneurs. Early in faculty life my partner and I agreed to cover bands of time with kids, pets, and community responsibilities to allow each other singular time to dig deep into topics that needed focus. Over time our reasons for retreats have evolved to include preparing for comprehensive exams, drafting grants and papers, getting quiet to develop proof of a theorem, and engaging in reading and news immersions to inform strategy for a class or event.

In the process we’ve found five phases of the work retreat:

1. Preparation

Time. You’ll need more time than you think (see entry and re-entry below) Remember this is work time to cultivate intellectual capital, not vacation. Try four days for a start; Friday to Monday is a good way to ease in. Travel and getting settled eat part of first day, the second day requires some stewing that feels non-productive but is necessary, third day is often the liberating breakthrough day for new ideas coming together, and the fourth day can be subsumed with winding down and getting home. Work up to a week if you can swing it.

Retreats take discipline to get calendar, teaching/mentoring/clinical duties, and research forces to align. (Share this post to launch discussion of how you and your group could build a tradition for helping cover each other’s day-to-day duties to make individual retreats possible.) Low-hanging fruit may be extending anticipated breaks:  long weekend holidays, fall break, portions of winter break or intersession between semesters.

Location. Pick an escape destination that allows for rambling walks, sitting and reflecting, and few distractions. Or plan to contain yourself in an apartment that offers urban anonymity for walks and parks. Surroundings matter to the extent that the lure of other activities needs to be minimal.

This is not typically the time to splurge (save that for vacations). Aim for affordable and guilt free. Be bold and ask for favors. Our individual escapes have include calling friends to use an unoccupied apartment over their garage, using a colleague’s place while they were on vacation, staying at free/low cost retreat centers, using hotel points from work travel, and house swapping.

Focus. Determine what you want the result of your retreat to be. Avoid being completely product oriented. While getting a manuscript or draft grant ready to share with others can be rewarding, check your gut and be sure that is really what you crave to accomplish. Look around your office and your home. Is there a theme to the books and articles accumulating? What things are on your “when I get time” list? What opportunity or project did you last think, “if only I had time, maybe next year, that would be fun, or I would be good at that?”

Work retreats should be intellectually rewarding and renewing. Feed your brain and your curiosity. Unlike typical work goals (specific, measureable, agreed, realistic, and timed to a completion goal), retreat goals should be more aspirational and vague:

  • Catch up with where others outside my field have been going with techniques for [your research methods].
  • Infuse more recent conceptual material and new examples into my course curriculum.
  • Develop multiple concepts for and privately rehearse an important talk.
  • Steep in [new area] to determine if it might connect with [challenge you are working on].
  • Get more deeply familiar with the work of X group to understand if they are worth approaching about collaboration and what connections we might share.
  • Develop ideas for a panel at the national meeting that is a new alignment of content.
  • Core dump everything I know about a career topic into brilliant advice on edgeforscholars.org.
  • Be bold and have no goal.

2. Clearing the Decks

Tell only those who need to know about your time away in advance. Supervisors, coworkers, and mentors with whom you have frequent contact or share responsibilities deserve ample notice to anticipate if your absence has consequences for them. With peers it is ideal to figure out a calendar and duty swap in advance to be able to come with a solution in hand. Telling a more distant circle of contacts before you set your away message has a tendency to stir up new requests anticipating your absence.

Block time in the weeks preceding your work retreat to viciously attack your to do list. If you don’t use an approach to break larger projects down to tasks, get started. List every single thing that is hanging fire and every thought that crosses your mind in the form of:  “I need to do X, I need to catch up with her about Y, or I need to close the loop on finding out the details for Z.” No item is too inconsequential. If it is on your mind it has some weight.

Two to three weeks of focused effort to close loops and complete tasks or initial steps of larger activities can radically diminish the “to do” burden. Measurable progress and the intent to clear the decks starts to be its own reward. It’s exciting to see minor nagging items disappear, and the value of getting prepared for time away keeps the fly wheel turning. Even if you don’t get the stack to zero, you’ll be better prepared to grant yourself permission to really escape.

3. Making Your Escape

If you can, be completely indiscriminate about the materials you bring. Throw in everything you think could be helpful to your goal. Agree with yourself in advance that you will not use much of it. The point is to have it there if you want it.

Set your away message and strongly consider being completely off the grid. If you must be in email or online, meter your time and make it sparse. Do the experiment and discover that the world doesn’t end when you are not reachable. Having key folks know your cellphone contact for emergencies can make this feel safe to do.

What you need:

(Pack so you don’t waste time running errands or finding online when you arrive.)

  • Loads of interesting, inspiring, and varied materials related to your retreat goal.
  • Raid your university and public libraries to assist the above.
  • Print resources if possible or download to avoid urge to surf.
  • Resolve to bypass television and radio as well.
  • Your favorite comfort clothes.
  • Supplies that make you feel effective – highlighter, ruler, tabs to mark key passages, a retreat notebook, etc.
  • Some downtime distractions for diversions/rewards – DVD of movie that has been on your “to watch” list, recreational reading, puzzle, good bottle of wine or favorite beverage for sitting and celebrating the day’s wins.
  • Plan for food that is simple and healthy or strongly associated with reward and celebration.
  • Exercise gear, at minimum shoes for walks.
  • Music if it’s part of your focus and reward system.
  • Whatever you need to sleep well.

4. Entry

No matter how well you clear the decks, remaining ordinary tasks will continue to pop into your head. Create a list to jot them down through the retreat. Resist using these pop-ups to procrastinate. If some feel essential, designate one or two specific times a day to tackle them. For the rest practice cultivating your “it’s not on fire, it can wait” mantra knowing the list will hold the item until you are ready on your return.

Uncouple your time from the clock. Take down clocks and put sticky notes over those on appliances. Sleep when you need to sleep, eat when you need to eat, move when you need to move, and stay in the flow of your thoughts, breaking when you need a break. This approach is why retreats are solitary activities.

If you find yourself stuck consider Pomodoro method or similar time block approach. Commit to the next 25 minutes for a micro goal: find and read a relevant chapter; free associate a list of questions; unload the stream of distractions that are interrupting your thoughts by writing them down. But resist a boot camp approach; if you’re not finding your intellectual groove it may be that you need time to escape the overload we all experience.

Exercise, walk, cry, scream, stand in the shower, play raucous music…but don’t add to the overload by going back to usual patterns (checking email, Twitter, calling friends, etc.) Do what is not normal for you. Buy an actual newspaper, eat out alone, sit in silence, draw. Give yourself time and a lack of structure to let inclinations and thoughts appear. Shelves are filled with books about the nature of scientific and other breakthroughs that endorse the importance of downtime and lateral thinking. Relax into it. Maybe that’s what you need most.

5. Re-entry

Don’t judge the quality of your retreat on immediate results. Many of the benefits will not be apparent for weeks and months to come when ideas or insights connect in new ways. As a group, academics are prone to metrics and evaluation. Do celebrate wins but remember that getting away and feeding your brain is itself the win.

Do plan flexible time at work for re-entry. You are very likely to come back with a bushel of things you want to put into motion. Having to subjugate that new energy to a “normal” or, worse, a more crowded than usual day feels like a setback. Plan for your first day back to be intentionally light. If at all possible, don’t use it for starting a demanding set of experiments, completing a substantial goal like manuscript submission, or having back-to-back appointments to catch up. Do designate a schedule for working through your inbox from your absence (consider setting your away message to for an extra day to buy yourself time).

Do wait a week or so and reflect. Write down what your retreat accomplished, what worked, and what you would do differently next time. Then look forward on the calendar and consider how to get several retreats of different intensity into your calendar in the coming year(s).

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answers. – William Burroughs

Your ability to generate power is directly related to your ability to relax. – David Allen

…periods of “incubation” or rest can enhance creativity. – Wand and Sanders

Be Proud of Your Accent! Give Confident Conference Presentations

Doing Research / Faculty Life

Is English not your first language?

Currently, and this could well change, most international research is communicated in English. For now at least, all international researchers need to become proficient at speaking English in public. Using interpreters at conferences is truly difficult and a great deal is lost in translation.

Now, it is well known that many people fear public speaking second only to death, so how much more frightening is it to have to give a formal presentation in a language other than your mother tongue? And how does this fear affect your speaking technique?

It’s not the accent, it’s the fear!

In recent years I have worked at Australian universities, training postgraduate students how to communicate their research. During this time, some PhD students undertook some special training for the 3MT© (Three Minute Thesis competition) and as part of this training, we had an expert give a workshop on voice projection and “presence.” This was fun to watch, and it was really all about learning to be comfortable with yourself and speaking out.

Some weeks after attending this workshop, one European student who had a very strong accent asked if she could present a 30-minute seminar to one of my workshops for new PhD students. I said yes, and she came and gave a powerful and exciting talk. All the new students admired her confidence and thought her presentation was great.

It was really enjoyable listening to her speaking now that she was no longer embarrassed by her accent and was projecting her voice fully. Her accent was still very strong, but her full voice projection fully engaged us. Her confidence and overall presence were now so powerful that her sometimes poor grammar, mispronunciation and misuse of words no longer mattered at all!

Fear makes many people swallow their words so that the audience can neither hear nor understand what they are saying. But if they can learn to speak out, whether or not the language and actual words are correct, the audience will still usually be able to understand and enjoy the talk. Communication is far more than words. Certainly, the actual words are very important whenever someone is trying to explain detailed and important research, but props like diagrams and figures can be used to fill in some of the details.

It is actually much more important to have great projection and appropriate body language than to have the exact words and pronunciation.

Can you be over-confident? Strong English accents, dialects and speed

Lacking confidence is, however, not the only problem in clear communication in English. Native English speakers who have strong dialects and accents are often extremely hard to understand. If you have a strong accent, even if English is your first language, many people will simply not understand you. You must slow down and if at all possible, reduce your accent.

People who speak too fast can also leave most of the audience bewildered. Since the speed of speech tends to be cultural, you might not be aware of your speed unless you really stop and take notice. Even if your accent is clear, if you speak too fast, you are likely to leave your audience behind!

Always remember that as well as hearing you speak, your audience needs time to process the information you are presenting. You are no doubt extremely familiar with your own work, but for most of the audience, it is the first time that they have heard it. Even the sharpest minds need a few seconds to process new information. Speaking too fast is a poor quality in any presenter.

Difficult, unusual or critical words need to be displayed visually

One very simple way to ensure that your audience understands your key message: Write it down or display it in some type of visual. You should adopt this habit regardless of whether English is your first language.

Don’t ever run the risk of your audience thinking that you are speaking about anything other than your key topic! You might be surprised how often people come away from a talk with completely the wrong message.

Make sure that this never happens to you.

I provide individualized speaker training at my site.

Not that Kind of Year: Tales of Year 2 as a New PI

Faculty Life

It has been about two years since I started my new position as a principal investigator (PI) at Clinical Department in R1 University. Year 2 has been a challenge, but for different reasons than Year 1. While the lessons from Year 1 remain relevant, Year 2 has yielded additional knowledge and insight. As always these days, n=me.

Use your faculty mentoring committee: It is one thing to assemble a faculty mentoring committee and another thing entirely to use it effectively. I have been remiss this year in utilizing the expert panel of mentors I have assembled. Much like graduate school, I am worried they will tell me my progress has been slow (I know) and I need grants and papers (yes, I know). But, much like in graduate school, this is a necessary conversation. Moreover, my committee members are there to support and facilitate my progress through the Promotion and Tenure process. It is unwise to skip these meetings that address every point of my tenure application.

Pay it forward: I have benefited from some stellar mentorship throughout my early career. Part of the reason I started blogging at Edge for Scholars was to pass along my experiences in career development award writing, the academic job market, and the life of a new PI. This is the year I started paying it forward in earnest, actively seeking out opportunities to peer mentor new faculty and postdocs. Be the mentor you had or be the mentor you needed. But be a mentor.

Use that network: This has been the year my network has really started playing a role in my career development.  I spent last year attending new meetings and expanding my network, building up my laboratory website, and investing in my career with both time and money. This year, that investment is starting to pay off with new opportunities for myself and my trainees. Not sure where to start? Here are some easy steps to take towards building a national reputation.

Plan ahead: I thought I was busy in Year 1. I was even busier in Year 2. Work on managing your time and being efficient in the time you allocate to tasks. This continues to be a struggle for me and it was particularly obvious during teaching in the spring semester. Year 2 was the first time I taught an undergraduate level course. It was a lot of work and came at a particularly busy time in the laboratory. I do not think I was prepared for the hours of preparation teaching these lectures would require. Do not underestimate this time or you, like me, will only do lecture preparation for weeks. The same is true for grant writing. Break up grants into smaller pieces and work on them in smaller chunks over a longer time period (excellent tips here). This will keep your productivity up on other tasks.

Protect your time: One of the continuing themes of this new PI journey is protecting your time and filling it with valuable things. Progress on your own projects, managing your research team, and writing grants are all valuable. Service on committees and administrative tasks (like updating the department website), while also important, are less important than successfully launching your career. In the words of my mentors, when it comes to service in the pre-tenure years, do the minimum required. Help others (with their permission) protect their time too. While external requests for manuscript and grant reviews this year were manageable, this was the year of a hundred new funding sources with a thousand new grants. I was very tempted to write many of them, but there is not enough time to write them all, and saying “yes” to these grants meant saying “no” to other grants and opportunities. Protect your time and be picky in which grants you choose to write.

That is a wrap on Year 2! In Year 3, I have my three-year review. Fingers crossed this year will include the laboratory’s first papers, grants, and trainee fellowships. Stay tuned for more tales!

Did I miss an important point? Do you have questions or concerns about the post? Or perhaps an anecdote to contribute! Feel free to send some electrons my way in the comments, via Twitter @PipetteProtag, or through traditional electronic mail pipette.protagonist@gmail.com