The Academic Imperfectionist

#137: How to flourish as an ADHD academic 17.07.2026 33min

If you're an academic with ADHD, you're probably battle-hardened from years spent struggling to do things that come easily to your colleagues: focus, resist distractions, tame exciting but messy ideas into nice coherent research papers. But no matter how good you've got at finding ways to get the work done, you're still at a disadvantage. The rules for How To Get Things Done were written for people who don't have ADHD. Living by those rules is harder for you than for other people, and it leav...

#136: Stop chasing that 'finished my homework' feeling 03.07.2026 23min

Do you often have thoughts like, 'I just need to finish X, then I can relax'? Except that when you finish X, you still can't relax, because along comes another obligation - and before you know it, you're face-to-face with burnout. If that's you, you're not alone, and you're not incompetent. You're simply approaching your work in a way that has served you well ever since you were a kid: finish your homework now, play later. That approach is not serving you any more, but it's hard to move on be...

#135: Do this instead of comparing yourself to others 19.06.2026 18min

We all have that one person, don't we, whose success makes us painfully aware of our own shortcomings? A person who serves as a reminder of all the great things we could have been, but aren't. Hearing news of their latest achievement is liable to ruin our entire day, as we rush headlong into reflecting on how flawed and disappointing we are. But what if it's not that simple? What if the reason that person is doing so well is not because they're better than you, but because the two of you have...

#134: Defeat perfectionism with one weird trick 05.06.2026 24min

Yeah, okay, clickbaity title, but I really do want to share with you a helpful way of reframing perfectionism that I've been thinking about recently. Perfectionism happens when our lack of confidence in our ability to succeed meets our lack of knowledge about what success requires. Overcoming it requires filling in the gaps in our knowledge and finding constructive ways to respond to our lack of confidence. How do we do this? Well, by thinking about what we do when we're hungry, and also by t...

#133: Academia is just a job! 22.05.2026 24min

Do you ever worry that you're not serious enough for academia? That you're constantly playing whack-a-mole with hiding your many frivolous and unimpressive traits as you try to convince everyone that you deserve your place at the table? That you're a big old fake because you need to curate yourself so much in order to seem like you belong? If so, you're not alone - and it's not because you're flawed. It's because you're yet to uncover academia's dirty little secret: that it's just a job. If y...

#132: Backpacks, bias, and your unrealistic summer plans 08.05.2026 21min

You know how, when teaching finishes for the summer, you feel all-powerful and end up vastly over-estimating how much you'll be able to get done before the new academic year? And, have you ever noticed that the opposite happens once term starts up again: you're overwhelmed, you panic because you don't think you're going to manage to do everything, but then you surprise yourself and it's all fine in the end? Yeah, well, there's a reason for that. Join your imperfectionist pal for a speculative...

#131: Your binary thinking is trying to tell you something 24.04.2026 31min

Binary thinking is that horrible all-or-nothing approach that holds us back by convincing us that any positive change we consider will inevitably lead to disaster. You know the sort of thing: 'I should be more assertive, but if I try, I'll end up being an arrogant psychopath who everyone hates', or 'I should get out for a walk every day, but if I do, I will neglect all my duties and get fired', or 'If I show compassion towards myself I will give up and stop trying and never get anywhere in li...

#130: The bonkers mental gymnastics of your writing anxiety 10.04.2026 28min

We all know how hard you have to work to sit down and write. You'll do pretty much anything to avoid it. Have you ever noticed, though, that avoiding your writing is no less exhausting than just bloody doing it? Weird, right? Well, actually, not weird - at least, not when you understand how hard your poor, anxious brain is having to work to trick you into getting your words down. You care deeply about your writing - that's why you're so worried about getting it right. Yet, lots of the most we...

#129: The hidden burden of decision fatigue 27.03.2026 24min

Are you frustrated with yourself because you just can't get on with the work you care most about? Do you find it easier to make progress with emails and marking than to get your writing done? Is your procrastination out of control? Are you just unbelievably lazy? Take a pause, my friend. There's a reason why you struggle to make progress on the important things, and it's not what you think. Tasks like writing are complicated, and require a ton of decision-making in order to make progress. Tha...

#128: Professor Katrien Devolder on why you're wrong about laziness 13.03.2026 1h 6min

Is it bad to be called lazy? Prince Harry thinks so: in his memoir, he suggests that it's better to called racist than lazy. But even if you wouldn't go that far, I'm willing to bet that you care deeply about not being viewed as lazy. Perhaps you've worked when you should have taken a sick day, said yes to things that you knew were a bad idea, or pushed yourself to burnout - all to avoid the L word. If you've ever thought you might be lazy, you're in great company. Plenty of high achievers th...

#127: Professor Polaris Koi on why self-control is not what you think it is 20.02.2026 1h 17min

Be honest. You're here because you think you completely suck at self-control, aren't you? You're constantly disappointing yourself, and it's getting you down. The people around you seem to be able to get on with things - but you find it impossible, for some reason. And, by 'for some reason', you mean 'because I'm a terrible person'. Help is at hand, my beautifully flawed friend. You've been hoodwinked about self-control. It's likely that you're actually much better at it than you think, and t...

#126: Why you should care about emotional frailty 06.02.2026 23min

You know what frailty is, and you definitely want to avoid it. But have you heard of emotional frailty? No, of course not - I've just made it up. But if you've ever felt like you're completely winning at life, and then some tiny little setback knocks you sideways, leaving you wondering what's wrong with you and why you suddenly can't cope, emotional frailty is to blame. Emotional frailty is invisible, it's dangerous - and often, the culture around us encourages us to do exactly the sorts of t...

#125: Your moral gerrymandering is hurting you 23.01.2026 34min

You're a good person. You try to be a good friend, a good colleague, and a good neighbour. You care about other people, you pull your weight, and you don't let anyone down. But, sometimes, you feel you're not enough. You're exhausted, but taking time for yourself means doing wrong by somebody else. You feel like you need to destroy yourself just to avoid being a bad person. If this sounds familiar, you're not crazy or inadequate. The problem is that you've constructed a moral framework that u...

#124: Dr Dana Klisanin on wild willpower and drawing resilience from nature 09.01.2026 1h 16min

What comes to mind when you think about willpower? Discipline? Self-denial? Overcoming your weak, useless, lazy self? Exhausting, right? Thankfully, there's another way, and this episode's guest is here to take you there. Dr Dana Klisanin is a psychologist and one of Forbes's 50 leading female futurists. She's a researcher, an author, an artist, a TEDx speaker, and the founder of ReWilding: Lab, where she explores the untapped potential of human-nature connection to improve health and wellbei...

#123: What do you have to brag about? 19.12.2025 23min

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your willingness to say nice things about yourself? How about your willingness to point out your own failures and shortcomings? If the first number you came up with is higher than the second, then move along, my friend - this episode can do nothing for you. Gather round, the rest of you. You've been taught all your life that modesty and humility are virtues. But, would you know if your self-deprecation had gone too far? Could your toxic humility be ho...

#122: Write it down, make it happen 05.12.2025 32min

Do you get up every day and tear around trying to get stuff done, and yet still end up feeling overwhelmed and frustrated at your lack of progress? There's something very simple - so simple, in fact, that you're going to feel cheated and frankly furious as soon as I tell you what it is - that you can do to get more done and feel less frantic. Now, I know you don't have time to listen to this episode because YOU SHOULD BE WRITING, but trust me on this one. Get the kettle on, take a break, and ...

#121: Is your self-improvement self-rejection in disguise? 14.11.2025 22min

I know how committed you are to self-improvement. Self-improvement is a good thing, right? Well, it depends. If you're motivated to improve yourself because you don't like yourself as you are, then perhaps it's not as wholesome as you thought. But how do you tell whether you're doing the wholesome sort of self-improvement or the unwholesome sort? What even is the right sort of self-improvement? Step off your upward trajectory for a moment, friend, and let your Imperfectionist friend here...

#120: Professor Wendelien van Eerde on the science of procrastination 17.10.2025 1h 7min

If you thought you knew everything about procrastination, prepare to be humbled. Professor Wendelien van Eerde is a psychologist who has spent her entire career understanding procrastination, motivation, and time management, and helping people work more effectively. She swung by Imperfectionist Towers to share her knowledge and help troubleshoot your productivity woes. You're going to hear all about how your tendency to procrastinate depends on your personality traits, your age, how nice you ...

#119: All about coaching 03.10.2025 29min

What's coaching, what's the difference between coaching and therapy, is a coach going to tell me what to do, what happens in a coaching session, how many coaching sessions should I have, how often should I have them, how do I choose a coach ... I get asked these questions (and more) a lot by new coaching clients. So, here I am, putting all my answers in one place. Hit play, and find out everything you never realised you needed to know about what goes on behind closed (online) doors at Academi...

#118: The Academic Imperfectionist origin story 19.09.2025 27min

Ever wondered how your Imperfectionist friend here got from academic philosophy to coaching? Lots of coaching clients have asked this over the years, so here I am, with an episode to bring you up to speed. I'll tell you all about how it's thanks to COVID that I ended up coaching, how the podcast was born because I realised I was incapable of uttering sentences like 'Would you allow me to offer you a powerful and transformative coaching experience?', and how I came to see that philosophical id...