On choosing the park

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Welcome to Changing Academic Life.

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I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick, and this is

a podcast series where academics and

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others share their stories, provide

ideas, and provoke discussions about what

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we can do individually and collectively

to change academic life for the better.

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A very short follow-up to the

conversations with Irina, which

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were just amazingly raw and

honest and insightful and full of.

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Nuggets that we can all learn from.

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And this is going to be a walk,

the talk learning here as well.

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But before I get to that.

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I just want to explain the lack of intro

music in some of the past episodes.

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And it's because I'm moving to this new

platform and there's this great tool

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for cleaning up the audio and removing

some of the background noise and reverb.

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It also is removing my music though.

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So I'm not going to use

the tool for this episode.

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You will have heard the music here.

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I'm in discussions with the platform,

people to see what we can do about it.

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And.

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For the past ones where

it didn't have the music.

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You'll just have to sing the tune to

yourself in your own head for now.

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And, uh, What I had wanted to do

in follow up to what Irina talked

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about was actually walk through some

of the literature around burnout.

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Some of the signs to look

out for some strategies.

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I also considered talking about some

strategies for saying yes and no.

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And in particular for those

things that we really want to do.

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I think sometimes I don't know about you,

but sometimes I find it easier to say

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no to things that I don't want to do.

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But yeah, it's that thing of, as,

as Irina talked about, you know, the

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opportunities that come along that you've

always wanted to do, so you tend to

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say yes, and how we often underestimate

how much time that might take.

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And.

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Find ourselves pushed to the limit.

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And so I think some of that can be the

hardest thing to deal with and that's

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the case here, because I'm not going

to do what I had intended to do.

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Uh, because it's been a

busier week than I expected.

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Again, not having realistic estimates

of how much time some planning would take

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me for running some workshops next week.

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And then I'm traveling, um, tomorrow.

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So it's a beautiful day today

and I can choose to spend the

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day in the study doing the.

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Uh, recording and doing the

research and developing the script.

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Or I can do a short thing where I'm still

going to connect and use the time to go

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out for a walk or for a run or whatever.

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So, uh, in that way,

walking the talk a bit.

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Just in the issue around saying

yes, I think it was Dan Harris

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had this lovely turn of phrase

about drowning in chocolate.

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And we often think about work and

overwhelm and all the things that,

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you know, the myriad things that we

have on our plates to do at any time.

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And we often have that analogy

of sort of drowning in work.

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And sometimes I think that when it's

the good stuff, we think we shouldn't be

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drowning and I can point you back to a.

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Uh, previous episode from a couple

of years ago with your Jolanta Burke.

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Who talked about her

burnout experiences as well.

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And she talked about the

difference between obsessive

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passion and harmonious passion.

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And how, even when you're doing lots

of things that you really love doing,

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and you're really excited about.

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You can still burn out.

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And the literature often points to

the fact that you may take a little

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bit longer to burn out and it may be

not as severe, but you still burn out.

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And I love that thing about that analogy

of drowning in chocolate that, you know,

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you're you think that swimming in this

sea of chocolate could be this amazing

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thing and you're doing all this fun stuff.

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But you still drown, whether

you're drowning in water

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or chocolate or whatever.

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And so, yeah, I think that's, uh,

that may be something for us all to

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reflect on about, especially how do we.

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Let go, those opportunities that

we've always wanted or that we

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know would be really great to do.

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I can sort of say that at this end of

my career there is a perspective of

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the whole arc of your career and that

other opportunities do come around.

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So it's not a total miss out and it

may not be that exact same opportunity,

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but there can be other opportunities.

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And it's worth thinking about that

longer term perspective and how

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do we, and I'm talking to myself

here, how do we make decisions

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that enable us to still be there?

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For the longer term to take

up those new opportunities.

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When we have a little bit

more capacity to do them.

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Uh, instead of the sort of up and

down of burn recover, burn, recover.

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And that that's the whole challenge

about how do we create more sustainable?

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Cultures where we can still be excited

about work and do lots of great stuff.

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So I will link.

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Uh, in the show notes here to

the conversation with Jolanta.

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I'll also link to the conversations

with Anna Cox and Amy Ko who

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both talked in some detail about

their own planning strategies.

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Um, Irina talked about the

value of tracking and they had

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some particular strategies.

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And again, like everyone, I think.

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You know, struggles with them in some way.

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I know that Anna has also written

some subsequent blog posts and

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done research on this as well.

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And so worth following up on those.

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So in the spirit of good

enough, I will leave it here.

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Uh, wish you a good week and

I'm heading out to the park.

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Bye

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You can find the summary notes,

a transcript, and related

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links for this podcast on www.

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changingacademiclife.

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com.

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