Last time I wrote about the merits of Julie Hulme’s ‘Buy One Get One Free’ approach to scholarly outputs, and observed that this was an effective way of building your profile in a time efficient way. However, writing does takes time. I therefore thought I would also share some of my tips for making time for educational research, scholarship and academic career development, all of which ultimately require you to write.

No one will ever give you time – you have to create time for yourself. No one will hand you extra hours, days or weeks for you use on the projects that are important to you but always seem to be on the back burner. Waiting for that mythical window of time to appear in your diary is a recipe for never getting anything done. I found changing my mindset from the passive ‘finding time’ to the active ‘creating time’ was really powerful, as it helped me see that I had agency and could be much more in control.

Education focussed academics are often particularly pressed for time, as they typically have heavy teaching loads in addition to significant amounts of pastoral work, programme leadership, curriculum design and committee work. There is often a perception that education focussed colleagues should be engaged in teaching related work 100% of their time (or more than 100% in too many cases). However, in the UK at least, almost all academics in education focussed roles are contractually entitled to time for scholarship, and some form of scholarship or scholarly output is required for promotion.

I have also noticed that education focussed individuals often feel guilty for spending time on their own projects and career development. It is not selfish to spend time on writing. Outputs are essential for your career progression, which you are entitled to just as much as any of your colleagues. If excessive workload is a problem you need to directly raise this with your line manager, pointing directly to your contract and promotion criteria and making it clear that your employer has a responsibility to ensure you can fulfil all aspects of your role.

However, pragmatically I recognise that time is precious and can be difficult to allocate in amongst a packed diary. Writing and thinking takes actual time – it is not something you can do with 20 minutes snatched here and there. Here are a few strategies I have used to find time to write and generate outputs (including my own fellowship and promotion documents)

• Allocate time in your diary *before* it gets filled with meetings. As soon as you get your teaching timetable, identify whole days and block these days in your calendar. Ideally block some consecutive days, or even a week if you can. In my calendar I set these as private events, and call them “Writing time – do not accept any other meetings” to remind myself to protect the time. I am pretty strict on not accepting other meetings unless they are genuinely important, and usually try and reschedule the writing time rather than just letting it go.
• Identify the slower times in the academic calendar for writing. They do exist, even if it doesn’t feel like it. That time is *not* the summer, which always disappears far too fast, and you also need to take time off. I find the very first week of January a good week for writing, before everything else really gets going. If your course is exam based, the week running up to students taking the exam is also a good time to write before the marking comes in! Again, think in terms of days and even weeks for quality writing.
• Allocate at least 2 hours *every week* for writing. I tend to block a 2 hour window once a week first thing in the morning – you can get away with not starting meetings before 11am surprisingly often. On writing mornings, do not open your email or Teams! Only open your writing documents so you are protecting your headspace. 2 hours a week adds up faster than you’d think, and if you are building momentum on a project you are more likely to find some extra hours for it.
• Actually write, don’t just think about writing. It is easy to say ‘I spent the morning writing’ when what you actually did was half-read some sources, make some unhelpful notes, stare at a blank screen and make yourself multiple cups of coffee. While the reading phase is important, for an output there need to be words on a page! For me at least, the process of writing sentences and paragraphs is integral to thinking about a topic. It is usually easier to edit some bad writing than it is to stare at blank document. Set yourself word goals for a writing session e.g. in the next 2 hours I am going to write 500 words – worry about the quality of words later, just get them written.
• Protect the writing flow. If you are in the zone, stay in it for as long as possible! Avoid distractions, and just harness that creative energy to get your thoughts in the page. When I’m really in the zone I will prioritise just bashing out the words. In this mode, I find referencing properly be a real distraction, so will often just put in placeholders for e.g. ‘autonomy references here’ and come back to sorting this out and accurately describing the source later. Of course you need to have done some quality reading first to be able to do this!
• Work out where and how you write best. I can’t write in my regular office – far too many distractions. I like to escape to a different part of campus (e.g. the humanities floor of the library) so I am at work, but in a location that I can’t really be tracked down. I also actively like a central library space, as the desk is clear from distractions. Long train journeys and some cafes also work well for me. I’ve also found I can bash out ideas quite quickly by writing on my phone – it isn’t polished writing, but I can write a few hundred words in a GoogleDoc on my phone over a cup of coffee. Think about how productive you could be if you turned even part of your screen time into writing time! I also pay attention to the music I listen to for writing (I pretty much always listen to music at work) – I can write blog posts to most types of music, but for deep intellectual thought I find anything with lyrics too distracting, so change my playlist.
• Identify an accountability buddy. Ask a colleague if they will act as an accountability buddy (choose someone perhaps a little bit scary that you don’t want to disappoint!). Set some specific writing goals with them including timescales e.g. I will write a first draft of the results section by the end of the month. When you set that goal, also schedule a meeting with your buddy to check-in on progress. I find this external accountability makes my writing tasks feel just as important as any other work related tasks (which they are).
• Write with other people. I love writing retreats, where a small group of colleagues book a room to write together. You can write together on a shared project, or just work on your own projects independently. At the start of the session you can compare notes about what you are working, and state goals for e.g. the next hour of writing, and then report back on your progress at the end of that time. These work best if you make a commitment to each other to actually write in that time – not research, read, or make notes, but write. There is something about the sound of other people typing away furiously to make you focus on your own writing.

I hope these tips are useful. I’ve used various combinations of them over the years to make sure that I am writing regularly. I also find that the more you write, the more rewarding you find it, so the more you want to write. The more you write, the better you will get at it, making progress increasingly rapid. Unfortunately you alone are responsible for creating time, but with just a few tweaks to the way you work, it is within your power to do so. Take those opportunities and get down to writing! You can do it, so no more excuses!