The Review of Higher Education

It is difficult to know whether a text can prescribe happiness, but certainly it can contain several hints and strategies for better productivity. The book attempts to cover both happiness and productivity, and it at least does a good job of helping us organize our tasks and duties.

Susan Robison makes the important point that previous books dealt with helping us to manage our time, while this book will help us manage our lives. Robison states that in this new generation of thought, all life activities of the faculty member need to be organized into a whole.

Robison divides the information here into five parts to show us early on in the book how to balance the three essential core areas of a faculty member’s position: teaching, research, and service. She adds two more important components later in the book: management of one’s career and creation of a rewarding personal life. The first part lays out the work to be done, and Robison explains the “pyramid of power” (p. 26) that helps clarify the plan for this book: purpose (being the most basic); mission; vision; and goals (the top of the pyramid). Robison also suggests that we start our journey by articulating our purpose and then work up the pyramid.

In part two, as in others, Robison includes a variety of homework for us in the form of checklists, quizzes, and exercises to complete as we work on organizing our worlds. This section deals with establishing priorities and making good use of resources. Robison urges us to lay things out on post-its, make notes, compile lists, and then use these devices to make decisions, clearly prioritize our duties, and get rid of minor activities that do not really deserve our attention.

In part three, Robison provides many clever hints on connecting with mutually supportive people and also tells us how to prepare for small talk at conferences and other important scenarios for meeting and greeting new collaborators. In addition, Robison gives us some helpful ideas on how to engage in active listening to learn what both members of the collaboration can gain from working together and even provides some important strategies for handling conflicts during the discussions.

Part four provides us with some good ways to work on wellness and well-being. One important point is that faculty members need to be reasonable about how much work they can take on—and remain healthy. They must learn how to say “no” and focus on topics and endeavors that fit into their pyramids. They must also take breaks while working, must reward themselves for getting work accomplished, and must take vacations away from their campus. Robison re-emphasizes this recommendation later in the book: “Follow the completion of tasks with breaks and rewards and the completion of major projects with celebrations matched to whether the accomplishments are small, medium or large” (p. 278). Faculty members should not feel guilty about living a full life and should not deny themselves life’s little pleasures. Similar points about rewards and well-being are made in a book I have just finished reading called The lifelong activist: How to change the world without losing your way (Rettig, 2006). Both books remind us that professionals must keep themselves healthy and sane to be able to help others—something both activists and professors are all about.

In part five, we are provided with ways that faculty can deal with combining all of their roles into a Gestalt that can take the form of a happy and productive servant leader and professor. In the last chapter, on life roles, the author makes some important and frank comments about friends and partners. We need to avoid toxic people, including a partner who is not a good match and supportive. Although this is a difficult realization for some, it is part of becoming that happy and productive professor...