I received an interesting email recently from a young associate professor and would like to share this with everyone.

They asked the editor how a balanced work and life is achieved given we receive such a high volume of submissions, emails, etc every day at Nature Nano.

My response was quite long but here’s the meat:

Try to clear as many emails, cases etc as possible whenever they arrive; keep a steady pace, do as much as you can possibly swallow and then call it a day; set goals for the week and try to accomplish them; do not forget to get your fair share of rest and weekends off to recharge.

It all sounds logical and straighforward to do. But just how many of us put this in practice or can/choose to do so? We continue to feel overwhelmed and perpetually fatigued.

Any other suggestions, thoughts or your own experience, post them here.

These would be helpful to keep us all reminded and maybe in time to make New Year resolutions as we ring in 2008!