Here are strategies for the final two categories of weeds:
4. TIME: Tackle each time-management weed and make the necessary adjustments in your schedule. Think carefully before scheduling or attending meetings that aren’t mandatory. Minimize social networking on the job, except where necessary for class. Identify the time-eaters that contaminate your “to-do list” and eliminate them.
5. ENVIRONMENT: Everyone knows the old adage, “People who live in glass houses are transparent!” OOPS! Wrong adage! That has nothing to do with this category. I meant the adage, “The grass is always greener.” Well, when you’re using a weed metaphor, this adage works. If you can’t take out the major weeds in your department, take yourself out of the weeds and consider greener pastures and a more fertile environment to nurture your professional gifts. MOVE!
I hope you’ve been able to whack a few weeds over the past week that will add zip to your professional productivity. Let me know if anything worked and if you used techniques that I didn’t suggest. Please share what you’ve learned about whacking.
HAPPY WEED WHACKING!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
We now resume Weedland after all of your 4th of July celebrations. Put your beer, som'mores, and sparklers away. Hunker down. It's time for the weed of evil relationships. It's one of the toughest weeds to kill.
3. RELATIONSHIPS: Disassociate yourself from the cynics, pessimists, and complainers who will just drag you into their mire of weeds. If you keep company with weeds, you can begin to adopt weed-like characteristics yourself.
Instead, hang with colleagues who will feed and water your efforts regularly. If you can’t identify these people in your department, search for these colleagues outside your institution—at conferences, other universities, airports, places of worship, shopping malls, the grocery store, playgrounds, caves, or forests. You need to surround yourself with people who are supportive to keep you focused and motivated.
Pick profs or others who will build you up, not tear you down; who are ENCOURAGERS, not discouragers. The encouragers can provide constructive feedback, but hopefully it will be delivered with tender loving care and compassion.
You should also do the same with colleagues and students. Encourage and spur them on toward achieving their goals. Get out of yourself and help others. Isolation is deadly and can stunt your growth.
Also, find one or more MENTORS for your teaching and research who can show you the ropes and guide you through the professional rocky terrain with your gas-guzzling SUV. Again, they may be in your institution or anywhere in the world. Their old-sage advice can be invaluable along your academic journey. They can help your young-sage self grapple with the challenges you will encounter.
The next blog will suggest strategies for the final two categories of weeds, in case you haven’t accumulated enough weeds from the preceding blogs. I’m here to help! Don’t thank me yet. We’re almost done. Then you can shower me with weed poison or smack me with your baseball bat.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
WARNING: Yo, 3D-IMAX fans!! If you were expecting a deep body massage, aromatherapy candles, or Betty White cracking wise in this blog, fawgetabbouttit. None of these will happen in this blog series on weeds. I’m withholding those treats for special-occasion blogs, such as those on Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Passover. Stay tuned.
The strategies for heart weeds will be covered below:
2. HEART: (NOTE: This paragraph is not for the faint of "you know what." Buck up.) Soften your heart. Rid yourself of those nasty weeds that have grown in your heart over time. Let go of those weeds. Change your attitudes, words, and actions to foster positive relationships in your work environment. Repair any damaged relationships with colleagues and students. Demonstrate care and compassion for the people with whom you interact. Reach out to them.
Direct some of your energy toward growth in your teaching and research. You should be learning nonstop. Attend faculty development events and conferences, especially if I come to your campus. Haha. They’re for your benefit.
That growth will revitalize you and pump adrenaline into everything you do. It’s like gulping down one of those turbo-charged, high-energy sports drinks. That'll get your heart a thumping! Those drinks will definitely kill weeds and even small critters. (NOTE: It is not the official policy of this blog to endorse any product or controlled substance. I’m just really into figurative language.)
My next blog will tackle one the most difficult categories of weeds: poison ivy. WROOONG! It’s: Relationships! To prepare, I’m going to practice on my lawn right now. See ya tomorrow.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
3D ALERT: This blog is being transmitted in 3D IMAX by Pixar Animation Studios. If it doesn’t appear that way, it’s because you haven’t put on your 3D glasses yet, you need a BIGGER screen, and you still believe in Peter Pan. Get with the program. Enjoy my blog.
HOW TO KILL THE WEEDS IN YOUR DEPARTMENT
So what alternative techniques can you use (and get away with) to rid your professional life of those evil weeds? I know you can’t wait to start whacking.
Before your first whack, you need something to whack.
IDENTIFY THE WEEDS quickly before they grow. They can pop up everywhere and at any time You know that little baby ugly weeds can grow like wildfire into big ugly hairy daddy weeds. Grab them quickly and wring their baby stems.
Let’s investigate the possible strategies for attacking the weeds in the aforementioned 5 categories. The remainder of this blog will address the weeds in your mind:
1. MIND: Consider an attitude transplant to respond positively and constructively to the disappointments, rejections, and failures along the academic trail. Suck it in and cut off these weeds at the stem. Don’t dwell on the weeds. Attack your manuscript or proposal revisions, class preparation, committee work, course changes, and professional adjustments from evaluations with the vigor and rigor of your initial engagement.
Adopt a shotgun approach: Make sure to have numerous “potential products” being reviewed and in progress at all times so you don’t obsess over any single manuscript or proposal rejection and maintain an optimistic perspective that something will succeed. Consciously avoid any negative self-talk when you take a hit. What counts most is how you respond or react to each weed when you see it. Whack it immediately. Don’t let it gain a foothold or a hold of your foot. And, by all means, KEEP MOVING FORWARD!
My next blogs will continue with strategies to kill the weeds in your heart, relationships, time, and environment. Happy weeding!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
WEED WHACKER DISCLAIMER:
When I weed (the verb) my yard, I try the following strategies: yank the weeds out by their roots; cut them with a machete, whacker, clippers, or saw; mow over them; stomp on them; spray systemic poison on them; strangle them with my work-glove hands to not leave any fingerprints; smother them with mulch, boulders, and tar paper; shoot them with my 50-year-old B-B gun; and pummel them with a Louisville slugger baseball bat (Well, maybe, not exactly; it was a Hank Aaron aluminum bat!).
Then, guess what? Yup, you’re right: I was promptly arrested and thrown into the Slammer, the BIG House. WROOONNG! Of course not. What were you thinking? What happened is that, after the next rain, those weeds and their demonic little offspring came back with a vengeance like the botanical version of zombies from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. (SIDEBAR: I’m having so much fun with this metaphor!)
Anyway, I want to be like Jack Nicholson-A Few Good Men “crystal clear” that I am not condoning any of the preceding actions in your department. Well, maybe the baseball bat would be okay. Naaah!
No matter how bad the weeds are or what they do to you everyday of your work-life to cause you misery and pain and impede your productivity, homicide is not the answer. Yes, I know Adrian Monk and Jack Bauer are no longer available, but Horatio Caine (CSI: MIAMI) is still kickin’ and can be found on Sun. nights this fall. Murder is just not worth the consequences, because those weeds will probably come back like real zombies and invade your classes. Who needs that?
My next blog will suggest specific techniques for killing the weeds in your department. Now you can go load your weapons. See ya soon.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
If you don’t have enough weeds in your mental list yet, here are a few more in the last two categories:
4. WEEDS IN YOUR TIME: Any activities that derail you from accomplishing your mission and daily tasks and steal time away from those tasks are weeds. Meetings that are irrelevant to your tasks are a prime example. Distractions, such as excessively long close encounters of the social kind, e-mail and social media responses, long lunches with too much food, football and basketball games with lousy teams, and similar time gobblers, are weeds. You need to significantly reduce or kill them.
5. WEEDS IN YOUR ENVIRONMENT: You all know about toxic environments. What is it in your department that has a negative effect on your productivity? Could it be the faculty, administration, staff, students, IT support, policies and procedures, institutional rules and regs, resources, or physical conditions? What is it in your workplace that bothers you the most or drives you bonkers? Can any of these weeds in your environment be ripped out or killed? OR, is it easier for you to change your environment and move to a nontoxic, or, at least, less weed-infested, department?
Do any of these weeds in these 2 categories grow in your life or, Pavlov-wise, ring a bell? Add these weeds to the previous list you didn’t make. At least, think about that imaginary list in your head. Have those weeds truly affected your productivity? Which weeds can be killed quickly and easily? Which ones require a longer, slow, agonizing, torturous death? If you don’t dispose of your weeds, your "same ‘ole--same ‘ole" counterproductive or regressive behaviors will continue.
My next blog will proffer some suggestions for killing your weeds. In the mean time, Google “poisons” to research your options and sharpen your weapons.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
