Last Updated on August 18, 2026 by Bethany Wilinski
Academic Summer: The Myth and the Reality
Have you ever anticipated summer, picturing long, languid days of writing, free from interruptions and meetings? You work away, finally getting all those projects off your plate. In this idealized version of summer, by mid-August you’ve accomplished all you hoped to do, you’re rested, and ready for the new semester to begin.
That’s the dream. Now, what has the reality been for you? Personally, I’ve had visions of a super-productive summer, only to feel a ton of regret at the end because I didn’t submit three articles, revamp my course syllabi, read lots of fiction, and start a new fitness routine.
Because regular semesters are so demanding, we tend to expect too much of the downtime we do have, particularly summer. As we romanticize summer, we often forget that we need to rest and recover after a demanding year; that we’re not robots—even if we wanted to write for 8 hours a day, we simply can’t; and, that our scholarship is not the only thing in our lives—we have relationships, care giving responsibilities, and non-academic interests that we like to cultivate.
I’ve fallen into this trap too many times, and I’m sure you have, too. I think there’s a better way to make a realistic plan for summer, though, and we can do it by adopting some of the principles that are part of my sabbatical planning program.
Five steps to planning your summer like a mini-sabbatical
1. Create your sabbatical vision: Picture yourself at the end of the summer—how do you want to feel? What will you have accomplished? How will you know the summer was a success?
2. List your priorities: These should be personal and professional, and you should have no more than 5. Remember, part of the challenge with summer planning is that our expectations aren’t aligned with reality.
3. Choose your summer projects: What are the 2-3 projects you’ll work on this summer? They can be personal and professional. Name them and then break your projects into tasks. To do this, think of all the steps it will take to complete the project. If you plan to submit a journal article, for example, you want to think about everything—from reading literature and analyzing data to writing up findings sections—involved in the process.
4. Create your summer calendar: After you’ve created a list of projects and broken them into tasks, you need to map them onto your calendar to see whether your initial plan is realistic. To do this, I typically print out a paper calendar for each month of the summer. I start by filling in commitments I already know about—events, kids’ activities, family vacations. After doing this, I have a much better idea of how much work time is actually left in the summer. Once you’ve blocked off your summer commitments, try putting the tasks for each project onto your calendar. After you do this, you might realize you’ve tried to take on too much. If that’s the case, you’ll need to revisit your goals and revise them.
As you map out your calendar, remember to make time for rest and personal pursuits. None of us can work all the time and still be effective, and it’s just as important (if not more important) to rest and recharge over the summer as it is to work on scholarly projects.
5. Enjoy your summer! Hopefully, by treating the summer like a mini-sabbatical, you can plan it in such a way that helps you feel rested and ready for the new semester at the end, instead of full of regret that you didn’t live up to unrealistic expectations.
If you’d like more support in planning your summer as a mini-sabbatical, grab your copy of The Summer Reset workbook today. Learn more about the workbook here.