Nice try, my friend. So you came to this page to read from me about achieving work-life balance?
Come back in 10 years, and perhaps by then I’ll have figured it out. In the meantime, would you like to read some of my publications or my textbook?
The main point that I’m trying to make here is that it is hard to have a life when you’re also in the process of establishing or maintaining an academic career. The academic tenure-track is effectively a way to verify that someone is very attached to their work. By the time you receive tenure, if that’s the path you’re on, it becomes difficult to change that. Furthermore, there are additional career milestones that you likely want to accomplish, such as further promotions, awards, or perhaps an attractive offer from another place, which means you can’t slack off suddenly.
People outside of academia often seem to think that professors don’t do much work after they receive tenure. The truth is that during my academic career I have met very few people that I would consider to be lazy, even with the protection of tenure. The reason is that we scientists care a lot about our science, and our teaching, and our professional service & outreach, and eventually we realize that we’re in this all-consuming profession where work-life and private-life blend almost seamlessly. In other words, there is little of what other people consider work-life balance. I’m OK with that. It is the path I chose, and some day I’ll have to explain that to my children. Fortunately, I do not have to explain it to my wife ... Enough said.
© 2023 J. Autschbach.