The most valuable resource we have is time, which graduate students and researchers find particularly challenging to manage. One of the rare professions where being time-constrained is not only anticipated, but also largely expected, is academia.
You have a tonne of work to accomplish, including authoring research articles, grant applications, conference applications, conferences, and don’t forget about teaching and supervising! The list never seems to end.
So how do we manage anything here?
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, but there are several tactics you may employ to try to increase its effectiveness. I’ve outlined seven suggestions for getting started with improved time management below.
A procedure for how you will handle your everyday activities has to be established. You must prioritise the problem, just like the ER in a hospital. No of how long the person with the wrist injury has been waiting, the person with a gunshot wound will receive treatment before the person with the wrist injury. You must similarly arrange your assignments according to their relevance and urgency.
Always start with the task that gives you the greatest worry! If you have to eat three disgusting frogs, you start with the biggest and most offensive-looking one. The rest will be simpler once you’re done if you do it that way.
This indicates that you shouldn’t respond to emails right away. You have jobs that are more essential and that need for more thinking, so start with those unless it’s an urgent communication. what is simple is done afterwards.
Avoid putting off important duties and letting them pile up. Instead, work for a prolonged length of time in short spurts. Never store all of your writing for later; always write a small amount at a time, as we discussed in a previous piece. By maintaining consistency, you’ll start finishing more and more chores and getting closer to whatever objective you’ve set.
You are literally harming yourself by wasting time! Humans are ultimately just a collection of hours, minutes, and seconds. Until we give time its due, we won’t be able to manage our time effectively.
Humans can fluctuate between being ill and healthy, occasionally being poor or affluent, but none of us has the power to turn back time more than a second at a time. It’s the most valuable and non-renewable resource we have; if you keep this in mind, you won’t squander it as much.
Always set your own fair deadlines (before the deadlines that others impose on you). Make a list of all the things that need to get done and relate them to specific time frames. Every significant task has a due date, and you should work on each significant assignment daily until it is completed. For instance, if you are writing an essential paper, you must write a little bit every day. If a specific day doesn’t provide much time for writing, you must nevertheless write, even if you write less.
You shouldn’t necessarily be similarly strict with others just because you are strict with yourself. I’m sure you would have enjoyed it yourself in a circumstance like this, so show some compassion and remember to occasionally cut others some slack.
This entails being understanding if your supervisor couldn’t meet with you this week or if your graduate student missed anything. In the end, we are all just people looking to improve.
Being supportive is always a positive quality. You must understand when to refuse, though. Are you participating in too many extracurricular? Maybe you could cut back on the things you do that don’t add much value to your life and put more effort into the things that do. Learning how to say no will prevent you from engaging in upsetting diversionary activities that will keep you in your present condition indefinitely. This leads us to our final point.
If you have a certain time set out for research, you should be very careful not to waste it on time-consuming tasks like checking your email every day, sending texts on your phone, and so on.
