Welcome. Ready to be intentional?
Intentional Academia is for people in education who want to get the most out of both their work and their lives, and who are ready to take practical steps toward getting it.
This is not a “productivity” blog, though you’ll see plenty of analysis and tools from the productivity universe featured here. Productivity blogs tend to be about getting more things done with the limited time you have. Here, we’re more about getting the right things done so that you can have more of that limited time to do what matters to you. (Which might mean getting more things done; or it might mean not grading on the weekends so you can spend the time kayaking, gardening, or sleeping instead.)
This blog is targeted specifically at people in academia, because academics have unique and specific challenges when it comes to managing time, attention, tasks, and commitments that others don’t. This is a big tent: not just higher education faculty but also staff, administrators, and students as well as those from primary and secondary education all share these challenges.
Note: If you are looking for Intentional Teaching, the outstanding podcast from Derek Bruff, this isn’t it. Go here instead.
Stay up-to-date
You can expect to receive a new article every other Monday. If you subscribe, you won’t have to worry about missing anything — every new edition of the newsletter goes directly to your inbox.
About the author
I’m Robert Talbert. I’m a professor in the Mathematics Department at Grand Valley State University in western Michigan. I’m also a dad, husband, writer, bass guitarist, and lover of the outdoors. I’ve been in higher education since 1997, but like a lot of faculty, I struggled early on to keep my professor job, which I love, from taking over everything in my life. Fifteen years ago I discovered the Getting Things Done philosophy and it transformed the way I do my work, and I’ve practiced and written about it ever since.
I was inspired to start this publication by the struggles so many academics have today with burnout and a lack of purpose and hope. My goal is to build a community of academics who genuinely want to approach their work differently: with intention, and a view toward having both a great career and a great life.
You can find me elsewhere:
On the web at rtalbert.org
At my co-authored blog on alternative grading, Grading For Growth
Thanks for reading.
