Busy Professors: Stop Working Unofficial Overtime

I recently had a conversation with a colleague about unofficial overtime. We didn't call it this, of course. What we said was, "There's no way to get it all done in 40 hours, so we work weekends and evenings without getting paid." If you're reading this, then you have probably been there yourself.

I was there once, too. But I haven't worked unofficial overtime in at least five years. Here is how I do it:

• Begin with a typical 40-hour week
• Block off your time beginning with your most important commitments (such as your classes). If you teach at my school, then that is probably 15 hours in the classroom right off the bat. This includes occasional travel time on foot and driving between campuses, so we'll add another 2 hours. Only 23 hours remaining.
• Then there is grading and prep work. We'll call that five hours for now. Only 18 hours left.
• You want to publish an article, so you have to set some time aside during the week for reading and writing. We'll ambitiously say five hours there, too. 13 hours left.
• Then there's the emails and other mind-numbing computer work that greedily sucks up time--this is probably a good 10 hours per week gone without much of anything to show for it. 3 hours left.
• The final three hours are for future course design and other administrative tasks. 0 hours remaining.

Here is the ideal week I've just outlined:

• But we're not done. We still have to make room for:
• Advising: 1-3 hours
• Surprise student guests: 1-3 hours
• Committee work: 1-3 hours
• Institutional service: 1-3 hours
• Student activities: 1-3 hours
• Faculty activities: 1-3 hours
• Professional service: 1-3 hours

This seems like a pretty good average week. The overtime clock runs to 40hrs + 7-21 extra hours. Some weeks we're lucky and only have to add a few of these unplanned activities. But we faculty are still being evaluated on all these extras. Is it really feasible to fit them in without overtime?

Here is the typical unofficial overtime week:

How To Avoid Unofficial Overtime by Sacrificing Your Priorities

Think of the above Ideal Graph as your baseline. If you add one hour of red (extra above 40hrs), then you have to subtract an hour somewhere else. What typically happens, I've learned, is that busy faculty sacrifice writing and research time. There are no angry emails sent to Deans because you didn't type 500 words this afternoon. By cutting writing time (5 hrs), you make room for 5 hours of extras--three students stop by for office hours, midterm grades are due, you're on a faculty search committee and have two 2-hr interviews. Now you're back to 40hrs and you haven't made a dent on that article you've been wanting to write for three years.

How To Avoid Unofficial Overtime WITHOUT Sacrificing Your Priorities

You and I have fixed priorities that we won't sacrifice no matter how many conflicts emerge. Attending scheduled classes is one of them (I hope). You don't skip class because students have invited you to their volleyball game. We also have to get grades in and so on. "I'm sorry, I can't interview that candidate, because midterm grades are due tomorrow." I know you're comfortable with this logic. So how about, "I can't attend the advising session, because I'm working on my book."

Do you see? You and I must decide right now spend our time intentionally. Doing so means designing a schedule and then sticking to it. I make time for mentoring undergraduate researchers and facilitating regular faculty workshops. These are important to me AND they count come annual evaluation time. But volunteering in these ways means I cannot volunteer in other ways. It means saying no to interviewing the next VP of Institutional Effectiveness Candidate. I would like to be able to do it all, but I'm not willing to work voluntary and unpaid overtime.

I am dedicated to working 40 hours per week or less. The only exception is if I'm doing grant work that is paid above my salary (the same would go for teaching extra classes) OR if I don't really count what I'm doing as work. [Such as typing this blog article right now; I'm not adding that to my 40hr count. My book-writing has turned a corner away and is now leading away from serious scholarship, so I generally don't count that towards my 40hrs, either. But boring peer-reviewed articles and so on: absolutely.]

It actually goes a bit beyond this. My capacities as a scholar, mentor, colleague, and creative thinker begin diminishing after about six hours. This means I schedule my priorities first (during the first six hours of a day), and then do the things that I must do but may not care about quite as much. This means that I only work around 30-36hrs per week. If I work more than this, then it is basically the same as working only 30-36hrs because of the cognitive efficiency/productivity cliff.

Admit Your Priorities and Stick to Them

All of this requires that you know what matters to you. For me, writing and teaching are way up high on the list. I'm not willing to sacrifice either for the sake of reviewing a new book manuscript for Palgrave or giving some random high schooler feedback on an essay they wrote. Of course, during some ideal weeks I can honor these invitations without sacrifice. I recently got a request to review an article from a journal I admire AND they needed it back within a month. I rearranged some things in order to do it. But if it had been a different journal, then I would have said no.

It's uncomfortable to say "no." I get it. I want to be all things to all people. But that's impossible. I love being able to say "Yes" to colleagues and students. But a willingness to say "yes" to others requires a willingness to say "no" to yourself.