APSNA members and JPSN readers,
At times, work-life balance seems to be either the impossible dream or a search for the Holy Grail. Although differences of age, gender, family responsibilities, and profession impact this balance, the search for the perfect formula seems to elude us all. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review caught my attention: "Manage Your Work, Manage Your Life" (Groysberg & Abrahams, 2014). The authors surveyed 4,000 executives worldwide; five themes emerged from their interviews. Executives felt their successful work-life balance is affected positively by the ability to:
* define success for yourself rather than allowing others to do so for you,
* manage technology rather than letting it manage you,
* build support networks at work and home,
* travel or relocate very selectively,
* collaborate with professional and personal partners.
The authors feel that making deliberate choices about which opportunities to accept or reject, rather than reacting emergently to options as they arise, allows them to engage meaningfully with their work, family, and community (Groysberg & Abrahams, 2014).
To help you achieve your professional goals of writing, this second issue of JPSN is dedicated to authorship. I am hopeful you will enjoy the reprint of Writing for Nursing Publication and Writing Your Journal or Conference Abstract. Both articles are filled with many tips on writing to assist you in your quest for work-life balance. In addition, two books I consider essential for writing are Writing for Publication in Nursing (Oermann & Hayes, 2010) and Anatomy of Writing for Publication for Nurses (Saver, 2011).
With APSNA's journal partnership with Lippincott Williams & Wilkins this year, JPSN is not only online but has increased to quarterly publications. We hope you and your colleagues will consider writing for JPSN. For those of you who need assistance, whether it is your first publication or not, the JPSN editorial board is committed to mentoring. We can assist you in carving out time for writing and with the publication process.
When I informally polled nurses in my hospital, the two main reasons for not writing for publication were "I don't know how to write and publish" and "I don't have the time."
Regarding the educational need, I hope you are inspired by knowledge gained from this edition's manuscripts as well as from APSNA's first Pre-Conference Workshop, which focused on publishing. I hope that many of you were fortunate enough to have attended the May event and had not only educational time but also some personal time with family, friends, and colleagues. As for the eternal quest for time, I hope the executives' words ring true to you: Make the time and accept the challenge and choice of authorship. I look forward to reading your submissions!
Kimberly McIltrot, DNP, CPNP, CWOCN
APSNA Publications Chair
JPSN Editor-in-Chief
E-mail: [email protected]
References