Are you on summer break? Or are you working while your child is off for the summer? The romance attached to the idea of a break — it is an illusion, isn’t it? I mean, think about it, a quiet campus, out-of-office messages that indicate that it’s a time for a beach vacation, time to catch up on reading, or perhaps just time to do nothing but while away in front of the television. But if you are in academia, do you really have time to catch your breath this summer?

Are you finding that illusion quickly crumbling away? Isn’t this perhaps the busiest time of the year:  your grant application may be due, strategic plans may be underway, you may see a spike in manuscript submissions with review requests flooding in. Ta-da! Summer has officially become a time to catch up on writing, editing, reviewing, hiring, upskilling, compliance, and all the administrative work that you kept putting off throughout the year.

So, is the summer break then, just another lie that we tell ourselves?

I think this is true, not just for authors but across the board. In publishing, there is no “off-season.” Faculty members juggle multiple roles, and the absence of teaching duties provides little rest. They get replaced with everything that was postponed, for example, curriculum design, administrative work, research, writing, mentoring, and on a personal front if you are a parent, caregiving.

Marketing and editorial offices utilize this time for website updates, tool migrations, author outreach, and issue planning. Editors in particular find themselves flooded with more submissions than usual and this leaves them scrambling for reviewers. Librarians, research support staff, and administrators use this time to implement new systems, rework processes that are outdated, revise onboarding material and so many similar tasks. Summer may look quiet on the surface, but it’s that time of the year that most invest in the deeply necessary, yet perpetually undervalued and invisible tasks.

Then, let’s not forget that it’s also the time that coincides with school holidays and increased caregiving responsibilities. As a mother myself, I know the kind of juggling and multi-tasking that this requires. It means recalibrating schedules, shifting working hours into the early mornings or late nights, and let’s not forget the accompanied guilt of not being able to spend enough time with kids. I wonder how this plays out for authors — is the expectation that summer is when “serious writing happens” really compatible with the reality of caregiving during the summer break? If women choose to do less during this period, does it come at the cost of professional stagnation?

Women in the roles of department chairs, diversity officers, program coordinators, journal editors, and mid-level publishing managers — can they really afford to “pause” over summer?

The “catch up culture” is not something that affects just women, of course. It is a time where those in academia, are not resting but rather surviving the expectations that are before them. How can we re-define the purpose and expectations of academic summers? How can summertime not be construed as a time for free labor but as a time for repair, recalibration, and rest?

Is the myth of the academic summer break a lie we choose to believe? Do we do that because it feels like a mirage — a ray of hope offering comfort as we navigate semesters and deadlines? How can rest be a right, not a privilege? And how can this be institutionalized and supported?

First, we need to rethink the academic calendars. Summer shouldn’t be time for strategic planning, writing, hiring, and reporting; if it is, it shouldn’t be considered as “time off.” Administrative deadlines and expectations should reflect the reality of when and how people are working. It feels like the calendars were built for another era and while the roles and responsibilities have evolved, the calendar has not.

Second, institutions must normalize real time off across roles, not just for tenured faculty or researchers on sabbatical. Editors, publishing professionals, librarians, research managers, and support staff should also have protected time to disconnect — without pressure to “use the quiet months productively.” From personal experience, I can say that Cactus Communications (CACTUS) (I’ve been associated with CACTUS for close to 20 years,  so this is my only frame of reference!) insists on this — there are dedicated days in a year which we call, Disconnect and Re-charge, which are mandatory days off for the team. By ensuring that some teams that work together are all given time off on the same days, we ensure that there are no urgent deadlines or requests or emails coming in.

Third, we need to recognize and reward invisible labor, especially the kind done during the so-called “slow” periods. The behind-the-scenes work that keeps the systems running — onboarding, policy writing, infrastructure maintenance — how can these be acknowledged in performance reviews, promotions, and workload allocations?

Finally, let’s talk about summer productivity itself and what it means. Who says that summer is time for “catch up”? What are the imbalances with this line of thinking? And how can we build a culture in academia that does not rely on exhaustion? Rest shouldn’t be an act of resistance but an organizational value.

And this is not just about the summer. Let’s be honest. In academia, for many, overwork is normalized — rest appears optional, and the moral currency is productivity. This culture inevitably, leads to burnout. How can rest be something that’s not squeezed into the quieter months? How can it in fact be something that’s more regular because let’s face it. When we are well-rested, we have the will to innovate, to fail fast, and to really invest in our own success.