Last month, I briefly mentioned I’d talk a bit more about scheduling. So I figured it would be good to follow up on that.
Managing my time well is also something I’ve learned to do in graduate school (although one could maybe argue that I’m still not so great at it). It’s not that nobody ever tried to teach me how to do it before now, it’s more that a lot of the usual ways (e.g. keeping an agenda) don’t really work for me (e.g. I never check the thing). So I’ve tried figuring out what works for me and maybe some of these things will work for some of you too.
To Do Lists
These are things I make not only to keep track of what I’ve done and what I should do, but also because there’s this nice satisfying feeling that comes from crossing an item off the list.
One thing I’ve found really useful lately is actually the Tasks feature that come with gmail. That way every time I check my email I can be reminded of the things I should be doing. With this feature, it’s even possible to create separate lists for different spheres of life. Right now I have a list for research; another for tasks that are still related to work, but not research (e.g. job applications, TA duties); and one for my personal life.
I keep a paper version of my to do list for the week, however and I try to plan out little ones each day. Which brings me to…
Setting Mini-Goals
In research, you’re not going to get everything done in a single day and getting to the point where you’ve completed enough work for a paper (or a thesis) can seem really far away. Further, it isn’t even always clear what you have to do in order to get to this end state or it can be really easy to lose sight of what has to be done.
To avoid losing sight of everything, it’s helpful to break every large task into many smaller tasks. This can be done over the course of months or weeks or even throughout a day.
To keep from spending too much time on one task, I try to set mini-goals as I work throughout the day (e.g. by 3pm, I want a program that does x). I also try to hold myself accountable for how I spent my time. To do this, I use this document:
It’s basically a pdf that I print out each week that helps me plan out my week and my days. This version is just 5 days (my weekends are a bit more free-form). I usually try to write down what I’ve done every hour or so and set small goals to be accomplished throughout the day. Sometimes it’s difficult to stick to this, but when I do it definitely helps.
I (once again) hope that something I’ve said can be useful to someone else. If you have suggestions for how to manage time effectively, you’re welcome to leave these suggestions in the comments.
Until next month.
Sarah is in the final year of her PhD. “How to thesis” is a series in which she imparts various (hopefully) useful things she has learned during her graduate career.
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