I want better work-life-balance
Read 'The Productive Researcher'
Description
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In The Productive Researcher, Mark Reed shows researchers how they can become more productive in a fraction of their current working day. He draws on interviews with some of the world’s highest performing researchers, the literature and his own experience to identify a small number of important insights that can transform how researchers work. The book is based on an unparalleled breadth of interdisciplinary evidence that speaks directly to researchers of all disciplines and career stages. The lessons in this book will make you more productive, more satisfied with what you produce, and enable you to be happy working less, and being more.
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The hardback edition has the title and design imprinted on a fabric cover, hand crafted by a book maker in Yorkshire. It contains spectacular colour photography throughout. Chapters are accompanied by close-up images of trees that build up to the forest metaphor that concludes the book. These are bookended by wide perspective canopy images that accompany the front matter (from which the cover design is derived) and concluding chapter. The overall effect is a touch and feel that makes this a book to savour.
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Mark Reed is Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University and Visiting Professor at Birmingham City University and the University of Leeds. He has over 150 publications that have been cited more than 15,000 times. He is author of The Research Impact Handbook, which he has used to train over 8000 researchers from more than 200 institutions in 55 countries.
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Watch the book launch talk:
Excerpts from 'The Productive researcher'
Work-life balance guides
Our essential series of 'how to' guides for researchers, designed to help you reach your potential without compromising your wellbeing:
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Four ways to cultivate deeper creativity by embracing failure, procrastination and criticism
Do you spend hours creating the perfect place to think, and then get frustrated when the ideas don’t start to flow? There is a reason for this. You are creating the wrong sorts of thinking spaces because you are focusing only on the positive attributes of places where you have had creative ideas in the past. Instead, by understanding the opposite of your best thinking space, you can reverse-engineer a psychological space that actually works.
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​Introducing Health Coaching for the academy
Over the course of the last few years there is a growing realisation that work home balance is becoming harder and harder to achieve for staff and students working in academia. How do we get our work home balance back in our control rather than letting it steal our health and wellbeing?
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How to manage stress and recover from burnout
Mark Reed had an interview with CNM (College of Naturopathic Medicine) about burnout from stress. He talked about how how stress affects your emotional and physical wellbeing and the signs and symptoms to look out for when you’re burnt out. He also shared his health coaching tips and advice on how to recover from burnout through diet and lifestyle.
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How practicing self-compassion could transform your resilience and confidence as a researcher
Dr Joyce Reed discusses a introduces a different way of working and living, with three components needed to live a more compassionate life. In particular, she discusses how self-compassion makes us more emotionally resilient and forms a much more stable type of self-esteem and confidence.
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Podcasts
Season 4 podcast episodes
In this episode, Mark is joined by his wife, Dr Joyce Reed, former hospital doctor turned health coach and Managing Director of Fast Track Impact.
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Purpose for a healthy impact culture
In the second of four episodes that include audio chapters from his new book, Impact Culture, Mark discusses some of the literature on purpose, and how researchers derive meaning from their work.
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Why every researcher needs a coach
In this episode, Mark is joined by Dr Joyce Reed, health coach and CEO of Fast Track Impact, to talk about the transformative power of coaching for academics, and how it can increase both productivity and resilience.
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Tackling the root causes of people-pleasing and perfectionism
Why do we say "yes" to things we later regret, or struggle to share early drafts of our work with collaborators? Why we get upset when colleagues ask for help and then don't follow our advice?
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Making friends with your imposter
In this episode Mark shares his own experience of imposter syndrome and introduces another audio chapter of his book, Impact Culture, which provides practical advice to prevent and overcome imposter syndrome.
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Self-compassion and workplace anxiety
In this episode Mark talks about his own struggle with anxiety after a failed attempt to return to face-to-face work post-COVID, and brings a message of hope and healing for anyone struggling to give themselves the self-compassion they need to move through difficult times.
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Fear of failure and transcending labels
This week, Mark discusses how to transcend the labels we often hide behind as academics, so we can embrace failure and mistakes as a necessary part of who we are, sitting with discomfort and being able to feel the full range of human emotions.
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This week, Mark considers how to move beyond simply learning from mistakes, to understand how our mistakes have shaped who we are, transforming regret into an experience of being more authentic.
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Working with difficult line managers
Do you have a toxic relationship with your line manager or supervisor? This week, Mark discusses three ways you can tackle your relationship so you can stop dreading your meetings and start thriving again at work.
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Being well in academia - interview with Petra Boynton
This week Mark talks to Petra Boynton, social psychologist academic, consultant and trainer, about her work on "being well in academia".
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Previous seasons' podcasts
Generating significant and original research using the poet Keats’ creative process
We’re all familiar with the publish or perish mantra, but for many of us it is less about the number of publications we produce, and more about their quality.
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How do you introduce yourself to others, and what do the labels you choose say about you?
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Mark considers how we can harness creativity in the research process to derive original insights, and shows how some of the best new ideas arise from the greatest personal and professional challenges.
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3 ways to overcome imposter syndrome
Mark shares three ways to overcome imposter syndrome, based on his own experience battling feelings of inadequacy as a researcher.
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Transformative and disruptive impact part 2
In this episode, Mark explores how you can become more resilient as a researcher, using grant and publication rejection and workplace bullying as examples.
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7 things we could all do that would instantly improve our career
When did you last think about what you could do to enhance your career, make things easier for yourself or enable yourself to do new and exciting things you can’t currently do?
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Managing competing goals to maintain motivation and productivity
Few of us have enough time to do all the things that are expected of us, and when we have more goals than we can achieve we will trade them off against each other in different ways.
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Mark explores how you can reframe the failures and rejections that are part of everyday academic life as something that deeply affirms our values and leads to greater meaning and contentment.
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Mark continues to reframe failure as something that deeply affirms our values and leads to greater meaning and contentment.
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The Productive Researcher: a day in the life...
Mark gives us an insight into two days of his working week, to illustrate how he puts the lessons from his book, The Productive Researcher, into practice.
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3 ways to overcome imposter syndrome
This week Mark shares three ways to overcome imposter syndrome, based on his own experience battling feelings of inadequacy as a researcher.
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How authentic are you as a researcher?
Mark considers how researchers can become more authentic, and how this can reduce the likelihood of imposter syndrome and help you grow in confidence.
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Mark explores the factors that increase motivation so you can become more productive in your work and find time and energy to generate more impact.
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Motivation Part 2: What makes stakeholder and public engagement work?
In this bonus episode, Mark talks about his latest paper, "A theory of participation".
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Mark revisits his most recent book, The Productive Researcher, published a year ago this month.
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