CASEY E. BERGER, PH.D.
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Building Balance

Welcome to Building Balance! I’m an early-career physics professor and advocate for work-life balance and mental health. I learned the hard way in graduate school that if I didn’t create my own boundaries and find balance in my life, the world would take advantage of that. Now, I pass those lessons on to other knowledge workers who feel besieged by our era of constant connectivity and proscriptive passion.

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I also offer workshops on work-life balance for knowledge workers.

Workshops

The book that gave me permission to rest... and play!

10/30/2022

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I grew up in the Midwest, and I remember clearly being told when I was applying to colleges (by more than one person) that admissions committees like us cornfed midwestern kids, not because of our culturally-presumed wholesomeness, but specifically because of our work ethic. This was a myth I embraced wholeheartedly, because I did in fact have a very strong work ethic. I truly believed there was no such thing as a problem that couldn't be solved without as much hard work as was required.

Looking back, that idea was keeping me trapped in some unhealthy attitudes about myself. Ideas that I'm still untangling decades later. 

But it was easy to stay trapped in those bad ideas, because I've never been very naturally inclined to idleness. Even my daydreams inevitably turn into projects. So how do you rest when everything about your personality and your cultural conditioning is telling you never to slow down, let alone stop?
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This book has some much-needed answers for those of you who--like me--struggle to answer that question.

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Less is more: lessons from my first year as faculty

8/24/2022

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Well, it's certainly been a long time.

Last fall, I had high hopes that I would be able to continue posting on this blog regularly. Yes, I knew the first year as faculty was notoriously overwhelming. I knew I'd be in for what my colleague called in a very understated way "a very busy time." 

But I also knew I was an organized, productive person. A person who was good at accomplishing goals. After all, I ran a blog about all those strategies and tools for making good use of time and managing expectations and setting smart goals. Plus, these posts were hardly a huge time commitment. Certainly much less time and effort goes into writing a short post than into planning even one day of the classes I was teaching. Wasn't all that true?

It turns out, it was. And that's exactly why this blog vanished for the better part of a year. 

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    Casey Berger

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  • Home
  • CV and Pubs
  • Social Justice
    • Antiracism
    • Feminism
    • Queer rights
    • Building an Inclusive Classroom
  • Learning + Teaching
    • Teaching Philosophy and Pedagogy
    • Teaching Experience
  • Building Balance