I recorded a podcast episode on how to make time for an academic writing course. If you prefer, you can watch the YouTube video above or listen to it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
If you’re thinking, ‘I don’t have time to write research papers, let alone taking an academic writing course’, then you will learn proven and actionable strategies in here that help you make time for exactly that.
And you’re definitely not alone with this struggle. Not having time is the most common reason Assistant Professors provide for not enrolling in the Researchers’ Writing Academy, our online academic writing program. The beauty of the time-saving strategies I’m sharing is that they are pretty universal.
🤫 Sshhhh, you can also apply them if you want to make time for something other than writing or taking a scientific writing course.
The elephant in the room: Nobody has time for taking an academic writing course
Let’s be honest, a lot of providers of online courses don’t talk about the elephant in the room: How hard it is to make time for learning in our already busy work days!
It’s a bit of a vicious circle that you need to break. Because if you don’t have time to enrol in the Researchers’ Writing Academy, then you won’t learn techniques that help you write scientific articles for top-tier journals in a very time-efficient way. A professional development program is a fast track to your desired results: Investing time once will save you time writing (and agonising over) research papers for the rest of your career.
I know, I know, it’s easy for me to say. If you genuinely feel you don’t have a minute to spare, it might sound ridiculous when I say that there is time, that you just have to find, or make it.
This being said, I do want to acknowledge that sometimes we’re not in a season of our life where we have the energy, time and mental space to invest into our academic writing. When your priorities are elsewhere at the moment, for example bringing a new human into the world, going on a long field work trip or applying for a big research grant – a program where you learn how to write quality scientific papers fast may not be the right choice at this point in time.
However, if publishing scientific research papers is a priority for you right now, but you feel perpetually busy, then it is worth figuring out how to make time in your schedule to get on that publishing fast track. Because what’s the alternative? Not getting published where you want to get published in, continuing to dread writing and wasting time getting your drafts submission-ready? Yeah, exactly, that just isn’t an option if you want to have a fulfilling academic career.
7 strategies to make time for an academic writing course
Okay, let’s dive into the 7 strategies to carve out time to learn how to write a scientific research paper time-efficiently. Actually, it’s not just about making time, but also about rearranging your work day so you have enough energy, brain capacity, for cognitively demanding tasks such as learning and writing scientific research papers.
Don’t worry, if implementing 7 strategies sounds overwhelming – I recommend starting with adopting just 1 strategy at first. And spoiler: Implementing the strategies will come with some amazing side effects – you’ll see!
Here are the time-saving strategies I will introduce you to, including examples from members of the Researchers’ Writing Academy:
- #1: Be clear on your priorities
- #2: Time-blocking
- #3: Reduce your time spent in meetings
- #4: Cut down on email
- #5: Limit your time on social media and your phone
- #6: Track your time and energy
- #7: Learn to say “no”
Okay, let’s dive in:
Time-saving strategy #1: Be clear on your priorities
I invite you to think about whether you’re currently engaging in activities that are either not as important as investing in your academic writing or aren’t as time-sensitive.
👉🏻 Go through everything in your calendar (and project management system, if you have) and check what you really need to spend time and energy on this term. Which less important and less time-sensitive activities could you stop doing altogether and which could you postpone?
To take an academic writing course, you only need to make time for a limited period, i.e., the time it takes you to consume the course material.
👉🏻 Can you ask for extensions on projects or deadlines? Can you decline something you previously agreed to if it doesn’t align with your goals this term?
It can be awkward to backtrack on an agreement, but your colleagues will value honesty and that you are aware of your limited time and being able to follow through on your promises instead of asking for extension after extension. This ties into strategy #7, saying no, which we’ll talk about later.
How Researchers’ Writing Academy members prioritise taking an academic writing course
Here’s an example from a Researchers’ Writing Academy member: Ines limited doing paper reviews for journals she’s not on the editorial board of to one per quarter to free up time for improving her academic writing skills. I think that’s a great way to limit your workload for a period of time.
And Dr Kate McAlpine freed up just one weekend to go through all the lessons inside the Researchers’ Writing Academy – a strategy that worked really well for her.
Time-saving strategy # 2: Time-blocking
If you don’t want to blast through the scientific writing course within a weekend like Kate did but give professional development a recurring time slot in your week, then time-blocking might work for you.
👉🏻 Reflect on when the ideal time of day and day of the week is for you to watch the academic writing course lessons and develop your research paper.
You might want to use your “deep work” time for learning and consuming course material. Deep work, a term coined by author Cal Newport, refers to the time of day when you are able to focus best and do cognitively more demanding tasks.
For example, if your deep work time is in the mornings, find a time slot once or twice a week during your mornings to dedicate to the academic writing course. Defend that time and never book other activities during it! This might be more of a long-term strategy but see if you can reschedule any meetings and other commitments that currently happen during your deep work time.
How Researchers’ Writing Academy members use time-blocking to make time for the academic writing course
Here are two examples of how Researchers’ Writing Academy members time-block their calendars:
Jeeda says: ‘I find meetings in the morning are so draining, especially Zoom meetings. I block out a 4-hour chunk on my calendar 3 mornings a week and turn down meeting invitations during that time. I understand that as a grad student, I have more control over my time than someone more senior, but you’d be surprised how easily people respond.’
Ines adds: ‘I started doing the same 2 years ago. My rules are no meetings ever between 9 and 11, and 2 chunks of 2 hours per week for deep work with no distractions. It’s amazing how much we can accomplish. And guess what? There hasn’t been a single meeting I regretted not having attended.’
I love both Jeeda’s and Ines’ courage and initiative to take control of their time! I can attest to how much writing they get done thanks to designing their schedules in a way that work around their energy for deep work.
Researchers’ Writing Academy member Dr Sabina Hirshfield blocks her Friday mornings for professional development and goes to the library, which is a great strategy because it sends your brain the signal that it is time for learning.
Time-saving strategy #3: Reduce your time spent in meetings
This strategy ties in with being clear on your priorities. I recommend taking a critical look at the regular meetings currently in your diary.
Meet less frequently
👉🏻 Ask yourself if you could shift any weekly meetings to fortnightly (every 14 days). Or, if you’ve got any bi-weekly meetings, could you push those to monthly ones? And if you’re meeting on a project monthly, could that become a meeting every two months or once a quarter?
This won’t be possible for every meeting you have to attend but do consider every single one and ask yourself: What would the consequences be of meeting less frequently? Would these consequences be worse than not finding time to learn academic writing?
Use these questions as your decision filter for cutting down on meetings. The beauty of this strategy is that by meeting less frequently you’re instantly freeing up time without having to drop a project. Calculate how much time you are saving every month – this might motivate you!
Make meetings shorter
Another option to reduce your time spent in meetings is to decrease the meeting time:
👉🏻 Could a 60-minute meeting be 45 minutes?
Remember Parkinson’s law: “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” – which means that no matter how long you schedule a meeting for, you and your colleagues will likely fill the time. Try out cutting each meeting by just 15 minutes – if you do this for all meetings on your calendar, how much time will you save over the course of a week, and over the course of a month?
Limit your attendance
Also ask yourself, if your participation is really required in each meeting on your calendar. Maybe you can get a little creative:
👉🏻 Could you delegate your participation? Could someone else in your lab attend the meeting, a grad student or a post-doc? Or could you only attend parts of meetings?
Always ask the meeting organiser for an agenda beforehand. If you find that you only can really contribute to one or two points on the agenda, ask the organiser when these points are being scheduled for explaining that you are really stretched for time at the moment. Not everyone initiating meetings may be organised enough to give you an exact time slot, but you will certainly nudge them to run a more structured meeting – and that will save everyone time!
Time-saving strategy #4: Cut down on email
Emails take up so much time in a workday for almost every Assistant Professor. Email is an epidemic and we probably all loathe this. But most of us could probably improve on how we handle emails – and thus reduce email load not only for ourselves but everyone we’re communicating with.
I have learned a lot on this topic from Cal Newport’s book A World Without Email (yes, Cal Newport again – but he truly has published some great books!).
Increase your response times
My first suggestion is increasing your email response times.
👉🏻 If you’re used to answering emails within the hour, then you may want to allow yourself to respond within the same workday. Or if you’re normally answering emails within 24 hours, you could give yourself 48h.
This, of course, won’t work for everyone at all times but you might be surprised how often it does actually work. So, don’t just wave the suggestion away outright.
I have seen academics doing explicit expectation management by having an auto-reply or a note in their email signature that tells the sender about when to expect a response.
But you don’t necessarily need to do that, because others will start getting used to a certain response time from you. You probably already have different expectations for different people: if you know someone tends to take a week to get back to you, you might not even end up emailing them at all – but look for the answer elsewhere.
Stop checking and start processing
There is also value in checking emails less often.
👉🏻 Instead of checking your emails, process them.
Here’s how I do it: I don’t constantly open my email inbox, read new messages and then don’t reply. Instead I schedule a couple of time slots during my day to process my emails: I file those away that don’t need a reply, answer those that are quick to answer, and make Trello cards for those that require more focus or other associated tasks. Once an email is answered, it goes into a folder, out of sight.
I’ve found this to be super effective approach because processing your emails once or twice per day eliminates checking emails reflexively whenever your brain craves distraction or a dopamine-hit. This will also reduce the constant email noise in the background, which is taking A LOT of energy from you without you even realising.
Let’s hear from Researchers’ Writing Academy member Jeeda again:
“I check email twice a day only, in the morning, while I time block my day so I know how to plan my day, and then later in the afternoon to respond to the emails.”
Should this have been an email?
As you process your emails, start analysing whether an email could be handled differently.
👉🏻 Maybe a back-and-forth email conversation could be a meeting? Or could an email exchange be handled through a project management software?
The latter is often the case for emails that just communicate “X has been done”. In a project management software, the person could just check the task off.
Time-saving strategy #5: Limit your time on social media and on your phone
I think we are all aware that too much social media isn’t good for us. It’s not only a time sink but an energy and mood drain. By limiting your time on social media and on your phone, you will free up the time AND energy to take an academic writing course.
Only a year ago or so, I started to realise quite how energy-draining social media apps are for me – as someone who is being easily overstimulated. I have established some clear (and evolving) rules for myself:
- I access social media apps only from my laptop. It’s funny because not having them available all the time meant I pretty much lost interest even in those apps that I would have checked like 20x times a day before.
- My phone goes to bed about 30-60 minutes after I finish work, and as early as possible during weekends. And my phone only joins my day once I have done my little morning routine of reading for half an hour. It feels so, so good. I honestly feel like I’ve gained happiness, concentration and IQ points! At the end of the day, I rarely feel so wiped out anymore that the only thing I can do is watch TV. I’m reading more again, and also use the freed up time to take online courses, or have conversations with friends and family. I can’t recommend this more!
Not having my phone available also means that I have to be more structured about when I do tasks that I need my phone for, such as making plans with friends or online shopping. By having a more clearly allocated time, these digital errands don’t linger in the back of my head during evenings anymore.
These rules feel really aligned with me at the moment and I find them easy to follow (because the result feels so good!).
Redefine the relationship with your phone
👉🏻 How could you limit your time on social media and on your phone in general?
Here are a couple more suggestions:
- If you are commuting by train or bus, you could leave your phone in your pocket. You could use the time instead to take an academic writing course or just look out of the window – and save up your energy for learning later in the day!
- Instead of looking at your phone while eating, could you meet others for lunch (if being with people energises you)? Or could you watch a lesson from the academic writing course? Or, how would it feel to just focus on eating – again so you have left over more energy for learning later in the day
Be creative and try out ways to be without your phone that could work for you. And don’t despair if something doesn’t work right away. It’s hard because our phones fulfill a lot of functions, so expect some trial and error.
My phone interventions have required me to rearrange things in my life a little. For example, I had to buy an alarm clock to be able to leave my phone in my office over night. When I’m cooking dinner, instead of listening to a podcast, I now listen to music or talk to my partner or just cook in silence.
Researchers’ Writing Academy member Farina has also started to set some boundaries with social media: “I’ve limited social media and reduced or actually stopped friendships that exhaust or drain me. So setting personal boundaries has helped me free my mind and heart, and stabilise my family life and work life.”
Time-saving strategy #6: Track your time and energy
If you, as a busy Assistant Professor, are currently not quite sure where your time actually goes, I highly recommend time tracking. I’ve been doing this for years when working.
The time reports don’t only give me a fantastic overview over where I’m spending my time. Starting a time tracker also keeps me more focused on the task I’m doing. And it reminds me to take a break!
👉🏻 When you look at your time report and aren’t happy with the distribution of time spent on your various tasks and projects, you can actively work on changing it.
Through time tracking, you will have the data to proof to yourself when you have succeeded, which is encouraging!
I have been using the free version of Toggl for time tracking for years. But there are other apps as well that you can check out.
Tracking your energy
We have a member in the Researchers’ Writing Academy who recently shared how she doesn’t only track her time but her energy as well. She did this in a spreadsheet where she noted down next to every task how draining or energising it was.
That approach highlighted tasks she was going to try to reduce or eliminate. For those that she couldn’t just stop doing, she started experimenting with scheduling the draining tasks at different times of day.
👉🏻 Start tracking your time and energy. Doing it for just one or two weeks can be really enlightening!
Time-saving strategy #7: Learn to say “no”
We probably all feel like we need to say “no” more. Saying “yes” to projects, to opportunities, to doing others favours is so easy because making someone else happy feels so good.
👉🏻 If you are struggling fulfilling your commitments or feel like unexpected tasks keep being added to your calendar, then you might need to practice saying “no” more.
To be able to decline requests, it helps knowing what your priorities in a given period of time.
Ask for more time to decide
Here’s something that I learned from our academic writing coach in the Researchers’ Writing Academy, Dr. Emma Billington: Instead of your default “yes”, learn to reply by asking for more time decide. “It can be tempting to make snap decisions, especially when requests are made in person, but I try to give it a day or two and only say yes if I remain enthusiastic about the opportunity. If possible, I discuss new request opportunities with a trusted mentor colleague who understands my career and personal priorities before accepting.”
So for example, you could respond to a request with: ‘This sounds like an exciting opportunity/project. Thank you for thinking of me! Can I let you know by tomorrow, once I’ve checked my calendar?’
👉🏻 Write down this reply on a post-it not and put it on your screen until it has become your default reply!
Of course, if you already know that it’s a “no”, you can let the other person know immediately. A detailed explanation of why you’re turning down that opportunity is often not necessary.
Emma adds: “It can be hard to judge sometimes, which opportunities will end up making a difference, especially when you’re early career. So don’t be too hard on yourself with this one.”
I agree with Emma, the point here isn’t to strive for perfection and to never do someone a favour. But if you can start being more mindful about which projects you spend your time on, you will easily be able to make time for taking an academic writing course.
Carving out time to take an academic writing course – where to start
Now we have gone through seven different strategies that will help you make the time to take an academic writing course or other professional development training. To recap, we talked about:
- being clear on your priorities,
- blocking time on your calendar for watching course lessons and implementing what was taught,
- cutting down on time spent in meetings where possible,
- reducing email load,
- strictly limiting using social media and your phone,
- tracking how you spend your time and your energy levels, and
- saying “no” more often.
You don’t have to implement all of these strategies right away. Start with one!
👉🏻 Which of the time-saving strategies resonated most with you and feels most achievable?
Once you have managed adopting one, you will already have more time and energy available to invest into an academic writing course. You can choose to stop there.
But most likely, at this point, you got hooked and want to become a time management master – and slowly implement all of the time-saving strategies!
Make a commitment to yourself to build a learning and writing routine
👉🏻 I highly recommend making a commitment to yourself to build a new routine for honing your academic writing skills, and ultimately, writing itself.
We structured the Journal Publication Formula, the course portion inside the Researchers’ Writing Academy, in a way so you can apply what you learned to your scientific research paper right away. This means that learning and writing will become intertwined so you can eventually transition from using the time you carved out for taking the academic writing course for just writing.
Good luck! And we’d love to see you inside the Researchers’ Writing Academy! If you want to learn more about our academic writing program, I recommend taking our free introductory training.
Thank you to our writing coach Dr Emma Billington and the members of the Researchers’ Writing Academy who let me share their wisdom.
