Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses on the post-modern academics who seems to be eternally chasing time. It reflects on the time-poverty of an apparently intelligent community who do not have time to consider the long-term implications of an academic body which have been deprived of thinking time.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation focuses on the post-modern academics who seems to be eternally chasing time. Armed with advice about time management skills, academics spend endless time making "to-do" lists (which get refreshed every day) and crafting carefully composed automatic replies to e-mails to ensure that they save time not responding to unnecessary ones. Acdemics sit through endless committee meetings that are a waste of time while hoping to deal unnoticed on i-phones with relentless e-mail and student queries. Academic lives are governed by deadlines for grant applications and delivery of manuscripts but not monographs as take take too much time to write or even read!. The flexible hours of academia ensures that they have all the time in the world to give students more feedback and write stronger applications while their increasingly intricate electronic diaries are accessible to administrators who greedily fill the blank slots with more time commitments. The academic turbo lifestyle ensures that they ignore their inner body clocks and regularly travel to conferences in different time zones without every taking time out to recover. This contribution reflects on the time-poverty of an apparently intelligent community who do not have time to consider the long-term implications of an academic body which have been deprived of thinking time. PS: In case you hadn't time to read this fully, I have highlighted the key words in bold!