Prioritizing and Working to a Timeline

What to Do FIRST?

Of course, you want to meet the deadlines specified by your university. The Provost’s Office webpage may include links to the calendar for candidates for retention, tenure, and promotion.

If one deadline is sooner than the others—say, your selected papers for external review with a brief statement describing your research—prepare that first.

If most or all of your material, as a chunk, is due later, you may wonder where to start. Remember, you are undertaking an iterative process. Start with the part that provokes the most anxiety. Progress can relieve the pain of anxiety. Take steps to make progress every day. Maybe you had some semesters with sketchy student evaluations, or maybe you are wishing you had published more. (Who doesn’t?) Whatever causes you angst deserves your attention.

Inventory what you have to work with, whatever that is, re-read the criteria and standards related to that, and start outlining or drafting your statement. You’re going to submit your dossier with what you have, so your goal is to present that in ways that demonstrate you have met the standards for every criterion.

Progress, Not Perfection

Because each day all you need is one more iteration on one part, there are no days when perfection is required, only progress. Work backward from the submission deadline to schedule multiple iterations for each major statement or summary. See if you can plan time to share statement drafts with a trusted senior colleague or mentor—and email them now to ask if they could reserve time in such-and-such week to offer feedback.