If only you spent more time working and less time procrastinating, your life would be so much better. Right? Friend, I know how you feel, but it's not that simple. Some forms of procrastination actually help us get our work done, while some forms of work are just a waste of your time. In fact, I've come to realise that the very idea of procrastination is pretty unhelpful, and it can stand in the way of understanding why we struggle to make progress, and how to fix it. In this episode, I'm going to share with you a more empowering way to think about how to get things done.

Brand new download! Click here for the 'Comfort vs relevance: resist the work/procrastination binary!' worksheet, or find it on the Resources page of The Academic Imperfectionist website.

References

Grant, Adam. 2016: 'Why I taught myself to procrastinate', New York Times.

Jensen, Joli. 2017: Write No Matter What (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). 

Do you ever feel that, unless you achieve the things you think you should be achieving, you'll cease to exist? That you'll fade away, become invisible, fail to be a fully-realised human? If so, you're in good company. For many of us, living a fulfilling life is inextricably linked with achievement, striving, productivity, winning.

I'm not here to tell you not to care about achievement. But I am going to tell you that you're wrong if you think that the only life worth living is a life that prioritises achievement. And not only do I have Aristotle in my corner to back me up, but there's some fascinating recent research on what Gen Z care about that ought to be a wake-up call for anyone who thinks that if they're not achieving, they're failing. 

Do the Values Bridge survey here (registration required to view summary of results, payment required to view full results).

Find my Core Values exercise here (no sign-up or payment required - I'm not that fancy)

References:

Suzy Welch, 'CEO: One stunning data point explains the "Gen Z stare"—and why it's going to backfire on them', CBNC, 17 July 2025.

Melissa De Witte, 'What to know about Gen Z' (interview with Dr Roberta Katz), Stanford Report, 3 January 2022.

André Dua et al., 'What is Gen Z?', McKinsey & Company, 28 August 2024.

Do you struggle to make sense of the jumble of attitudes you have towards your career? Perhaps you feel overlooked despite the fact that you've just been given a job. Perhaps you're striving to do well and hoping to get noticed while at the same time feeling resentful of the whole process, and critical of yourself for engaging in it. And, if you do feel these things, do you also attack yourself by telling yourself that you've got nothing to complain about, or that you're imagining things, or that you're irrational? Friend, I've heard it all before, and despite what you might think, it all makes complete sense. Put your feet up and your headphones on, and prepare for the Academic Imperfectionist low-down on why you feel this way.

'Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement', James Clear tells us in Atomic Habits. But what if you don't have the right habits - or at least, not yet? And how do you motivate yourself to do the thing for the 21 days that, according to legend, are required in order to establish a habit unless you already have the habit?

With all this talk of the importance of habits, you'd be forgiven for thinking that without the habits, there's no hope for you. But, in fact, motivation without habits is easier than you might think. You just need to be able to see past the psychological smoke and mirrors that you're unwittingly putting in your own way.

Reference: 

Timothy D. Wilson and Daniel T. Gilbert (2003): 'Affective forecasting', Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 35: 345-411. 

You've done the coaching and the therapy, you've read the books, you've listened to the podcasts - and finally, you can accept that you're just as worthy as the next person! You belong here! You can stand up, take up space, and be proud! You can stop carrying all that anxiety, fear, and shame! Except ... nobody told your anxiety, fear, and shame. You feel just as uncertain as you ever did. And, to make things worse, you now also feel like an irrational mess, because if all those insights you've made about yourself haven't made any difference, perhaps you're beyond help? 

Don't worry, friend. We've all been there. Your imperfect friend here is throwing you a lifeline in the shape of the 18th-century Scottish philosopher, David Hume. Weird image, but still: you're normal, you're still moving forward, and all you need is a primer on what's going on when what you believe clashes with what you feel.

Reference:

Hume, David. 1739: A Treatise of Human Nature, Book II, Section III.

You know all the advice about ignoring your inner critic, avoiding comparisons, and giving yourself credit for your achievements. But you can't shake the sense that the real you is something shameful, something you need to keep hidden at all costs, and that those people who say nice things about you would be horrified if they knew what you were really like. 

Friend, you've got Real You all wrong. The fact that there are parts of you that you'd hate to share with others doesn't make you wrong, or an impostor, or shameful. According to the sociologist Erving Goffman, you're completely normal. Your Imperfectionist Godmother is here to help you make friends with your secret self - and to see that everyone else has one too.

Reference:

Goffman, Erving. 1956: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre).

Ah, the sabbatical. Getting one is like hitting the jackpot, right? All your problems would melt away if you had one. You'd go into it a frazzled, anxious, burnt out mess, and emerge serene, rested, and with a few dazzling additions to your CV. In fact, you'd be so sorted if you got a sabbatical that it's probably never occurred to you that you might need some hand-holding through the process.

Enter our guest for this episode, Bethany Wilinski, Associate Professor at Michigan State University, sabbatical coach, and host of the Sabbatical 101 podcast. Bethany's own sabbatical experience taught her that, if you're not careful, a sabbatical can make you feel more burnt out and depleted, not less. She now works with academics to help them use their sabbaticals to rest, recharge, reconnect with what excites them, and relate to their work in a healthier way. Bethany is here to ensure that, if and when you're lucky enough to get a sabbatical, you can make it work for you.

You can find Bethany's website, including a link to her podcast, here. 

What's your reaction when your inner critic tells you that what you're doing is not good enough? If you think she's right, and that it's only thanks to her that you're getting anything done at all, you're not alone. But while you're busy listening to your inner critic, you're overlooking the fact that she's not helping you. In fact, she's making things worse. She's so greedy and impatient to get more from you that she's hurting your ability to get things done. She's killing your productivity, just like the farmer killed the goose that laid the golden eggs in Aesop's fable. Join your imperfect friend for an important fairytale lesson on the importance of self-acceptance.

Do you know how writing is supposed to feel when it's going well? If you're anything like I was a few years ago, you have some pretty bizarre ideas here, involving things like hours on end of laser-sharp flow, iron-clad willpower to resist distractions, and a mind that is drawn towards lofty ideas instead of flighty nonsense. The fact that my actual experiences with writing didn't remotely resemble this fantasy was, in my mind, due to my many shameful shortcomings. I'm not like that now, and my writing goes a lot better as a result. In large part, that's because I better understand what writing is really like. And in this episode I want to talk about an aspect of that: the writing warm-up.

When you're done with this episode, why not go and listen to Bethany Wilinski interview me on her podcast, Sabbatical 101? 

Are you entitled? If not, you should be. No, not like that. I'm not talking about over-entitlement, which these days seems to be what people mean when they talk about entitlement. We don't hear so much about under-entitlement: people who allow themselves to be short-changed by life because they don't realise they should be getting more. Or, rather, we do hear about this, but we don't talk about it using the language of entitlement. Does that matter? Yes, it does, because thinking of 'entitlement' as a dirty word is holding you back.