I’ve heard this every August, and I’ve said this almost every August.

Whenever I’ve asked professors and PhD students what percent of their planned work they got accomplished over the summer, no one has ever said “All of it.”  Almost everyone says something between 25 to 35%.  Everyone from the biggest, most productive super stars with the biggest lab to the most motivated, fire-in-their-belly PhD student with the biggest anxiety.  

We are horrible estimators of how productive we’ll be over the summer.   I was in academia for 35 years (including MA and PhD years), yet every single summer I never finished more than 30% of what I planned.  How can we be so poorly calibrated?  We never learn.  We never readjust our estimate for the next summer.   Next summer we’ll still only finish 25-35% of what we planned to do.

There are only two weeks in the year when I’m predictably down or blue.  It’s the last two weeks of August.  It’s not the heat (I mostly stay indoors).  It’s not the impending classes (I love teaching).  It’s not all the beginning of semester meetings (I loved my colleagues and loved passing notes to them under the table).  Ten years ago, I realized that I felt down the end of every August because I had to admit “school’s starting and I haven’t gotten jack done all summer.” The beginning of school is the psychological end of the Academic Fiscal Year.  

One solution to our August blues lies in understanding what times of the year we do like most, and to see if we can rechannel those warm-glowy feelings to August.

If you had to guess the #1 favorite time of the year for most academics, you’d probably guess “The end of school.”  The #2 favorite time of the year you might guess would be the “Winter or Christmas break.”  What would you guess the third favorite time of the year is?

Surprisingly, I’ve heard people say it’s when they turn in their Annual Activity Report.  That’s the summary they turn into their hard-to-please Department Chair that summarizes what they’ve accomplished in the prior 12 months:  What they published, who they advised, what new things they’ve started, what new teaching materials they’ve created, and so forth.  

Snore.  How could writing an Annual Activity Report be a highlight?

Because it shows in black-and-white that we didn’t sleep-walk through the year.  It reminds us that the publication that we now take for granted was one that we were still biting our nails about last year at this time. It reminds us of our advises who were stressing over their undergraduate thesis a year ago and who have now happily graduated.  It reminds us of the cool ideas we've into hopeful projects -- ideas we hadn't even thought of a year ago..  Going back in a 12-month-ago time machine shows us what we did accomplish.  It turns our focus toward what we did – and away from what we didn’t.

Once we cross things off of our academic To-do list, we tend to forget we accomplished them.  August might be a good time to do a mid-year AAR.  It might not turn our August blues into a happy face yellow, but might at least turn it to green.  A green light for a great new school year. 

Have a tremendous school year.

​
​Kenny G is the universe's highest-selling jazz musician, and he magically appeared behind me at the Syracuse Jazz Festival.  His band opened with three standing ovation songs before he spoke.

I’ve been lucky enough to see tons of great concerts – from Led Zeppelin about 50 years ago to Bruce Springsteen about 50 days ago.  When all of these musicians make their opening remarks, they usually exude cool attitude or unrestrained ego.  None of them said what Kenny G said next.
 
He talked about the debt he owes to his high school music program.  
 
He held up his sax and told people it was the same saxophone his Mom and Dad bought for him 50 years ago in high school band.  He said he was playing with these same guys for over 40 years.  He went on to say they all got their start in their public high school music programs.  
 
He then introduced each person by saying what their hometown was and naming the specific high school they attended.  For instance, he and his keyboard player had met in Franklin High School jazz band in Seattle and have played together ever since.  

In 50 years of watching concerts, I've heard superstar musicians sing that "we don't need no education, we don't need no thought control," or about throwing fastballs during their high school glory days.  I've only heard one of them ever say how grateful they are to the education they got in public high school, and how grateful they are for their music teachers. 

As amazing of a musician as this guy is, I think he's probably also an amazing person.