The Productive Academic Series

Productivity for Academics

Academic work seems to be a never-ending list of things to get done and competing priorities. Academic ‘deliverables’ – be it papers, books, grant applications or PhD theses – can be years away. To make it worse, our workdays can be very fragmented, with service and teaching duties slowly eating the time you’ve set aside for research.

It’s tempting to use weekends and evenings to ‘catch up’, but doing so can affect our social life and health, not to mention caring responsibilities. The possibility of burn out is real and the effects can be lasting.

Our productivity series is designed to help you meet the expectations of your job or research degree within a reasonable working week.

During the PhD we are taught what the outcome of good academic work looks like, but we are left to work out how through trial and error. What’s the best way to keep track of and progress big projects amid innumerable distractions? How do you stay focused when your work is constantly interrupted? How do you manage a writing pipeline? What feedback do you need to be successful?

All our workshops draw on the most current research about cognition and attention. We will open your mind to new ways of working and show you how to effectively use technology to tame that work beast.

Upcoming workshops

These workshops are open to all researchers at ANU, from PhD to professor. Below is the schedule for 2023/2024 and at the end of this page are descriptions of the various offers. If you have any questions about the Productivity series, please contact Researcher Development: researcherdevelopment@anu.edu.au.

Workshops in the Productivity for Academics series

Building a second brain for writing

When you sit down to write a paper, book or thesis, do your notes help or hinder? Do you write a lot of notes and then have trouble finding them again? If you are struggling to keep all your research 'stuff' tidy and useful, workshop is for you!

In this workshop Inger will introduce you to several well known, systematic note taking methods. You’ll explore these techniques in detail to find out what might work for you. We’ll then explore a couple of systems for keeping your notes so you can find them again. We’ll look at both analogue and digital note keeping systems and explore the relative merits of each. 

The idea of this workshop is to equip you for super writing productivity - for life. If this productivity nerd-fest sounds like heaven to you, sign up!

Getting Sh!t done

Do you struggle to plan your day effectively? Do you find yourself distracted by dozens of little tasks, which stop you getting to your big ones? Do you procrastinate, or sometimes spend far too long looking at cat videos on TikTok? If so, this workshop is for you. In this workshop, Prof Inger Mewburn will walk you through David Allen’s famous ‘Getting Things Done’ (GTD) system and show you how you can use it to manage academic work.

Writing under pressure: strategies when you are short on time (but long on ambition)

Academics often have to pick up and put down a piece of writing, making it hard to find focus and flow. PhD students can experience the same problems when they are forced to go part time to complete their project. Learn how to complete writing projects 'on top of everything else' and without losing your mind.

In this workshop, Professor Inger Mewburn (@thesiswhisperer), a prolific writer, shares her top strategies on getting that writing done, preferably within a standard working week. This workshop is suitable for anyone who reacts to the title and says 'Yes! This is what I need in my life!'. It helps if you have a writing project you're struggling to get done - we'll show you how to make progress.

The 5 Ps of Talent & Team Development: There are five workshops in this series. The best way to participate is to do them all, but you can come to each workshop separately. This series is run by Dr Derek Panchuk, an expert in high performance sport coaching.

1. Purpose having a clear vision of what you’re doing and why you’re doing can make the decision making process easier. In this webinar, we’ll unpack you’re why and how you can leverage your purpose to communicate the value and impact you want to have through your work.
2. Planning success doesn’t happen by accident! A well-thought out plan can be a road map for success. In this webinar, we’ll explore how you can get the most out of your time through prioritising your tasks and focusing on the next big milestone in your way.
3. Pushing people won’t change unless they’re challenged, so you need to know how to get yourself working on the edge of your comfort zone to find your flow. This webinar will examine how taking a deliberate practice approach to your journey can put you on the path for success.
4. Participation you can’t just sit back and expect great things to happen, productive people take control of the process. In this webinar we’ll look at how you can control the ‘controllables’ during your studies, manage the unexpected, and adapt so that you can thrive.
5. Probing asking for and receiving feedback is a great way to keep on track and make sure that your expectations align with those of your supervisors and other stakeholders. In this webinar, we’ll look at the feedback you need to be successful and how to ask for it.