Month: October 2022

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For the last few years, I have been striving to de-center my job. I’ve stopped thinking of higher ed as a calling or a lifestyle. Instead, I’ve tried to focus on living in a more balanced way: one that still includes attention to craft, community, contemplation, and constitution, but in ways that are not grounded solely in my job as a librarian.

For this, and many other reasons, I loved Meredith Farkas’s latest post, “Stop Normalizing Overwork.” In particular, I liked this quote:

“Let’s stop being complicit in creating cultures of overwork. Let’s let structures that are built on our overwork, on our exploitation, fall apart. Real solidarity requires this. By refusing to overwork, we not only set an example for our colleagues. We make it that much less of the norm. It’s hard to fight to de-normalize overwork while you are continuing to overwork.”

A three-pronged solution

My own solution to the problem of overwork (in addition to therapy) came through the combination of task-blocking, autopilot scheduling, and quotas.

Task blocking is the process of determining in advance how I’m going to spend my time and then scheduling that work on my calendar. So if I have 5 major tasks I want to accomplish next week, I decide how much time I need to complete them and then schedule that time into my calendar before the week begins. If it turns out that I don’t have enough time in my calendar, I either (1) cancel something on my calendar to make room for it or (2) decide not to do that task.

Autopilot scheduling is the process of setting aside a specific block of time each week for a recurring task or class of tasks. For example, I know that I need at least 1.5 hours to plan out and schedule a week’s worth of social media posts, so I have a recurring meeting on my calendar for this work. Additionally, I know it takes about 6+ hours/month to create each issue of the library’s monthly newsletter, so I block off 1.5 hours each week and, if necessary, add more time if it seems to be taking longer than usual.

Quotas are weekly, monthly, or quarterly limits that I put on certain types of work. In academia, we often divide our work into performance, research, and service. I try to set aside no more that 10% of any given time period for service, 20% for research, and 70% for performance. Additionally, I limit myself to no more than three “big” projects at a time and then schedule those projects out over three semesters.

As a result of spending years fine-tuning this work, in addition to time tracking cyclical projects, I can tell you with relative accuracy what I’ll be doing in any given week. In fact, here’s what my calendar looks like 6 months from now for the week of April 25, 2023:

Unless the parameters of my job changes, I know I’ll be working on my annual goals. I know I’ll be meeting with my direct reports. I know I’ll be developing content for social media. I know I’ll be writing something for the library’s e-newsletter. I know I’ll need to spend time on my research. I know I’ll need to meet with people (“Drop-in Hours”). I know I’ll need to eat lunch. And I know something else (“ad hoc”) while probably come up. These time blocks could move around, but I know what work I need to do in order to do my job well enough.

Setting up guardrails

And therein lies the solution. I’ve pre-determined what I need to do to be/feel successful. I’ve set my priorities in advance. Any new projects that come up have to fit into one of these buckets. If not, then either: (1) I have to stop doing something I’ve already committed to, or (2) I say “No, I’ve already met my quota on meetings/ research/ liaison work/ ad hoc projects/ etc.”

My guardrails are set at 45 hours per week. If I cannot regularly fit my work into that timeframe, then something has to give: meetings, responding to email, or specific projects themselves. And since my boss and I have already set my priorities for the year in my annual goals, I have a legitimate excuse to say no to new ones.

This system does have its drawbacks. My colleagues find it difficult to schedule meetings with me. It also limits opportunities for serendipitous projects, but to be honest: those were always the problem. In academia, we don’t lack for good ideas. We lack the time and resources to accomplish them. At least with this system I can accomplish what I set out to do and still be able to completely shut off each evening and weekend. I’ll take that over easy meeting scheduling any day.

Final thought

It should go without saying that this is not a solution to the plague of overwork in academia. I’m of the cynical belief that universities couldn’t survive without the overwork of their faculty and staff. Not enough of us plan out our unit-level projects and commit those resources in advance. Instead, we tend to simply agree that Project X is a good idea and just move forward willy-nilly, carving out time along the way to the detriment of all our other commitments. I would love to see a more systematic and thoughtful approach to moderating the project load of an entire unit, instead of relying on individuals to figure it out for themselves. That said, if we all agree to stop being complicit in overwork, as Farkas calls us to do and as I have done in my own work life, then maybe our organizations will start paying attention.

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Here’s my hot take: Service on library committees should be required for all library employees.

Relying on committees to accomplish work that is operationally necessary to the library, while also expecting (read: allowing) those committee seats to be filled by “volunteers” is a recipe for failure.

“But, if it’s required then it’s not service!” Don’t worry, I’ll get to that.

Here’s the problem: Some employees volunteer for too many committees and often do so repeatedly. On the flip side, some employees never volunteer for any committees. As a result, the same group of people tend to run the committee culture of the library year after year. To say nothing of the limited bandwidth of those employees who over-extend their service work. This becomes especially problematic when committees that are essential for library operations cannot be adequately staffed because of staff turnover, burnout, or overwork.

A case study

Recently, I ran the numbers on the committee rosters at my library. At MPOW, people serve on anywhere from 0 to 6 committees. A handful of folks serve on 5-6 committees. A handful more serve on 0-1 committee. Surprisingly, there are much fewer who serve on 2-4 committees. It’s an inverse bell curve.

Obviously, this is not an equitable distribution of labor. Setting aside for a moment the complicating factor of ex officio appointments, one would hope to see a more even distribution of committee appointments. When committee membership, however, is based entirely on volunteers, this is what you get: a handful of people carrying the bulk of the labor. Not surprisingly, the people serving on 5-6 committees tend to be the ones who also serve continually year to year. (How they manage to get any of their day-to-day work done is beyond me… speaking as someone who used to fall into that 5-6 group).

A proposal

Let’s say an organization has 50 library staff. Let’s also say there are 20 committees (working groups, task forces, etc.) with 5 seats on each. Ideally, each employee would serve on 2 committees. That would be enough to cover the labor needed to staff all of those groups.

“But, if it’s required then it’s not service!” Ok, let’s address this part.

With the exception of ex officio appointments, no one would be required to serve on a specific committee. In fact, there would be no guarantee you would serve on the committee of your preference. So in this regard, there is still the potential to do work above and beyond your job description. Secondly, each committee would have designated roles: chair, vice chair, secretary, archivist, etc. Thus, there would still be opportunities for leadership and work beyond simply showing up to the meetings and contributing to the conversation.

Mix it up

We could make this even more interesting. Here are a few ideas:

Term limits: No one could serve on the same committee for more than three years or two terms, whichever comes first. Three years is enough time to get up to speed and get into a groove. Not only does this have the added benefit of keeping certain folks from running the show, it bakes diversity into the whole system, ensuring that new ideas can arise through new combinations of people. Moreover, it allows more people the ability to experience a wider range of library operations, thus deepening institutional knowledge.

Directors/managers can’t be chair: Academic libraries outside the R1s suffer from a lack of opportunities for leadership. What if department heads, deans, and/or directors were not allowed to be committee chairs? Chairing committees could be a leadership opportunity that is exclusively set aside for non-management staff, allowing them the opportunity to hone those skills.

Opt-outs and overages require approval: Because our main goal is an equitable distribution of labor, serving on fewer than or more than 2 committees (or whatever the expectation is) would require justification and approval.

Rotating seats for ad-hoc committees: Throughout the year, new task forces or new working groups may need to be formed. Instead of once again asking for volunteers and seeing the same folks as always step forward, appoint seats based on a rotating roster. So if a search committee needs to be formed, you can appoint 5 people above their 2-committee limits, but the next time a search committee needs to be formed, you cannot go back to those 5 people until you’ve cycled through the whole employee roster. This way, you avoid the same people always working overage each year.

Ex officio

There is still the problem of ex officio appointments: people who serve on committees because of their role in the organization. For example, as the Head of Outreach, I sit ex officio on my library’s Outreach and Engagement Coordinating Committee. Similarly, the Head of Collections sits ex officio on the Collection Development Committee. What exactly is the rationale for those ex officio seats?

If the rationale is so that the lead of that operational unit is a part of those conversations, that could easily be replaced by clearer committee charges and reporting structures. For example, the vice chair of the outreach committee could be tasked with regularly reporting a summary of any meeting to the Head of Outreach; and anything requiring the department head’s approval could be sought at that time. The same would apply to any ex officio appointments that exist for the purpose of liaising.

Final thought

Notedly, this only works in a library where there are more committee seats than employees. This post is a hot take, so I don’t feel obligated to work out all the details or arguments. It’s just been rattling around in my brain for some time. I admit that committees do help to break up the monotony of my work, but when so many are operationally necessary, and yet we can’t fill those seats, then the problem is not in the people, but in the system.

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One of the more difficult aspects of my job as an outreach librarian is the need to wrangle people together for a common cause. This need is constant, recurring, never-ending. There is very little that I do which doesn’t require asking someone else to set aside their time, resources, and/or attention to support a project that I’m working on for the library. My work consists of finding connections between and among others in relation to the library. Though this type of work could be required of any librarian from time to time, it is my daily work.

This frequently puts me at odds with my colleagues. It’s like that meme about everyone’s reaction when the social media person shows up to your office: Shit. Shit. Shit. When I come a calling’, you can be assured that something is about to be added to your plate. For some, this may be invigorating! The novelty of a new project or a new partner. For others, it may be a frustration, especially if there is a sense that one cannot say no.I try to be considerate. When possible, I do some of the groundwork in advance. I provide concrete deadlines, estimates of time needed, and suggestions for how this work could be mutually beneficial.

Ultimately, the job of the outreach librarian is to make connections and promote the library, and like any job, the part that involves people is the hardest part.