Productivity
Urmimala Sarkar
The Long View

Dear friends,

Does it feel like spring yet? I’m writing this on yet another cold and rainy day, cheering myself up with a cup of tea and wildflower daydreams. I hope April brings sunshine to all of us!

The Long View
Productivity
Urmimala Sarkar
Sound the Retreat

Understanding that we as humans have seasonal rhythms, and taking these into account, has made me both happier and more productive. The pace of work slows down in summer to accommodate vacations, social gatherings, and weather that lures us away from our desks. Instead of setting goals that don’t match this reality, I suggest a work retreat.

Resilience, Productivity
Urmimala Sarkar
Taking Off Our Masks

How are you? It’s been a long, hard pandemic slog, but June- Pride month- is great time to find our optimism. As a Gen Xer, I’ve seen a revolution in my lifetime in how we think about our LGBTQIA friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and it gives me hope that we can make progress towards racial and gender justice. I’m starting to feel like I can see my way through the fog of the past 15 months, and it’s a good time to take stock.

Productivity
Urmimala Sarkar
Switching Costs

This month’s topic was inspired by a mentee question about managing simultaneous deadlines. What do you do when you have multiple papers and a grant to push out the door? How do you efficiently work on more than one writing project? The more senior you become, the more critical it is to master this way of working. I don’t have a perfect solution, but I can share a few strategies.

Resilience
Urmimala Sarkar
Out of the Office

March was a tough month, wasn’t it? This month I want to talk about time away from work. Whether it’s for parental leave or sudden family needs of a less joyful nature, time away can cause stress for the person who taking time off, their colleagues, staff, and mentors. My underlying assumptions: (1) People experience life events in very different ways; (2) It is not a job requirement to have exemplary coping skills/ resilience in the face of life challenges, let alone personal tragedy.

Collaboration

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Don't Be Eaten

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Dear friends,

It’s rainy, cold, and gray as I look out the window of my home office, and I find myself searching vainly for some inner sunshine. I expect I am not the only one looking forward to longer, warmer days! I hope this March finds you thriving, or at least getting by. The title of this month’s post comes from a saying in Bengali, my first language, which translates to, “If you do people favors, you’ll be eaten by tigers.”  Let me tell you the story that brought this colorful expression to mind.

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If It Ain't Broke, Fix It!

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Dear friends,

Well, the new (school) year is here, and it’s time for fresh starts and new ideas! Wishing you well as work picks up after the summer. I recently took on a new role at work, leading a successful program with a long and illustrious history. I’ve been really excited about this new gig, partly because I think the best time to make change is when things are going well. When we decide not to fix things because they’re not broken, we fail to reach our potential.

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Don't Follow Your Instincts

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May is upon us, and it’s still raining in San Francisco! The weather is reflecting my mood as I am still trying to shake off the cold, dark, long winter. I hope all of you are embracing spring and seeing some wildflowers. My recent travel to the American College of Physicians meeting last week inspired this post. At the meeting, I had informal and impromptu discussions with two midcareer physicians who are interested in working at UCSF.

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The Eighth Time's the Charm

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I am sending solidarity to all of you in these challenging times. Soon I’ll be leaving my routine, taking six weeks away from work to travel with my family. The last time I took this much time off was back in the twentieth century! I hardly know how to feel. Today I want to share the long and winding road that led to our latest funded grant. I’m putting in some NIH inside baseball, but there are broader lessons too.

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The Best Policy

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It’s March 2022, and I can’t say whether time moves quickly or slowly any more. The state of our world is hitting me hard right now, and I am sending solidarity to all who share this feeling. I spoke to a small group of mid-career faculty recently, and they followed up after the meeting with the following question: “We suggest a future blog post on techniques and strategies for supporting excellence on research teams. We admire your ability to maintain high standards for your team.” My first thought was that I don’t do anything to make my team perform at such a high level- they do it themselves. I shared this question with Sarah Lisker, our lab’s program manager, and to my surprise, she pointed out three things that I do that support high standards for our team’s work. Based on our conversation, here’s my advice.

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Hello World

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It’s November, and the recent vaccine approval for children has me feeling especially thankful. Let’s hold on to optimism as we look forward to the holidays. Since I last wrote to you, I’ve stepped out into the world several times- I attended two scientific meetings and my college reunion. After all these months of isolation, being with others has been a blessing that has left me mentally overloaded. So, I’m really writing to myself as I process what it has been like to start to re-enter the world professionally.

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Nice to Meeting You

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Hello February! How are those resolutions going? My January was packed with meetings, an experience that you can undoubtedly relate to. While it’s easy to complain about meetings, I also believe that bringing people together is critical for creativity and effectiveness in academia. Here are my five core meeting principles:

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Too Many Balls in the Air?

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Dear friends,

Hope these short winter days are finding you warm and cozy! This time of year can be overwhelming with a wave of family and social obligations in addition to work craziness. Do you experience the year-end game of Hot Potato in which everyone tries to clear their own plate by handing things to collaborators? I wish I could give you a clever hack to avoid that move! It gets me every year.

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Where Credit is Due

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It’s that spooky time of year when you start to think, “Can I really get all of this done before the holidays?” Don’t worry, you’ve totally got it! Remember that saying no is a wonderful way to shorten your to-do list, and put your tasks on your calendar right away so that you can see how committed your time is already.

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No #fakenews here!

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I feel like I barely made it through the endless conferences, summits, meetings, and convenings of May with my sanity intact (debatable perhaps). The silver lining was finding a lot of inspiration for these emails. So, let’s talk about a frequent companion at professional gatherings- imposter syndrome.

Merriam Webster defines imposter syndrome as “a false and sometimes crippling belief that one's successes are the product of luck or fraud rather than skill.” As I am sure you know, it’s common among high achievers. Women and under-represented minority groups are also more likely than white men to experience imposter syndrome. The extent of imposter syndrome can range from intermittent discomfort to outright paralysis. There is a lot of advice out there about how to overcome imposter syndrome. I want to talk specifically about how I see it play out at conferences.

There is an "I" in "team"!

It’s February already! Many of us feel discouraged at this time of year. By now our new year’s resolutions have lost their novelty but not their challenge, and it can be difficult to keep up the momentum. Winter weather doesn’t help either! If you’re having difficulty keeping your resolution, check out this interview with my friend and colleague, Dawna Ballard, PhD, a communication scientist at UT Austin. I appreciated her point that our bodies are not in an energized, new-beginning kind of mode in winter, at the time of the Western new year. She notes that most traditional cultures celebrate the new year either in fall or spring, and that these times may better harness our natural rhythms to support change. So, if you’re having a hard time with you latest goal or habit, don’t feel bad. Admit it, re-examine it, and either adjust or recommit from a place of self-compassion.

Mentors and sponsors and peers, oh my!

We are sprinting towards the finish line of 2018, trying to meet our year-end work expectations in the midst of holiday obligations. I find it helpful to remember two things at this time of you: (1) you can’t do everything, and (2) find the fun! I like asking my colleagues what holiday tradition they most enjoy- it reminds us that this time of year is special, if exhausting!

 

I was recently asked to give a talk about mentorship, which I plan to call “Beyond mentorship and sponsorship: a personal board of directors.” The concept of a personal board of directors is not new (read more here), but it is useful. It resonated with me because it encompasses two key points about mentoring: you need multiple mentors, and you need them throughout your career. Here are some thoughts to get started.

 

Giving Work Thanks

Hope this message finds you all doing well! I can’t believe it’s November already. With the coming Thanksgiving holiday, it seems appropriate to talk about gratitude at work. Though it seems like an optional, warm-and-fuzzy topic, in reality it’s vital to express our gratitude to colleagues. Gratitude strengthens relationships and imparts resilience, and we could all use more of that at work, right?

 

There was a New York Times article about the science of gratitude earlier this year that concluded that people appreciate expressions of gratitude (specifically emailed thank-you notes) more than the sender thought they would.  This sparked my curiosity and I delved a bit more into the literature. Experimental evidence suggests that the most effective thank-you messages are specific, either because they are tied to an action or event, or because they mention a specific trait that you appreciate. A reflexive “great job” is easily shrugged off whereas, “thank you for preparing such a strong draft that I barely had to edit it,” sparks warm feelings. Interestingly, people who express gratitude also experience a mood boost.

280 Characters of Summer Homework

I am sending this a bit late because – it’s summer! I’ve enjoyed seeing some of you and meeting others for the first time at our summer Research in Implementation Science for Equity (RISE) program. I was part of a panel discussing social media and academia, and I thought it would be an opportune time to pontificate on this topic. There are many social media beginner’s guides available online (here’s one), and I am confident that all of you can figure out the mechanics. Instead, I hope to share the rationale for using social media, some of my best practices, and pitfalls to avoid. I’ll end by giving you summer homework! (for the new people, aren’t you glad you asked to get these emails?!)

Take the Elevator!

Hope this message finds you well! I am enjoying spring’s creative energy and writing lots of grants.

This month I want to talk about your elevator pitch. This is a 1-3 minute statement about what you work on. Potential audiences for an elevator pitch include future collaborators, employers, mentees, and funders.

Do you feel resistance at the idea of an elevator pitch? I gave a talk about elevator pitches in my friend’s class last year and here are some common concerns and my responses:

Brand Yourself

Hope this message finds you thriving! This month’s message is inspired by a meeting with a wonderful colleague who was invited for one of our department’s visiting professorships. (I hope I’ve already suggested to all of you that you should always try to get onto the schedule for visiting professors.) He asked me, “What is your brand?” According to my colleague, a brand should capture who you are professionally, not just what you are doing now. This seemed particularly daunting for me since I have varied research and professional interests. However, advice is only good if you act on it, so I started looking into it.

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Be an Email Ninja

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Hope this message finds you all thriving! There is a particular irony about my sharing my advice this month about email. Many of you know that I struggle to keep up with my email. I recently read the book Unsubscribeby Jocelyn Glei, and I learned some new email management strategies. You will have to tell me if you think they are helping!

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