As academics, we often grapple with an overwhelming workload and a multitude of roles. Our responsibilities span teaching, research group management, student supervision, funding acquisition, paper writing, and complex administrative duties—all while striving to maintain a private life and mental well-being. This challenge is exacerbated by an avalanche of emails and a seemingly endless stream of meetings that consume a significant portion of our time.

Unfortunately, we receive little guidance on how to manage these demands effectively. Many of us default to strategies that served us well during our student and PhD years: being primarily driven by deadlines and extending our hours into evenings and weekends. This approach is unsustainable, leading to an unhealthy work-life balance and, ultimately, burnout. The consequences are severe: frustration, demotivation, and disillusionment with our academic work. Moreover, as research group leaders, we inadvertently transmit this toxic work culture to our teams and students.

This workshop aims to break this negative cycle and help you to establish healthy, sustainable productivity habits. We will introduce an alternative approach on how to think about your role in academia. We will provide modern tools to define your own, sustainable working style so that you can be highly successful, while at the same time be happy and fall again in love with your academic work.

Who is this for?

The workshop is for all academics at all stages. However, it is the most effective for people who have recently transitioned into an Assistant Professor role. For that reason, I have reserved a number of fixed spots for people falling into this category. Having said that, I have given the workshops (in different versions) to a wide range of academic roles, including PhDs and Postdocs, and all levels of Professor, including chairs. So, please feel free to sign up if you think this is useful for you.

When and where?

The productivity workshop will take place during the tutorials in the afternoon (see RoboSoft Programme).

• Date: Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025

• Time:

  • Start at 1:00 PM

  • Coffee break at 3:30 PM

  • End around 5:30 PM

• Room: SG0211 at the central atrium on the EPFL campus, here is a map to download.

A little bit about me

Like you, I am a researcher in the field of Soft Robotics. Particularly, my research interest is in Morphological Computation. Our group thinks deeply about how we can build smart bodies for smart machines. If you want to know more about my research, have a look at our group webpage http://www.morphologicalcomputation.org or on Google Scholar.

Besides my passion for Morphological Computation, I am also very passionate about healthy productivity in academia. Since 2016, I have been conducting a version of this workshop on a regular basis within my university as part of different Staff Development Programmes, Leadership Programmes, Departments, Research Groups and Doctoral Training Programmes. I also provide the workshop outside (e.g., at Oxford, Bath, GW4, and others). If you want to know more about me, have a look at my about webpage. For all my activities regarding productivity, I have social media accounts on Twitter/X and LinkedIn. I also have a blog on which I talk about productivity for academics.

Also, if you are interested in me coming to your university, please reach out to me.

Blog

If you want to learn about productivity in academia, please have a look at my blog post.