The unexpected power of a word for the year
Happy New Year!
I know it’s an odd time of the year to state that, but for academics like me, Labor Day is more like January 1st. The new academic year is a fresh start. Many students and parents with children likely feel the same way. The fall is a great time to start fresh and lay out the next twelve months of your professional and personal life.
Mike Vardy of the Productivityist has written about the power of using just a few words to set the tone for your year. These words can be the navigational beacon for the next 12 months and can serve as a “productivity pillar” to revisit throughout the year.
I’ve been living by a word of the year for the last four years and have found it to be time well spent. Thinking of what the word will be and checking off to-dos in support of that word make it a worthy assignment for the start of any new year.
Here are my recent words of the year:
2017–2018: Promotion
Most of the summer of 2017 was spent putting together my packet for promotion from assistant to associate professor. This meant writing statements about my productivity and impact related to research, teaching, and outreach duties. It also involved routine administrative tasks and mindless work, including finding digital object identifiers for journal articles I published ten years ago, updating my CV using a University-approved template, and writing follow-up memos to clarify certain aspects of my packet.
The fall was spent following up with to-dos, followed by an incredible amount of waiting. By the time I completed my tenure packet in August, it was not until late April the following year when I heard back about my promotion decision. Faculty have at most two opportunities to get promoted throughout their career, and they sure do make you wait on their decision.
Tenure is an archaic process, with all of the flaws and potential solutions that come along with it. Keeping “promotion” on the top of my mind during that year helped me to visualize the positive outcome that resulted from all that waiting.
2018–2019: Row
After a successful promotion the previous year, I wanted to keep the momentum going. The University of Minnesota’s football team has a motto: Row The Boat. It’s a corny statement that is subject to a lot of jokes by faculty and staff, but also one that I attached to.
I wanted to continue to find ways to be productive as a faculty member during this year. I developed and delivered a new graduate student seminar course, contributed to writing 15 peer-reviewed research articles, and continued delivering high-quality outreach and Extension programs.
The “Row“ mantra helped me to keep going throughout the year.
2019–2020: Hustle
I had been doing more consulting work in previous years, and I wanted to formalize my work in this area. I established an LLC for my consulting work and began treating it more seriously. I worked with several forest products companies on small analytics projects that delivered them value.
I dedicated more time to writing content-based blog posts and learned an incredible amount about operating an LLC and the legal and administrative tasks that come with it. I continue to think of new ways to to grow my consulting practice, and it will continue to take hustle.
Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic began near the end of this year, requiring me to learn how to get work done while working in a virtual world.
2020–2021: Write
I was in a rut and feeling like I needed to change things up so I could learn to enjoy writing again. Nearly all of my writing over the previous several years involved writing scientific articles in the same predictable format: introduction, methods, results, and discussion.
I tried to stretch my skills over the year by diversifying my writing outlets, publishing more on Medium and writing an article for a popular magazine. I read books like On Writing Well, Ernest Hemingway on Writing, and Dreyer’s English to learn more.
I began this year with the COVID-19 pandemic well underway and made a choice to prioritize writing more often and provide quality content. I wrote 30 blog posts between September 2020 and August 2021, completed an eBook, and wrote two-thirds of a textbook in statistics. My “write” motto helped me get into a routine of deliberate practice with a number of products I was proud to deliver.
Summary
Choose a single word that can serve as your mantra or guiding light for the year ahead. Choose a new word at the start of every year, and do not worry if your year does not begin on January 1. I have found the word of the year to be a useful reminder of the theme and priorities for the year in my personal and professional life.
