I’ve found myself in the unique position of being an academic historian, and that means constantly juggling the demands of the classroom with the deep dives into research. Honestly, it’s not about choosing one or the other. When I really get it right, teaching and research actually feed into each other, making me a better scholar and, I hope, a better teacher too. I want to share some of my strategies for finding that sweet spot, moving beyond vague ideas to what actually works for a historian.
The Constant Tightrope Walk: It’s Complicated
Let’s be real, there’s an inherent tension here. Teaching requires me to be present, innovative, and constantly engaging with students. Research, on the other hand, needs deep, uninterrupted concentration, something that can stretch over years and ultimately shapes my contributions to the field. It often feels like excelling at one might mean less attention for the other, but both are absolutely crucial for my career, for my own intellectual growth, and for the health of my discipline.
For historians specifically, there’s an extra layer of challenge. My primary sources often demand travel, meticulous transcription, and deep contextualization. And building my narratives means reading broadly across so many different fields. Sometimes the sheer volume of material feels overwhelming. At the same time, when I’m teaching history, I’m trying to get students genuinely engaged with complex primary sources, encouraging them to think critically about cause and effect, and helping them develop strong analytical writing skills. It’s not just about managing my time; it’s about managing my mental energy and figuring out how to allocate my resources strategically.
Carving Out My Time: It’s More Than Just a Schedule
For me, effective time management isn’t about sticking rigidly to a schedule. It’s about sculpting my time, understanding its elasticity, and directing my mental energy where it needs to go.
1. My Lopsided Week: Deliberate Imbalance
Forget the idea of a perfectly balanced 50/50 week. That’s a fantasy. I’ve learned to embrace a week that’s intentionally imbalanced.
- Dedicated Research Blocks: I make sure to carve out entire days, or at least significant half-days, purely for research. This means absolutely no email, no student meetings, no fussing with syllabi. I treat these blocks like non-negotiable appointments with my intellectual work. For instance, if I’m deep into early modern European social history, Tuesday and Thursday are my “archive days” or “writing days.” The physical location isn’t as important as my unwavering mental focus.
- Clustered Teaching Days: I try to group all my teaching obligations together. If I can, I schedule all my classes, office hours, and teaching-related meetings over two or three specific days. This seriously cuts down on the constant context-switching that just drains my brainpower. Imagine teaching three courses – Modern America, Civil Rights, and a Senior Seminar. If I can schedule all three on Monday and Wednesday, with office hours right after, I create a teaching-heavy period, freeing up my other days.
- The “Breather” Day: I set aside a flexible day, usually Friday, for administrative tasks, catching up on emails, grading, and those unexpected issues that pop up. This prevents my dedicated teaching and research days from getting derailed by administrative clutter. It’s also a good day for departmental meetings or committee work.
2. Quick Research Sprints: Discovering Even in Small Bursts
Not all research demands hours-long blocks. I’ve learned to embrace quick, micro-research sprints.
- The 30-Minute Deep Dive: I identify small, specific research tasks that I can tackle in 30-60 minutes. This could be double-checking a citation, reading just one journal article, outlining a paragraph, or transcribing a short document. Instead of waiting for a clear half-day, I seize these smaller moments. If I’m working on a book about the history of medicine, I might use 30 minutes to cross-reference a patient’s symptoms in a casebook with contemporary medical theories.
- Commuting as Thinking Time: If I have a commute, I use that time for reading secondary literature, listening to relevant podcasts, or outlining research ideas. It turns otherwise dead time into productive intellectual engagement.
- The “First Hour” Rule: I dedicate the first hour of my workday, before even glancing at emails or anything else, to my most important research task. This uses my peak cognitive energy. If I’m drafting a chapter, this is my hour to write new material or refine what’s already there.
3. Batching Tasks: Grouping for Efficiency
I avoid scattering similar tasks throughout the week. I batch them.
- Grading Blitz: Instead of grading a few papers every day, I dedicate a specific block of time – like Sunday afternoon or a designated weekday afternoon – solely to grading. This helps me apply my rubric consistently and maintain focus.
- Email Hour: I designate one or two specific times each day to check and respond to emails. I try to avoid the constant interruption of an inbox that’s always open.
- Syllabus & Course Prep Day: Instead of preparing piecemeal, I dedicate one specific day each semester to reviewing and refining syllabi, updating readings, and planning major assignments for all my courses.
Blending Teaching and Scholarship: Designing for Synergy
The most effective strategy for me isn’t just to manage two separate things, but to integrate them.
1. My Research as a Teaching Tool: The Classroom as My Lab
My research is incredibly powerful for teaching. I love sharing my intellectual journey with my students.
- “Historian’s Craft” Lessons: I weave mini-lectures or short assignments into my courses that actually demonstrate the research process. I show students primary sources I’ve unearthed, explain the difficulties of deciphering historical handwriting, or talk about an archival discovery that completely shifted my interpretation. If I’m researching Cold War intelligence, I might bring declassified documents into a class on 20th-century American history, explaining how I got them through FOIA requests and how to critique the source.
- “Work-in-Progress” Discussions: When it’s appropriate, I share early drafts of my research with my advanced students. I might conduct a seminar where they act as peer reviewers, offering fresh perspectives. This not only builds their critical skills but also gives me invaluable feedback. For a grad seminar, I might present a chapter outline or a conference paper draft for discussion.
- The “Research Story”: I often start or end lessons with a quick anecdote about my own research path related to the day’s topic. It humanizes the research process and makes the material much more tangible. I’ll talk about how I found a source, the intellectual puzzle it presented, and how I approached solving it.
2. Teaching Fuels My Research: Student Insights as Unexpected Boosts
Students, with their diverse perspectives and questions, can surprisingly fuel my research.
- The “That’s a Great Question” Moment: I pay close attention to student questions that challenge my assumptions or open up new avenues of inquiry. I jot these down. Sometimes, a seemingly naive question can highlight a blind spot in my own understanding or reveal an underexplored facet of a topic.
- Designing Assignments for Two Purposes: I try to design assignments that, while serving my teaching goals, also inform my research. For instance, a research paper on a nuanced topic relevant to my field might inadvertently reveal unexpected primary sources or perspectives from my students. If I’m researching the Irish diaspora, I might assign a local history project on Irish immigration patterns, knowing students might uncover fascinating, localized primary sources.
- “Audience Testing” My Arguments: I use the classroom as a low-stakes environment to test out new analytical arguments or interpretations from my research. If my students, who are learning the material for the first time, grasp my argument, it’s a good sign it’s clear and convincing. If they struggle, it highlights areas I need to refine.
- Teaching-Informed Bibliographies: As I teach new courses or topics, I invariably encounter new secondary literature. I make sure to systematically add these readings to my research bibliography. This natural expansion of my knowledge base directly fuels my scholarship.
3. Cross-Pollination of Content: Efficiency Through Overlap
The material I teach and research should overlap, creating efficiencies.
- Research-Driven Course Development: I design courses that align directly with my research interests. This allows me to delve deeper into topics I’m already intimately familiar with, leveraging existing knowledge and cutting down on preparation time. If I research the history of propaganda, I teach a course on the topic. My lectures naturally draw from my current scholarship.
- The “Modular Lecture”: I develop lecture modules that are adaptable. A lecture on, say, the French Revolution’s impact on gender roles, might serve as a core component in both an introductory European history class and a more specialized women’s history seminar, just with different depth and emphasis. This significantly reduces redundant preparation.
- Turning Research into Teaching Material: I actively transform my research findings, arguments, and even the challenges I face into compelling lecture material, discussion prompts, or case studies for my classes. This isn’t about simplifying my research, but about making it accessible and engaging.
Being a Digital Historian: How Tech Helps Me
Technology isn’t a magical fix, but it’s an indispensable ally in managing these dual demands.
1. Digital Archives and Resources: Research Without Leaving My Desk
The rise of digitized archives and vast online databases has completely changed how I do historical research.
- Proactive Digitization Requests: If there’s a critical archive that hasn’t digitized materials I need, I inquire about their digitization services. Many institutions are actually open to these requests, especially for targeted collections.
- Aggressive Use of Digital Libraries & Databases: I make sure I’m proficient in tools like JSTOR, Project MUSE, HathiTrust, Biodiversity Heritage Library, and specialized historical databases (like Early English Books Online or Gallica for French materials). This allows for extensive primary source exploration and literature review without leaving my desk. A historian of medieval monasticism might realistically spend hours in Patrologia Latina Online or the Acta Sanctorum databases.
- Reference Management Software: Tools like Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote are non-negotiable for me. They organize my readings, generate bibliographies, and let me quickly insert citations as I write. This saves countless hours I used to spend on manual formatting.
2. Digital Age Pedagogy: Streamlining the Classroom
I leverage technology to optimize my teaching overhead and enhance student learning.
- Mastering the LMS: I fully utilize my institution’s Learning Management System (like Canvas or Blackboard). I post syllabi, readings, assignments, and grades there. I use announcements for communication. This centralizes information and cuts down on redundant questions.
- Online Submission & Grading: I require all assignments to be submitted digitally. I use online grading tools (like Turnitin or SpeedGrader) for quicker feedback and rubric-based assessment. This eliminates physical paper handling and ensures backups.
- Automated Quizzes & Low-Stakes Assessments: For factual reinforcement or reading checks, I use the LMS to create automated quizzes. This frees up my intellectual energy for higher-level feedback on analytical assignments.
- Pre-recorded Mini-Lectures: For complex concepts or introductory material, I consider pre-recording short (5-10 minute) video lectures. Students can watch these on their own time, allowing classroom time for deeper discussion and active learning. This also reduces my “live” lecture burden.
3. Productivity Tools: My Digital Toolbox
Beyond discipline-specific software, general productivity tools are vital for me.
- Synced Note-Taking: I use tools like Evernote, OneNote, or Obsidian that sync across all my devices. I capture research ideas, lecture notes, student questions, and administrative tasks as they come to me. This prevents fleeting thoughts from being lost.
- Cloud Storage: I use cloud services (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox) for all my documents. This ensures accessibility from anywhere and provides essential backups. No more worrying about losing a semester’s worth of grades or a chapter draft.
- Speech-to-Text Software: For drafting outlines or brainstorming ideas, speech-to-text can be incredibly efficient. Many word processors (Google Docs, Microsoft Word) have this integrated.
- Project Management Tools (Optional but Powerful): For larger projects (book manuscripts, grant applications), I sometimes use simple Kanban boards (like Trello or Asana) to visualize my progress and break down complex tasks.
The Art of Saying No: Protecting My Intellectual Space
One of the most challenging, but absolutely critical, skills for a balanced academic life is knowing how to strategically decline commitments.
1. My Prioritization Matrix: Weighing Every Opportunity
Before I accept a new commitment, I assess how well it aligns with my core goals.
- The “Three P’s”: Does this opportunity advance my Pedagogy (teaching), my Publication (research), or my Professional service (department/university)? If it doesn’t clearly support at least one of these, or if the benefit seems marginal compared to the time investment, I consider declining.
- Impact vs. Effort: I estimate the time and energy a new commitment will demand and weigh it against its potential impact. A minor committee role might actually require more time than it’s worth for where I want my career to go.
- The “Opportunity Cost” Question: I ask myself: “If I say yes to this, what am I saying no to?” Often, it’s quality time for research or teaching preparation.
2. Graceful Declination: Maintaining Professional Relationships
Saying no doesn’t mean being rude or unhelpful.
- “I’m Honored, But My Plate is Full”: I acknowledge the honor of being asked. I express genuine regret that I can’t take on the task due to existing commitments. “Thank you so much for thinking of me for the X Committee. I’m truly honored, but my research schedule this semester is incredibly demanding as I’m nearing a major submission deadline. I won’t be able to give it the attention it deserves.”
- “Perhaps Next Semester/Year”: If it’s a desirable opportunity but the timing is wrong, I suggest a future deferral. “I would love to contribute to that initiative, perhaps after my book manuscript is submitted in the spring?”
- Suggest an Alternative: If I truly can’t, but want to be helpful, I suggest another qualified colleague. “While I can’t serve on the search committee this round, I wonder if [Colleague X] might be a good fit, given their expertise in [area]?”
3. Departmental Service: Being Strategic
Service is a non-negotiable part of academic life, but I can manage it strategically.
- Focus on High-Impact Service: I volunteer for committees or roles where my expertise can make a genuine difference, or which align with my career goals (e.g., a curriculum committee if I’m passionate about pedagogical innovation, a graduate admissions committee if I want to shape the next generation of scholars).
- Set Boundaries: I’m clear about my availability for meetings and the scope of my contributions.
- Negotiate Service Load: Especially as a junior faculty member, I discuss service expectations with my chair. Often, department chairs understand the need to protect research time for tenure-track faculty.
Self-Care and Staying Intellectually Fed: This is a Marathon
Being a historian is a marathon, not a sprint. Burnout is a genuine threat to both my teaching and research quality.
1. The Power of Disconnection: Recharging My Mind
My brain needs time away from both archives and grading.
- Scheduled Breaks: I include short breaks throughout my workday. I stand up, stretch, walk outside. Longer breaks are also essential: a weekend away, a true vacation.
- Hobbies Beyond Academia: I cultivate interests completely separate from my work. This could be hiking, cooking, gardening, learning an instrument, or anything that allows my mind to disengage. These activities foster creativity and prevent intellectual staleness.
- Digital Detox Hours: I designate periods (for example, evenings after 7 pm, Saturday mornings) when I completely disconnect from work emails and digital devices.
2. Intellectual Community: Growing Together
History, while often solitary in research, thrives on intellectual exchange.
- Peer Writing Groups: I’ve joined or formed small groups of colleagues who commit to reading and critiquing each other’s work. The accountability and constructive feedback are invaluable.
- Strategic Conference Attendance: I choose conferences that offer genuine intellectual stimulation and networking opportunities, rather than feeling obligated to attend every single event. I present my work to get feedback and refine my arguments.
- Mentorship (Both Giving and Receiving): I seek out senior scholars who can offer advice and perspective. Once I’m more established, I make sure to become a mentor myself. This reciprocal relationship strengthens the discipline and offers invaluable support.
- Interdisciplinary Conversations: I make an effort to engage with scholars from other fields. New methodologies or theoretical frameworks from sociology, anthropology, or literary studies can offer fresh perspectives on historical problems.
3. Physical Well-being: The Foundation of Productivity
Neglecting my physical health directly impacts my mental clarity and stamina.
- Consistent Sleep: I prioritize 7-8 hours of quality sleep. This is non-negotiable for cognitive function.
- Regular Exercise: Even 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days significantly reduces stress, improves mood, and boosts energy levels.
- Healthy Nutrition: I fuel my brain and body with nutritious food. I avoid relying on excessive caffeine or sugar crashes.
- Mindfulness/Meditation (Optional): Many academics find short meditation practices reduce stress and improve focus. Even a few minutes a day can make a difference.
Always Evolving: Adapting and Iterating
There’s no single, perfect blueprint for balancing teaching and research. My approach definitely evolves throughout my career.
- Reflect and Adjust: At the end of each semester or academic year, I critically assess what worked and what didn’t. Did I allocate enough research time? Did I feel overwhelmed by teaching? I use this reflection to fine-tune my strategies for the next cycle.
- Flexibility is Key: Life happens. Research hits roadblocks. Teaching unexpected challenges arise. I try to maintain flexibility in my plans. A well-sculpted schedule is a guide, not a rigid prison.
- Celebrate Small Victories: I make sure to acknowledge my progress. Finishing a difficult paper, submitting a grant proposal, or receiving positive student evaluations are all milestones worth celebrating. This reinforces positive habits and helps prevent burnout.
- Embrace the “Messy Middle”: Both teaching and research are often messy, iterative processes. There will be periods of intense frustration, self-doubt, and when I just don’t feel productive. I understand that this is part of the creative and intellectual journey. I try to persist through these phases.
Bringing It All Together
Being a historian means living a rich life, woven from the threads of discovery and sharing knowledge. Achieving balance isn’t about perfectly dividing hours, but about strategically integrating these two equally vital dimensions of my scholarly career. By consciously sculpting my time, embracing synergistic design, leveraging digital tools, protecting my intellectual space, and prioritizing self-care, I find I can not only navigate the challenging demands of my profession but also truly thrive, producing impactful scholarship and inspiring future generations of critical thinkers. The quest for balance is an ongoing conversation with myself – a process of continuous adjustment, all driven by a deep passion for understanding and interpreting the past.