I know exactly who needs to hear this. Academics. *Clears throat*: checking and writing emails is work, thinking about your research is work, planning and delivering outreach is work, writing papers aside from your main research is work, networking is work, 1/

writing twitter threads tangential to your research or field is work, attending an evening or lunch time seminar is work, giving a colleague advice is work, making a reading list is work, attending a lecture in your department is work, planning and delivering teaching is work, 2/

communicating with students is work, sorting your files is work, tidying your desk is work, reading books and articles is work, reading academic publications tangential to research area is work, emotionally processing something difficult that happened at work is work, 3/

emotionally supporting a student is work, sending emails asking for reasonable adjustments to be made is work, sorting administrative/pay errors is work, contacting IT because something isn’t working is work, downloading a PDF or ordering a book for future work is work 4/

talking through a research problem with a friend in the pub is work, serving on a committee voluntarily is work, attending a conference (even the drinks and the dinner) is work, meeting with a supervisor/boss is work. Formally complaining about discrimination at work is work, 5/

fielding abuse online because of your research/race/sexuality/gender/disability is work, replying to requests for info from the public or media is work, going on a research trip is work, going to work and failing to be productive is still. Work. 6/

Only counting core research/writing as proper ‘work’ plays into expectations of huge amounts of unpaid labour in academia. It ignores burdens places disproportionately on marginalised academics. It perpetuates a terrible and harmful work/life balance. 7/