Academic burnout/taking breaks?

[futureapppsy2]

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My first year on the TT is wrapping up (wrapped up? It’s kind of hard to tell), and I guess I was productive (10+ pubs in rank, most as first author, small external and internal grants received, published an edited book as lead editor, etc), but I’m feeling pretty burnt out and exhausted at this point. A couple of mentors have suggested taking breaks, but the logistics of that seem really difficult, as the flow of work is incessant and intense, and I feel like I’m always struggling not to let collaborators, mentors, mentees, students, etc., down and juggling multiple lines of research/projects as well as teaching/service/advising requirements (even though we’re on 9 month contracts, our program— and therefore our advising and service requirements are year-round. The pandemic makes this more difficult as I can’t actually go vacation or even really do anything around town (my state is spiking and never really declined to begin with).

How do you/can you take a break in academia?

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

10+ pubs, mostly first author....in your first year? Wow, you crushed it.

As for taking time...I think some of it is a mindset. Some of the best advice I received my first year was "learn to say no." It's easier said than done, but there will always be more committees, collaboration opportunities, etc.

Do you have mentors? I ask bc they can help w your planning and the planning can help with finding a better work life balance and even maybe....plan some time to not work.

If you don't already have mentors lines up, you may want to consider someone who can help you navigate the political waters of academia, and also a second person who is more closely familar w your work. Maybe someone you publish with and/or someone outside of your University. I mention this for going forward bc they can help you progress & hopefully not drown in work. Having a 1, 3, and ideally 5yr plan penciled out can help put things in perspective...but start w 1 yr and goes from there.

As for taking time....that's the hardest part. I ended up leaving academia bc I couldn't find the balance I needed. You are more research heavy than I ever was (1.5-2 pubs per year), so I'm not sure how your calendar looks in regard to deadlines and deliverables for your grants, but you need to proactively plan or you'll never take a break.

No idea how to navigate academia in the time of COVID-19, but hopefully others can chime in.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

I bet you could cut some more social activities. Maybe cut out sleep. Brushing teeth and general grooming are overrated.
🙂

 

[Ollie123]

We're in very different areas of academia, but agree with T4C. I think what I (and many others) struggle with is knowing what is "enough" to do. Once you settle into an area, if you are a reasonably creative/effective researcher you realize there is a virtually infinite amount of work that can be done and the only limitations are time and money. If those factors were not in play, I could very easily put together 50+ grants tomorrow. I have probably 50-100 papers I could write just off data I already have in my possession, forget about the new stuff. Especially being soft-money, this leads to near-constant fear that I'm not doing "enough" and at some point the house of cards will fall, I won't get my next couple grants and I'll lose my job. This means you have to set limits because the work isn't going to be "done" at any point - you have just made space for more.

This is still a struggle so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but I think its mostly using those basic CT techniques and realizing that even that "catastrophic" consequence is not really a big deal. Worst case scenario is that I go get another job and I have to do an annoyingly large volume of clinical work until I find one. Getting a new job sounds scary, but I don't know anyone who went from successful TT assistant professor to permanently unemployed. 95% of the world would love to be in that situation. Having a family has actually made it easier to draw clear boundaries and learn to say "screw it" a little earlier in the day so I get to spend time with people. "Scheduling" rest is helpful, as is taking advantage of the fact that as faculty we are now (hopefully) all paid like grown-ups and should have at least a little spending money. We recently joined a wine club and now every Wednesday cook a new recipe to go with one of those wines and then watch a new foreign film afterwards. Been a fun tradition and forces me to stop working at a reasonable time on Wednesday.

Even in pandemic-life, take a "staycation". I wrote my first R01 a few months back. For a variety of reasons, I ended up (and I mean this 100% literally) working 80-hour weeks the entire month before it was due. I took 3 days off after and would have done more except I didn't want my patients to suffer.

I've talked about this with a lot of people. The "solutions" always seem pathetic and half-baked. As is everything I just said. Its because there is no magic solution. There is no formula one can follow. I've tried dozens, I've come to accept that it doesn't exist. Just find ways to dial it back when you can. Let some things slide. Tell some collaborators "look, I'm slammed right now - can we hit pause on this for a few weeks" etc.

Or just quit and go do something else🙂 I have and still do consider it. Nothing wrong with it and its nice to feel like there are options.

 

[MAClinician]

Just want to say @futureapppsy2 that with everything you have accomplished this past year, I appreciate your contributions to this forum and willingness to engage different members, answer questions, and provide invaluable feedback during your “free time”. Thank you 🙂

 

[Justanothergrad]

You absolutely killed it year one (or year 30). Breaks are illusive anyway since despite being a 9month contract, very few treat it like it is (at least, pre-tenure). I'm sure everyone has a different way, or level of work, that makes them happy.

I personally enjoy articles more than I do grants so I tend to allocate my time accordingly during the year (and summer). Now that I've gotten into the swing of things (it took me a bit of time to get my data built up since I came directly out of a non-research program without doing a post-doc), I target between 7-12ish pubs accepted each year and the grants I need to keep myself going professionally. That's a fairly manageable number of pubs for me given the type of work most of them come out of and how I write. The grants are just a drag to me- I didn't come from a grant training background so it is also an uphill battle to learn what I need/get the collaborations/get established to be successful for more than foundation and small grants (<50k) (etc). It just hasnt been a joyful part of academia to me but I know others like it way more. So, when it comes to taking a break I just crank my effort for leads down to way low. I've found this is a good way/excuse to cut in mentees into leadership roles for papers, or if collaborators want to take a first stab at something. I work on my FA papers less (or not at all for a few weeks) and if they take longer, whatever. I 'should' do more grants in the summer, but... I don't enjoy them. So I don't. With it comes to expectations (social and otherwise), the ones I'm primarily worried about is mentees. Collaborators get it. Students (non-mentees) have you when you're working on your main 9-month contract and so I typically just keep myself generally available for mentees (although they also get it, and like knowing I'm on vacation). I definitely work more than the 9month contract, although I've also had teaching gigs each summer too so that plays a role. I usually do several 7-10 day 'do nothing' vacations each summer even though where I do some wood working, go hiking/camping/climbing for an extended period, etc. This year, its definitely been more working intermittently and none of the longer vacations for sure.

 

[PsyDr]

Workaholic advice:

1) The workflow will never, ever, ever, ever stop, so long as you let it.
2) You have to decide where you want to be with the workflow.
3) IME, the only way to slow workflow is to decline things, or be strict with your schedule. There will be times in which you are slower in your work. You HAVE to plan for this. Planning for 8hrs/work per day, everyday, every week, without fail, is simply naive.
4) IME, you have to manage other's expectations. If you tell people you can do a task in one month, they will establish that time frame as your baseline. If one month is the expectation for when you are 99% efficient, you're screwed. They will eventually try to get you to do that task in 25 days, then 20, then 10, etc. However, if your initial estimate is 3 months.... well you have some leeway.
5) Sometimes, a vacation of at least two weeks in an area with NO cell coverage and NO email, will interrupt the work flow demands. Simple extinction burst stuff.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

One of the best things I learned from the mentorship program at my prior R1 was the importance of realistic scheduling +/-15%. I built out a template of my clinical coverage, decided what my base week would be hour-wise, and figured out blocks of time for research efforts. Plotting everything in a dummy schedule (made in excel) helped me visualize my weeks. Then I tracked my time for a couple of weeks, to see if it lined up.

I was bleeding time w clinical duties taking more time, which is where the +/-15% comes in. I realized that I too easily said yes to things & it would negatively impact my schedule down the line. I learned to schedule some "hold" time DURING my clinical hours & any curbside or drop-in stuff was corralled to that slot.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Workaholic advice:

1) The workflow will never, ever, ever, ever stop, so long as you let it.
2) You have to decide where you want to be with the workflow.
3) IME, the only way to slow workflow is to decline things, or be strict with your schedule. There will be times in which you are slower in your work. You HAVE to plan for this. Planning for 8hrs/work per day, everyday, every week, without fail, is simply naive.
4) IME, you have to manage other's expectations. If you tell people you can do a task in one month, they will establish that time frame as your baseline. If one month is the expectation for when you are 99% efficient, you're screwed. They will eventually try to get you to do that task in 25 days, then 20, then 10, etc. However, if your initial estimate is 3 months.... well you have some leeway.
5) Sometimes, a vacation of at least two weeks in an area with NO cell coverage and NO email, will interrupt the work flow demands. Simple extinction burst stuff.

I think this point can be particularly important, especially because early in our careers, we (or at least I) often feel the internal pull to provide overly-idealistic timelines. This also applies to how much work you agree to do in general. As an example from the clinical world: let's say I normally see 5 outpatient neuropsych evals/week, but our clinic is falling behind on referrals, so I agree to do an extra eval or two per week for two months (without an increase in pay) to help us catch up. After those couple months are up, upper management is less likely to say, "great job, thanks for the extra work!" or, "gee, that was really helpful, if you can keep seeing that many patients/week, we'll bump your pay X amount" than they are, "so you were seeing 7 patients/week for the past two months at your current salary, why can't you just keep seeing 7 patients/week at your current salary?"

The first time saying "no" is tough. It gets much easier very quickly after that (at least it did for me). And eventually, when you say "yes" instead, it's appreciated that much more.

Also, I second/third/fourth the advice that when you do take time off, either don't respond to texts/emails/calls, or if you know you can't resist, just don't allow yourself to do so (e.g., go somewhere without service as PsyDr mentioned, or don't bring your phone/laptop with you).

 

[PsyDr]

I think this point can be particularly important, especially because early in our careers, we (or at least I) often feel the internal pull to provide overly-idealistic timelines. This also applies to how much work you agree to do in general. As an example from the clinical world: let's say I normally see 5 outpatient neuropsych evals/week, but our clinic is falling behind on referrals, so I agree to do an extra eval or two per week for two months (without an increase in pay) to help us catch up. After those couple months are up, upper management is less likely to say, "great job, thanks for the extra work!" or, "gee, that was really helpful, if you can keep seeing that many patients/week, we'll bump your pay X amount" than they are, "so you were seeing 7 patients/week for the past two months at your current salary, why can't you just keep seeing 7 patients/week at your current salary?"

The first time saying "no" is tough. It gets much easier very quickly after that (at least it did for me). And eventually, when you say "yes" instead, it's appreciated that much more.

Also, I second/third/fourth the advice that when you do take time off, either don't respond to texts/emails/calls, or if you know you can't resist, just don't allow yourself to do so (e.g., go somewhere without service as PsyDr mentioned, or don't bring your phone/laptop with you).

@AcronymAllergy I think that is a separate issue that our profession handles poorly. Medicine is much better at this. “You want more work, you better offer something.”

Basics of contract law: a contract is where both parties get something and give something. If one party wants to change things, the other party has to be offered something in consideration of that change. Failure to do so may invalidate the contract.

It’s vitally important to ask employers what consideration they are offering. There are too many nice people just giving away their future.

“So 2 extra assessments a weekat $1k per assessment at 48 weeks per year, is an extra $96k in gross revenue. Right now the median neuropsych salary is around $140k for about 5 assessments per week, which is about $240k in gross, which you’re taking about $100k of, which is about a 60/40 split. You’re asking for an approximate 40% increase in productivity. I’ll agree to this at the current split, which would be a salary of $197k. Or am I working for a place that has such a low opinion of me that they won’t abide by contract law?“

 

[WisNeuro]

It’s vitally important to ask employers what consideration they are offering. There are too many nice people just giving away their future.

I think people also balk at threatening to leave for PP because they think things are too complicated. Especially for neuropsych, where the volume is relatively low compared to things like therapy visits for the week, or PCP visits (20+), our billing is pretty easy, takes about 15-30 mins a week. Why some people are willing to give away 5-10% of their billing to have someone else do that is beyond me.

 

[PsyDr]

I think people also balk at threatening to leave for PP because they think things are too complicated. Especially for neuropsych, where the volume is relatively low compared to things like therapy visits for the week, or PCP visits (20+), our billing is pretty easy, takes about 15-30 mins a week. Why some people are willing to give away 5-10% of their billing to have someone else do that is beyond me.

1) If you are a producer, you don't have to threaten to leave. What are the employers gonna do? Say they want an additional 2 assessments per week. If they fire you, you have a slam dunk lawsuit against them based upon the contract. They can hire a half time neuropsych if they can find one, but that's gonna be much more expensive when benefits and on boarding is completed. At the end of the day, their cheapest option is to try to get you to work for free. Their second cheapest option is to pay you more. Their third cheapest option is to fire you, pray you don't sue them for breach, and hire some ECP. Etc.

2) I believe you are misinterpreting all that billers do. Having someone to answer patient calls, divert anger away from you, etc is worth it. If you're full, you shouldn't be deciding between an hour of admin work vs an hour of revenue generating work.

 

[WisNeuro]

1) If you are a producer, you don't have to threaten to leave. What are the employers gonna do? Say they want an additional 2 assessments per week. If they fire you, you have a slam dunk lawsuit against them based upon the contract. They can hire a half time neuropsych if they can find one, but that's gonna be much more expensive when benefits and on boarding is completed. At the end of the day, their cheapest option is to try to get you to work for free. Their second cheapest option is to pay you more. Their third cheapest option is to fire you, pray you don't sue them for breach, and hire some ECP. Etc.

2) I believe you are misinterpreting all that billers do. Having someone to answer patient calls, divert anger away from you, etc is worth it. If you're full, you shouldn't be deciding between an hour of admin work vs an hour of revenue generating work.

1) Depends on the organization. Most of the time, the people in the mgmt roles don't really understand these things. Our org just let someone walk with no negotiation. When I floated leaving/reducing my FTE, same thing.

2) Depends on your mix. I have a couple colleagues who do a mix of IME/clinical. Their clinical work is 2-3 evals, usually dementia, pretty minimal work. Between scheduling and billing, they're spending 1-2 hours a week.

 

[PsyDr]

1) Depends on the organization. Most of the time, the people in the mgmt roles don't really understand these things. Our org just let someone walk with no negotiation. When I floated leaving/reducing my FTE, same thing.

2) Depends on your mix. I have a couple colleagues who do a mix of IME/clinical. Their clinical work is 2-3 evals, usually dementia, pretty minimal work. Between scheduling and billing, they're spending 1-2 hours a week.

1) I'm not talking about reducing. I'm talking about them increasing. Totally different things.

2) I would contend they are very far from full. Slackers. They could throw another 3 dementia evals in there, and a biller would make financial sense.

 

[WisNeuro]

1) I'm not talking about reducing. I'm talking about them increasing. Totally different things.

2) I would contend they are very far from full. Slackers. They could throw another 3 dementia evals in there, and a biller would make financial sense.

1) I've literally thrown a very detailed proposal, complete with billing numbers and projections, broken up with estimates from medicare and different insurance reimbursement levels, outlining how we could increase billing by at least 400 percent by hiring one more neuropsychologist and one tech, with a slight restructuring of clinics. Didn't bat an eye.

2) Everyone has their definition of FT. I make more money than I need working 30-40 hours a week.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Heh, a lot of these responses made me feel worse rather than better, but I kind of had to expect that posting on here. 😉 @Ollie123 was spot on when he talked about the need/possibility to always to do more and the mountains of data that are waiting to be analyzed and written up. I do have a lot of awesome mentors, externally (the department is too "young" to have much in the way of external mentors and pre-tenure faculty productivity seems to vary greatly--of the faculty who got tenure this year, publication numbers ranged from having 15 pubs in rank to 75 pubs in rank [and 40+ of those over two years!], so it's hard to get a good sense of what's needed), but it's kind of the same issue as on SDN where they are rock star, incredibly successful academics, so it's nigh impossible for them to advise anyone who isn't an absolute rock star, simply because they don't struggle with anything in academia and just kick ass.

 

[Ollie123]

Remember tenure is about exceeding a certain bar. In most places (especially University side vs AMCs) it usually isn't a zero-sum game. Don't just look at the folks who DO get tenure, try to get some idea of those who did not though that is admittedly a lot harder to track down in many cases.

If tenured faculty published between 2 and 50 papers per year and had between zero and 25 million dollars in grant funding, that tells you little. If folks denied tenure all had less than 2 publications a year and no funding, that is potentially informative.

In other words, there is a floor but no ceiling.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Update: I ended up taking a look at my values and priorities (like a good third-wave behaviorist 😉 ) and realizing that I do a lot of projects and manuscripts specifically to work with certain collaborators-mentors-mentees-friends, and if they aren't there, those projects/MSes lose a lot of their value for me. I have no shortage of data or conceptual/theoretical pieces to write-up, and I've just decided to explicitly make the involvement of certain people on certain projects a hard line on whether or not I do them or if they get back burnered. For example, I recently submitted a first-author special issue MS where the person who I largely did the manuscript to work with (secondary analysis of a project she co-PI'd) was like "hey, I have XYZ coming up next week--if I don't get to editing this before the deadline, you can just submit it without me as a co-author" and I was just like "I don't feel comfortable without you as a co-author on this. If you get to it, awesome; if you can't get to it, it doesn't get submitted. I feel very strongly about this." She said, "Okay, no problem, I'll definitely make time for it." And did.

So, basically, prioritizing relationships in my research activities has 5000% improved my happiness with academia. I don't think its affected my productivity very much either way, but that was not the issue, honestly. Also, we got a seven-figure grant I PI'd (training, not research, but my money is money), so that's awesome.

Edit: seven-figure grant, actually, when you add in cost-share!

 

[futureapppsy2]

Update: I got my annual tenure and promotion feedback from my department head--it was glowing (multiple uses of the word "exceptional," referred to both the quantity and quality of my research, called me a "field builder," etc) as were my teaching evals this semester--only real criticism was just guidance related to how to write-up my dossier. There's been some talk from my department head and dean about possibly going up for (very) early tenure, and I'll know more about that in the Spring.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

You are a rockstar! Well deserved.

 

[ClinicalABA]

Congratulations!

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Update: I got my annual tenure and promotion feedback from my department head--it was glowing (multiple uses of the word "exceptional," referred to both the quantity and quality of my research, called me a "field builder," etc) as were my teaching evals this semester--only real criticism was just guidance related to how to write-up my dossier. There's been some talk from my department head and dean about possibly going up for (very) early tenure, and I'll know more about that in the Spring.

Congrats, future; very well-deserved

 

[WisNeuro]

Woop! Way to go!

 

[PsyDr]

Update: I got my annual tenure and promotion feedback from my department head--it was glowing (multiple uses of the word "exceptional," referred to both the quantity and quality of my research, called me a "field builder," etc) as were my teaching evals this semester--only real criticism was just guidance related to how to write-up my dossier. There's been some talk from my department head and dean about possibly going up for (very) early tenure, and I'll know more about that in the Spring.

You have learned a valuable lesson about how excessive work can produce a desire to leave the field altogether. And you’ve learned feelings and external cues signify that you are working too much.

 

[futureapppsy2]

So, apparently, this is becoming my tenure-track update thread. 🙂

I received my official feedback from my Dean (we get annual feedback from our department tenure and promotion committee, department head, and dean). It was similarly glowing--"almost without peer," "jaw-dropping productivity" for an ECP, "extremely high research impact," etc. My department head said that it's a question of "when, not if" I go up for early tenure, and the three of us will be meeting in the next month-ish to discuss the exact timeline.

 

[ClinicalABA]

So, apparently, this is becoming my tenure-track update thread. 🙂

I received my official feedback from my Dean (we get annual feedback from our department tenure and promotion committee, department head, and dean). It was similarly glowing--"almost without peer," "jaw-dropping productivity" for an ECP, "extremely high research impact," etc. My department head said that it's a question of "when, not if" I go up for early tenure, and the three of us will be meeting in the next month-ish to discuss the exact timeline.

Great! So when is your vacation and where are you going?