Many individuals believe that life gets better and better over time. To examine the sources and significance of such beliefs, we examined lay theories for life satisfaction (LS) in relation to individuals' beliefs concerning how their LS was unfolding over time. Two studies were conducted with online participants: one correlational (Study 1; N = 320, M age = 30.39, 55% male), the other experimental (Study 2; N = 321, M age = 30.46, 53% male). In both studies more incremental (vs. entity) lay theories were associated with more steeply inclining subjective trajectories for LS. Furthermore, both sets of beliefs had unique effects on individuals' goal-striving toward a brighter future life, as well as psychological adjustment (self-efficacy, hope, optimism, positive affect, negative affect). Thus, lay theories and subjective trajectories for LS share a common assumption concerning change in life satisfaction over time. And each set of beliefs plays a unique role in positive functioning.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a migration of workforces to work from home. A key issue for academics was the implications for the ability to carve out 'thinking time' to engage in what we term sustained knowledge work, the type of work essential for producing research. We administered an employee survey to academics from seven Australian and seven Canadian Universities, receiving over 3000 responses. We report on both quantitative and qualitative findings from the survey, with a particular emphasis on the latter. The two countries displayed broadly similar patterns in responses, but these patterns were gendered in specific ways. We distinguished between episodic and sustained knowledge work and found the shift of the location for sustained knowledge work from the workplace to the home affected academics unevenly, with disproportionate negative impacts on women. There are implications for all knowledge workers: while gendered, domestic norms continue to exist, the sustained knowledge work that is critical to career advancement can become especially problematic for women knowledge workers.

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