Time management#

Although you may be primarily working on 1-2 main research projects/papers, these can have many different aspects:

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Choose all that apply.

  • Reading

  • Learning new skills

  • Admin

  • Programming

  • Testing

  • Documenting

  • Community-building

  • Writing

  • Speaking engagements

  • Networking

And you are also encouraged to take part in:

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Choose all that apply.

  • Teaching

  • Mentoring

  • Outreach

  • Open Source contributions

  • Side projects

  • Competitions

  • Internships

Time management and prioritisation can help you to use your time and energy as wisely as you can.

Finding time to focus#

Some research tasks require longer periods of focus, so it can be helpful to:

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Choose all that are helpful for your team.

  • Block calendar time for time-consuming tasks like writing and analysis.

  • Book co-working meetings for planning and working on tasks together.

  • Use the pomodoro technique to break up longer working sessions into more manageable/less unnerving chunks.

Co-working#

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Add links to opportunities to work together for staff.

Working together on the same schedule as other people can be very motivating. This might take the form of away days, working meetings, hackathons/sprints, or academic writing retreats (like this, or this). These kinds of events can work equally well in person or online, an for working on joint projects or individual ones.

Pomodoro technique#

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Recommend your own favourite tools.

The pomodoro technique is a method for working in sets of 25 minute “tomatoes”, with 5 minute breaks in between. It’s especially useful for getting started on something that you aren’t looking forward to, since 25 minutes isn’t too long to commit to an unpleasant task. By writing down what you want to do and what you actualy did in each 25 minute block, you gain an understanding of what is achievable, which will help you to plan better over time You can track this using an online pomodoro tracker like my tomatoes.

It also works great for online coworking calls using a shared online timer like this one or this one, since it allows you to have regular breaks to talk to each other.

Choosing goals#

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Link to official review system.

Thinking about career and project goals can be a useful time-management tool as it can help you to prioritise work. We have an official review system in place to look at these goals every , but we can also use group meetings or one-to-one sessions to discuss goals and priorities.

SMART goals#

All goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timed. They can apply to individual projects or career goals.

For example, you might want to:

  • Apply to 3 fellowships by the end of the year.

  • Send 15 emails to advertise your study survey by the end of the month.

Prioritising work#

It’s simply not possible to say yes to all requests. Agree with your supervisor or manager what your priorities are, both from a personal and a group point of view. This could be a good use of your one-to-one meetings with them.

The following tools can help you decide which to say yes to:

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Keep tools/practices that you and your group think are useful, and add your own.

  • The Eisenhower matrix is particularly helpful in helping you distinguish between tasks which are important or urgent. It can be useful to decide importance by cross-referencing with your long-term goals/priorities.

  • Writing out all the things that you have been thinking about as a Mental Inventory can also help to identify distractions.

  • Keeping a Bullet Journal, and migrating tasks each day, month, or when starting a new journal, can help you to identify tasks that you continue to put off. This may represent a change in your priorities (no longer important to you) or that you need to set aside a specific time to do it.

  • Keeping a list of opportunities that you had to say no to can help recognise saying no as an achievement. The list can serve as useful inspiration for applying for funding, or asking for more resource/assistance.

Estimating time needed for work#

When planning timescales for the future work, remember to factor in time for:

  • Holidays and sick days.

  • A post-mortem of the project (which will help you with accurately estimating future projects).

If you are planning the time needed to do a technical piece of work that you haven’t done before:

  • Get a second opinion from someone who does this kind of work

  • Factor in time for learning