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Lennart Nacke, PhD

@lennartnacke.com

2.2K followers 30 following 2.6K posts

🧠 Tenured brain, fresh daily takes. Maximum citations but sanity questionable. The prof your prof follows for daily research & AI takes. Quality wins. University Research Chair & Tenured Full Professor. ➜ www.lennartnacke.com

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Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · Dec 6

The masterclass is this Saturday, Dec 7 at 11 AM Eastern.

Join here (bookmark): www.youtube.com/live/vpj2FT...

See you tomorrow.

Mini Masterclass: How to Write a CHI Paper

Join Professor Dr. Lennart Nacke for a FREE 30-minute masterclass about How to Write a CHI Paper. Become a smarter research author and master the basics of w...

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Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 28m

Traits of the best early-career professors I know:

• Strategic in choosing journals
• Resourceful with small labs
• Generous with coauthors
• Fearless about rejection
• Relentless about drafts

Look around. You’ll see the successful ones share these.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 6h

If you want to succeed as new faculty,
practice boundary-setting everywhere:

• In meetings
• In classrooms
• In committee emails
• In hallway quick questions

Don’t wait for the perfect time. Do it daily. Do it now.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 15h

How resource constraints in publishing build unexpected strength:

• You learn frugality in methods
• You master collaboration hacks
• You get resilient under rejection
• You focus on meaningful questions
• You sharpen writing to persuade harder

Every researcher should practice this discipline.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 21h

Stop trying to:

• Perfect every slide
• Be the go-to admin fixer
• Join every shiny project

Instead, focus on:

• Protecting time for research and writing

Reality bends to your own cosmos.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 1d

Three challenges you’ll face in your first faculty years:

• Program duties without support
• Teaching overload
• Admin creep

Push through these, and you’ll find your rhythm.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 1d

Professoring is like long-distance running:

• Pacing beats sprinting
• Small habits compound
• No medal for burning out at mile 3

Maybe that’s why academia teaches you endurance more than smarts.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 1d

The best local examples of research-life balance I’ve seen:

• A mentor who never answered any email after 6pm
• A chair who shielded junior faculty from admin
• A friend who quit committees without guilt
• A colleague who wrote 20 minutes daily

Models worth studying.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 2d

My early years as a Professor:

Me in year 1:

• Over-prepped every lecture
• Said yes to every request
• Drowned in admin

Me in year 7:

• Built systems to breathe
• Saying no without guilt
• Prep just enough

A few years change everything. Stay the course.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 2d

Academic goals you should strive for as a new professor:

• Say yes only to compensated or strategic admin
• Protect your teaching time without over-prep
• Finish and submit papers consistently
• Build a sustainable program identity

Achieving these puts you in the top 1%.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 2d

The 3 biggest mistakes new professors make:

• Leaving research for when I have time
• Saying yes to every committee
• Treating email like a to-do list

Let’s fix them:

• Say no to protect priorities
• Write daily, even 20 min
• Batch email

This gets the job done.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 2d

Benefits of setting boundaries as a professor:

• You create focus where others create noise
• You model healthy work for students
• You avoid resentment from overload
• You protect your research identity

Which is why boundaries are so valuable.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 2d

You don't need to have the perfect research.

All you got to do is show:
You have a perfect understanding of imperfect research.

Which is exactly what real academics do every day.

Turn thesis flaws into researcher power moves with my FREE guide:

lennartnacke.substack.com/p/6-ways-i-...

6 Ways I Turn Thesis Flaws into Power Moves

Most PhD candidates try to hide weaknesses, but I’ve coached dozens to use them as weapons

lennartnacke.substack.com

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 2d

The BRIDGE Method changed how I coach PhD candidates:

B - Bring up limitations first
R - Reframe as intentional choices
I - Invite intellectual discussion
D - Demonstrate academic maturity
G - Ground in literature evidence
E - End with enthusiasm for future research

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 2d

Best writing advice from best-selling author Stephen King.

Stop waiting for inspiration.
Start writing daily, even if it’s messy.

Same with grant proposals:
ugly drafts beat perfect ideas stuck in your head.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 3d

Here is our in-depth podcast episode discussing if ChatGPT research chats are really private and if AI agents are any good:

youtu.be/jhB5Vqibpsg

From ChatGPT to AI Companions: The Future of Research?

✨ Get the Research Tools Webinar recording: https://go.lennartnacke.com/aitoolswebinarMY ONLINE OFFERS:🎓 How to write better research papers self-paced vi...

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Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 3d

Your lab notebook is locked in a drawer.

Your ChatGPT chats live on someone else’s servers.

One is yours, one is theirs.

Which feels safer to you?

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 3d

Learn how I turned crushing rejection into my biggest career catalyst for free here:

lennartnacke.substack.com/p/how-i-tur...

How I turned crushing rejection into my biggest career catalyst

Most professors will hide this little gem

lennartnacke.substack.com

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 3d

I've tracked this with many of my papers.
Revising within 48 hours led to higher resubmission acceptance rates.

Momentum matters more than perfection.

Your rejection response time is a better predictor of publication success than your h-index.

What's your current response window?

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 3d

The 48-hour post-rejection window sets your publication path.

Hour 1-24:
Feel it fully.
Rage, cry, eat carbs, question everything.

Hour 25-48:
Open the reviews and categorize every single comment.

After 48 hours?
You're either in revision mode or victimhood mode.

Guess which one publishes more?

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 3d

You can accomplish balance as a new professor if you…

• Stop volunteering for uncredited labor
• Schedule office hours in strict blocks
• Guard mornings for deep work
• Automate repetitive admin

Kudos.

You kept your sanity.

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Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 3d

A simple admin tip for professors:

Keep a parking lot document for requests you can’t take on right now.

Here’s why:

• Reduces guilt
• Shows goodwill
• Prevents you from drowning in just one more thing.

Simple but super effective.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 4d

A Great framework for solving too many duties, too little time quickly:

1. Identify your critical path tasks
2. Batch low-value admin into one block
3. Create handoff notes for your future self
4. Protect a research slot no matter what

It's always a winner.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 4d

Famed historian Barbara Tuchman:

Here’s how she finished award-winning books while raising kids:

• Recycled small wins into momentum
• Never waited for perfect conditions
• Wrote in tiny scraps of time
• Kept meticulous notes

Takeaway: conditions won’t improve, but your habits can.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 4d

90% of surviving your first years as a professor is really just:

• Saying no more often
• Protecting research time
• Writing everything down

It's the tiny details that change everything.

Lennart Nacke, PhD @lennartnacke.com · 5d

Habits of the most efficient academics:

• Structured AI prompts
• Reviewer-first framing
• Daily writing sprints
• Iterative editing

Cut through that clutter.