I recently attended a very useful CPD event organised by the Division of Work and Organisational Psychology in the Psychological Society of Ireland on Productivity. The event was given by Dr. Richard MacKinnon a workplace psychologist and managing director of WorkLifePsych (@dr_mackinnon), who has a straightforward and effective approach to how we can reflect on, and improve how we work in order to positively impact our overall wellbeing in a holistic way by looking at a number of pillars of productivity. You can find out about this (psychological) evidence-based approach to thinking about your productivity in a podcast co-hosted by Dr. MacKinnon, My Pocket Psych, specifically starting at episode 32. The show notes relating to the different episodes contain a number of very useful resources.
Tools that can help those working in higher education to manage their workloads and improve wellbeing in a holistic way are to be welcomed, especially in academic roles with the open ended nature of that work and the expectation of continually maintaining excellence across a number of areas. The pressures of academic roles have been brought into sharp relief recently in three reports from the UK, with two research reports on wellbeing in universities, from the charity Education Support Partnership (reported on in an article in The Guardian,
‘It’s cut-throat’: half of UK academics stressed and 40% thinking of leaving) and a report from the UK Higher Education Policy Institute (Pressure Vessels: The epidemic of poor mental health among higher education staff).
Take care of yourselves everyone!
The Third Space 