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Susan Robison. The Peak Performing Professor: A Practical Guide to Productivity and Happiness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013. 311 pp. Paper: $37.62. ISBN-13: 978-1118105146.
It is difficult to know whether a text can prescribe happiness, but certainly it can contain several hints and strategies for better productivity. The book attempts to cover both happiness and productivity, and it at least does a good job of helping us organize our tasks and duties.
Susan Robison makes the important point that previous books dealt with helping us to manage our time, while this book will help us manage our lives. Robison states that in this new generation of thought, all life activities of the faculty member need to be organized into a whole.
Robison divides the information here into five parts to show us early on in the book how to balance the three essential core areas of a faculty member's position: teaching, research, and service. She adds two more important components later in the book: management of one's career and creation of a rewarding personal life. The first part lays out the work to be done, and Robison explains the "pyramid of power" (p. 26) that helps clarify the plan for this book: purpose (being the most basic); mission; vision; and goals (the top of the pyramid). Robison also suggests that we start our journey by articulating our purpose and then work up the pyramid.
In part two, as in others, Robison includes a variety of homework for us in the form of checklists, quizzes, and exercises to complete as we work on organizing our worlds. This section deals with establishing priorities...