Working in academia can be tough. Balancing teaching and learning, leadership responsibilities, and development in your research field, writing for publications or study for professional advancement. Add onto this external roles that you may take on, caring responsibilities and looking after health and well-being, and it’s no surprise that exhaustion and burnout creeps in.

My focus last year was on self-reflection and setting up work systems to support a better work life balance, prioritising personal well-being, but as the year progressed, I realised I was still holding on to far too many responsibilities and engaging in too many additional projects outside of my core work. It also didn’t help that professional platforms I engage with seemed to display a constant stream of non-stop achievements, promotions, certifications, and endless capacity, reinforcing the false narrative that either I wasn’t doing enough or that progression and success was only possible by continuous over-extension.

So this academic year, I approached things differently. I began with reviewing my goals for the year and adjusted them so, alongside being mapped to university strategic goals, they also incorporated steps towards personal and professional advancement. This process streamlined the number of targets I had, and gave greater value to what I wanted to achieve by the end of the year.

I then calendar blocked. Consciously blocking out time for scheduled teaching, marking, scholarly activity, recurring meetings, allocated research hours and annual leave enabled me to see how my workload would peak at different points in the year, and where I would benefit from adding in rest breaks to protect well-being.

To support student and external queries, and to prevent the back and forth of emails trying to gauge availability, I scheduled a weekly three hour window for 1-2-1’s, adding a direct link to my bookings page in my email signature. Lastly, to create space for impromptu tasks, meetings and calls, I left half day a week completely unscheduled.

In order for calendar blocking to work, however, I had to turn off phone notifications and retrain myself to only engage in work when at my desk and during work hours. While resetting these boundaries was the hardest part of the process, it helped me regain control over my availability and readjust how accessible I am. And while I enjoyed using a smartphone to work flexibly, capitalise on commute times and seamlessly switch from home to work, I was allowing myself to be called upon at short notice resulting in an increasing workload that expanded into evenings, weekends, and annual leave.

So, how successful were the strategies that I put in place?

Despite my seemingly well thought out plan, there was one thing I failed to consider, and that was the challenge that comes with working in large organisations. The truth is, even with a clear structure and stricter boundaries, unknown operational timelines and delays in accommodating changes to workload models can result in structural gaps and extra hours that automatically default back to us. And even though I was adamant in creating systems that would protect personal, family and rest time, the reality was accommodating true balance required continuous and often challenging negotiations in an unpredictable environment.

As I look towards planning for next year, I am still unsure how I factor in the unknown when creating boundaries, finalising workload plans and creating annual goals. But I am certain that professional excellence, career advancement and personal well-being can, and should, co-exist, and unless sustainable working practices and institutional structures allow for this, the cost will always be of personal capacity and health.