The 2014 five-year plan revisited

In the summer of 2014, I created my first ever five-year plan. That was not my idea, but an assignment in the online course PostdocTraining. It involved a great deal of effort. Before I embarked on creating it, I carried out a few exercises. They aimed to clarify who I was, where I wanted to go and what I needed to do to get there. One of these exercises involved estimating how good I was at some 40 academic tasks and the extent to which I enjoyed doing them. Another involved visualizing my ideal workday twenty years from now. From when I woke up to when I went to bed. 

They may not sound like particularly difficult exercises. But I was mentally exhausted. I wasn’t used to thinking about my life in these timescales. During my time as a PhD student, I did my best to avoid thinking about the time after I graduated. Four years felt like oceans of time. And if I only did my very best, things would probably work themselves out. After all, that had been the case so far. 

The result, as you know, was that I ended up in the basement at LUX. A humbling experience. So, I decided to carry out the exercises diligently and without any preconceived notions. My motto was try first, judge later. After a couple of weeks, I had created a five-year plan. It was obviously full of uncertain variables. But I was actually quite clear about which situation I wanted to find myself in by 2019. I wanted to be internationalized, to have secured funding for a research project in a new subject area and, by extension, to be employable. 

I looked upon internationalization as something absolutely crucial if I wanted to work as a historian. In my professional context, I noticed that those who wrote in English, regularly traveled to international conferences and became visiting scholars were rewarded with grants and positions. I had yet to do any of this. This was something I needed to change, and this is also something I have done. I now have many publications in English under my belt, I am used to international conferences and I have a rather substantial international network. With small children, it hasn’t been possible to engage in any longer visiting fellowships. In empirical terms, I have also for all intents and purposes continued to have a Swedish focus. But, on the whole, I’m quite satisfied with how I’ve worked on this. A lot has happened in five years. 

The second item has also gone according to plan. A couple of years into my time as a postdoc, I discovered the private investor blogosphere. At first, my reading was based on aimless curiosity and a fascination with an unfamiliar cultural phenomenon. Over time, I realized that this could probably be studied from a historical perspective. The key was when I started reading economic historian Orsi Husz’s articles on the financialization of everyday life. They were incredibly inspiring and served as a portal into this field. At the national history conference in Sundsvall, I approached her. The following year, we invited her to the history of knowledge seminar series in Lund. We then got her involved in an edited volume project, and next year we will work together within a module of the large research program headed by Jenny Andersson. This item on the list could certainly not have worked out any better! 

The third objective was to become employable. This is a point I’ve not really reached. I have yet to become a contender for a permanent faculty position. I hope that the second book, once finished, will enable me to be in contention. However, this obviously depends on who I am facing and what the external reviewers value. Contrary to sports based on concrete results, such as soccer or track and field, history is a sport based on receiving scores from judges. There are a lot of things I’m unable to influence. 

So, what would me in 2014 think of the years that have passed? Would he have been satisfied with the outcome? Yes, I’m absolutely certain that he would. My postdoc years have been my best time in academia. Each year, my work has become more interesting and the stage bigger. I think that the five-year plan I drafted in the summer of 2014 has something to do with this. Long-term planning makes dreams and ambitions more concrete. It offers tools for prioritizing and having the courage to do things that seem scary. In a few weeks’ time, the time has thus come to create my second five-year plan.

Further reading: The Basement

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