Time Management for Graduate Students

TIME MANAGEMENT FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS
Academics around the world face a similar problem: time management. The result of looming publication deadlines, lofty research goals, or lingering projects, the anxiety that accompanies poor time management can be paralyzing. Managing time, organizing research, and producing text can be difficult, particularly when you have too much (time, research, or text) or too little. The pace of study changes considerably upon entry to graduate school; the papers and the deadlines are longer. You may begin work at a leisurely pace, but within weeks of the first deadline, it will become evident that you require planning, priorities, and productive routines. This publication will outline how you can effectively manage and organize your time, while balancing research, writing, and teaching responsibilities. You will find strategies and tools for long-term and short-term planning, all devised from working with graduate students like you. Beyond practical planning suggestions, we discuss procrastination and motivation, and we offer advice to help you build momentum in your writing – often the biggest hurdle for graduate students. anxiety often associated with unclear direction, undefined goals, and lack of balance.

Keys to Time Management
1. Build productive routines: Most productive scholars will tell you that they have set times and routines for their work. Some write every morning for several hours. Others set aside certain days of the week for their research. If you establish fixed times for tasks, you are less likely to doublebook or to shirk a responsibility. So, just as you call your sister every Thursday or walk the dog at noon everyday, set times for the lab, the library, or lecture prep at a regular time and day. Where you can, make your routines work with your natural rhythms: if you are a morning person, you might set time for writing from 7-9 am every day. Scheduling work that is frustrating or tedious for the afternoon,

Citations: for Chp 2 •Evening •Write 3pgs – Chp 2 Tuesday Jan 18 •Morning –Write 3-5 pgs – Chp 2 •Afternoon –Marking Proposals (3-4 hrs) •Evening –Seth’s birthday – Gerti’s • People tend to procrastinate when they feel overwhelmed by a task or don’t know how to begin working on it. •People often allow themselves to believe that they have more time than they really do to complete a project. They ignore the realities of the demands on their time and the likelihood that something might “come up” and pretend to themselves that there will be a time in the future when they will be able to work without distractions and, thus, become far more productive than they usually are. Not surprisingly, this mythical time rarely, if ever, comes to pass. •People engage in perfectionism and self-handicapping. They fear beginning a project because they believe that their work will not live up to expectations. Strategies for Avoiding Procrastination • Break large, vague projects down into clear, concrete tasks. Research shows that people are far more likely to procrastinate when work is vague or abstract. So, instead of planning to “write a book review” on a given day, break down the tasks involved with writing the review (reading/notetaking, outlining, drafting, and revising) and plan to complete them one at a time. Consider ways to “trick” yourself into completing work before it is due. Create false deadlines or make a commitment with a colleague or your advisor to have a draft done by an advanced date. Turn off social media while you are working. Only let yourself check email, Facebook, or Twitter at set times during the day. There are even software programs that will shut down your internet access during certain time of the day. Build momentum. If you procrastinate because you fear the terror of the blank page, find ways to start writing that are less formal. Free write, write an outline with details, write a letter to a friend explaining your work, write a review of your unwritten thesis, or write a summary of a source. Just start writing, and momentum will generally build. Stop reading and start writing. The old joke is that for graduate students, there is always just one last book to read before they can begin writing their thesis. There will always be one more source; but consider what will it add that can’t be added later, after you have begun writing. Develop parameters and cut-off dates for your research; at some point, you need to stop reading and start writing. • • • •