Managing Your Time and
Workload Effectively in a
Research Environment
Dr Fryni Panayidou
Researcher Development Adviser (PGR)
f.panayidou@qmul.ac.uk
Table of Contents
How do you manage your time currently?.......................................................................................... 3
1
Why is it important to manage your time effectively? .................................................................... 3
Habits of Highly Effective People........................................................................................................... 3
Important or just urgent? ........................................................................................................................ 4
Activity ............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Your Time Management Toolkit ............................................................................................................ 7
Long-term Goals and Priorities ............................................................................................................ 12
The GROW model ......................................................................................................................................12
PECSAW .........................................................................................................................................................13
Case Studies ............................................................................................................................................... 14
What prevents progress? ....................................................................................................................... 15
Perfectionism ..............................................................................................................................................16
Procrastination ...........................................................................................................................................17
Your Time Management Toolkit .......................................................................................................... 18
Saying “No”! .................................................................................................................................................18
Have a “Guilt hour” ...................................................................................................................................18
Work for 90 minutes first thing...........................................................................................................18
The Pomodoro technique .......................................................................................................................19
Tips for managing your e-mail .............................................................................................................19
JFDI ..................................................................................................................................................................19
Take-home Messages .............................................................................................................................. 19
References .................................................................................................................................................. 20
Top Tips for Managing a Busy Work Life .......................................................................................... 21
QMUL Researcher Development courses .......................................................................................... 23
Some productivity apps/browser add-ons....................................................................................... 23
Website and app blockers ......................................................................................................................24
Pomodoro-like timers..............................................................................................................................24
Other useful tools ......................................................................................................................................24
2
How do you manage your time currently?
Everyone can be a better time-manager and there are significant benefits from
improving this skill. It is important to reflect on how you generally manage your
time. Consider where you lose time and what activities prevent you from
achieving your objectives. Typically, people might identify one of the following
reasons for their poor time management.










Lack of objectives and deadlines
Disorganisation
Poor communication
Lack of information or clarity about the task
Procrastination
Can't say 'No'
Never finishing tasks
Lack of self-discipline
Unforeseen crisis or difficulty juggling multiple commitments
Excessive socialising
Effective time managers are not workaholics. The task is not necessarily to put in
more hours, but rather to use your time more efficiently. Try and identify where
you are going wrong and then spend some time thinking about how you might
address this problem.
Adapted from https://www.vitae.ac.uk/doing-research/doing-a-doctorate
Why is it important to manage your time
effectively?







Time is a finite resource
It can slip by or drag by if not managed properly
Managing your time is important for a sense of control
You will be less stressed
You’ll spend less time spent rectifying mistakes
You’re more likely to be respected and valued
You could have more opportunities for personal and professional
development and leisure time
Habits of Highly Effective People
3
Stephen Covey (1932-2012) was an
American writer, speaker and
businessman.
His book, “The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People”, was first published
in 1989 and has become an
international bestseller.
Independence or Self-Mastery
• Habit 1: Be proactive
• Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind
• Habit 3: Put first things first
Interdependence
• Habit 4: Think win-win
• Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood
• Habit 6: Synergize
Self-Renewal
• Habit 7: Sharpen the saw
Important or just urgent?
4
Eisenhower said: “What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is
seldom important.”

Important activities have an outcome that leads to the achievement of your
goals.

Urgent activities demand immediate attention, but may well be related to the
achievement of someone else’s goals.
The following matrix tool will help you manage your time according to important
/urgent task response, prioritising and planning. It is based on, and extends, the
time management matrix featured in Stephen Covey's Seven Habits Of Highly
Effective People under Habit 3, “Put first things first”.
Importance
High
Low
Important but not urgent
Important and urgent
Important goals
 planning, preparation, scheduling
 research, investigation, designing,
testing
 networking relationship building
 thinking, creating, modelling,
designing
 systems and process development
 anticipation and prevention
 developing change, direction,
strategy
Critical activities
 emergencies, complaints and crisis
issues
 demands from superiors or
customers
 planned tasks or project work now
due
 meetings and appointments
 reports and other submissions
 staff issues or needs
 problem resolution, fire-fighting,
fixes
Not urgent and not important
Urgent but not important
Distractions
 'comfort' activities, computer
games, net surfing, excessive
cigarette breaks
 chat, gossip, social communications
 daydreaming, doodling, over-long
breaks
 reading nonsense or irrelevant
material
 unnecessary adjusting equipment
etc.
 embellishment and over-production
Interruptions
 trivial requests from others
 apparent emergencies
 ad-hoc interruptions and
distractions
 misunderstandings appearing as
complaints
 pointless routines or activities
 accumulated unresolved trivia
 boss's whims or tantrums
Low
Urgency
High
5
The judgement as to whether activities are urgent, important, both or neither, is
crucial for good time management.
Many inexperienced people, and people who are not good at time management,
nor in managing their environment, tend to spend most of their time in the
“urgent” quadrants. Poor time managers tend to prioritise tasks (and thereby
their time), according to who shouted last and loudest (interestingly, loudness
normally correlates to seniority, which discourages most people from
questioning and probing the real importance and urgency of tasks received from
bosses and senior managers).
Any spare time is typically spent in the “neither important nor urgent” quadrant,
which comprises only aimless and non-productive activities. Inexperienced timemanagers spend the least time of all in the “important but not urgent” quadrant,
which is in fact the most critical area for success, development and proactive
self-determination.
You should aim never to allow “important but not urgent” tasks to move into the “urgent”
quadrant. A really effective time-manager will only ever have “important and urgent”
tasks arise due to external circumstances.
High
Do tasks first and well
Delay, dump or
use as rewards
Try to delegate these
Importance
Plan tasks carefully and do
them after any urgent tasks
Low
Low
Urgency
High
6
Activity
•
In your groups identify some tasks you need to do in the next two to three
weeks
•
Rank them according to importance – say, on a scale of 1 to 5.
•
Now rank the tasks according to urgency and then plot them on the
Important vs Urgent grid.
(Note that the real skill lies in identifying which quadrant your tasks belong in!)
Importance
High
Low
Low
Urgency
High
7
Your Time Management Toolkit
The Urgent-Important grid is one useful tool for helping you manage your time
better, but there are other tools and tricks you can use for:




Identifying your tasks
Prioritising your tasks
Planning your time
Monitoring your progress
To-do lists
It is very useful to keep a daily to-do list, but don’t get too stressed if you don’t
cross everything out by the end of the day! It can be a good idea to use the last
few minutes of your day to write, or at least start, tomorrow’s to-do list.

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Write it either first thing in the morning or last thing before you leave
work
Carry tasks over only if you really intend to do them
Otherwise ditch them (use the important/urgent matrix to judge)
Schedule/block out time for the bigger jobs
Drill down
Break what you need to do into manageable packets of work – large tasks into
smaller actions. For each task, think about what you will have to do to achieve it,
then continue to break the tasks down until you either have a straightforward
action to take or a question that you need to answer in order to progress. See
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_02.htm for more details and
an example.
Mind-maps
Mind mapping is a technique associated with creativity, but can also be useful for
ordering thinking and seeing connections between different elements of a topic.
See http://www.mind-mapping.co.uk/make-mind-map.htm for advice on
constructing mind maps.
You could use a mind map to capture all the things you’ll need to do in the years
of your PhD. Don’t leave anything out – include holidays, family commitments,
work commitments, fun things, everything that you are involved in. Remember
that mind maps are trying to capture the totality of what you do, so that they
obey the 100% rule of project management – before you can schedule the tasks,
you must know everything that needs to be delivered/done/produced. Therefore
8
if you say yes to something new you must change your mind map and then the
time-based plans that flow from it.
Use a diary
Keeping a diary/calendar, either physical or electronic, means you are less likely
to forget important events, meetings, appointments etc, and also means that you
don’t need to waste valuable time worrying about where you should be or
digging out old e-mails to check details of events. Rescheduling or reorganising
things you forgot about also wastes time!
You can also use a diary like an activity planner, to block off chunks of time to get
on with specific bits of work.
Activity Planners
These can be used on a long-term or short-term basis. You could draw up a chart
of all the months left until you finish your PhD, and allocate activities to each
month, or you could use weekly activity planners to organise what you should be
doing each day, and at what time of day.
Using time when you’re most efficient
Most people have a time of day when they work best – for some people it’s first
thing in the morning, for some it’s the afternoon or evening. Try and work out
what yours is and use this knowledge to plan your time. For instance, if you’re a
morning person don’t waste the first hour of the day replying to unimportant emails or doing admin tasks – get straight on with something important. You can
use times when you don’t work as well to do less important tasks, or tasks
requiring less brain-power!
The Pareto (or 80:20) Principle
Originally, the 80:20 connection referred to the observation that 80% of Italy’s
wealth belonged to only 20% of the population.
More generally, the Pareto Principle is the observation (not law) that most things
in life are not distributed evenly. It can mean all of the following things:

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20% of the input creates 80% of the result
20% of the workers produce 80% of the result
20% of the customers create 80% of the revenue
20% of the bugs cause 80% of the crashes
20% of the features cause 80% of the usage
And on and on….
9
This may not be the best strategy in every case. The point of the Pareto principle
is to recognize that most things in life are not distributed evenly. Make decisions
on allocating time, resources and effort based on this, for example:

Instead of 1 hour on a rough draft for an article you may write, spend 10
minutes on 6 outlines for a paper and pick the best topic.

Rather than spending 3 hours reading 3 articles in detail (which may not
be relevant to you), spend 5 minutes glancing through 12 articles (1 hour)
and then spend an hour each on the two best ones (2 hours).
Adapted from http://betterexplained.com/articles/understanding-the-pareto-principle-the8020-rule/
Gantt charts
These are diagrams showing the phasing of tasks with the interconnections and
dependencies shown between them. Remember to include things you need other
people to deliver to you (feedback from your supervisor). Also remember you
can’t devote 100% of your time to these tasks, as you are one person with lots of
different commitments.
Microsoft Project is commonly used to produce Gantt charts – one of many
commercial project management tools. A free alternative is GanttProject, which
can be found at www.teamgantt.com
Milestones and setting objectives
Milestones are places in your plan where you want to achieve or complete a
specific package of work. Objectives help you to move towards your milestone
and should be SMART:
Specific
in both meaning and focus
Measurable so that you know when you are achieving progress and can
declare success
Advantages what's in this for you? If you can see no personal advantages,
don't waste your time; you won't be seriously motivated towards
success
Agreed
with your supervisor(s)
Realistic
make sure that you are being realistic – you can get feedback to
help you do this. Setting learning targets in this way will, through
experience, gradually improve your ability to manage your own
self-development and learning
Timescale
know when you need to reach your objective to be able to review
your progress
10
Committing to deadlines
Deadlines can be set for you and by you. If a deadline is being imposed you
should always negotiate and check just how immovable that deadline is.
Deadlines you set for yourself are often ignored because they are often not
immovable. You should try and avoid doing this much more blatant negotiation
of a new deadline with yourself. It is these self-imposed deadlines that are likely
to help you to meet the imposed deadlines.
Weekly Summaries
At the end of each week spend a few minutes thinking, and making notes on,
what you achieved that week, what problems or issues you came across, and
what you plan to do and hope to achieve the following week.
Another way to prioritise tasks

First, rank your tasks by effort on a scale of 1(low) to 10 (high)

Second, rank the tasks by potential results on a scale of 1(low) to 10
(high)

Then calculate: Priority = Results/Effort

Carry out the tasks in order of priority score
11
Long-term Goals and Priorities
Managing your time well enough that you can get things done without becoming
too stressed is one thing, but in order to manage your time really effectively you
need to think seriously about what things really matter to you. Think about:
 Where are you going?
 What and who are important to you in your life?
 Do you allocate a realistic amount of time to these priorities?
This requires you to think about the balance between your work and your
personal life, and also about your priorities within each.
Your priorities at work should reflect your long-term goals wherever possible.
For example, if you hope to have an academic career then getting published will
be important, but it might also be useful to gain some teaching experience. If you
want a career in a different field, then think about what experience would be
useful for that.
There are several frameworks that might help you think about your goals and
priorities. Here are two:
The GROW model
This is a well-known model for personal/professional development planning:

Goals: What do you want?

Reality: What is happening now?

Options: What could you do?

Will: What will you do?
The GROW model is often used in coaching sessions, but it can be used by
individuals to set and work towards their own goals.



Identify the goal. The coach helps the coachee articulate the goal of the
coaching session or process.
Examine current and future reality. The coach helps the coachee examine
their current situation and describe how they would like their future reality
to be.
Explore the options. The coach helps the coachee explore all the possible
options for handling their situation. The coach may offer suggestions but will
let the coachee do most of the talking.
12

Establish the will to act. The coach helps the coachee commit to specific
actions and establish their motivation.
PECSAW
PECSAW is a model you can use to make sure the goals you are setting yourself
are clear, positive and realistic. If you ask yourself the following questions about
something you are considering undertaking, you will make sure you are only
aiming at outcomes that are achievable and beneficial.
Positive

What is the positive intent for the activity that you are considering
undertaking?

What do you want? – rather than what you want to avoid.
Evidence-based

How will you be able to measure that you have achieved the outcome that
you want?

What feedback will you be able to get along the way to achieving your
outcome?

What evidence will be there if you have not got what you want?
Context

Where specifically do you want this outcome?

When, and with whom?

Where DON’T you want it?
Self-achievable

Are you sure that what you are after is within your control?

Are you expecting other people to change in order for you to achieve your
outcome?

What resources do you have to help you to achieve it (people, objects, role
models, personal qualities, money)?
Advantages and disadvantages
13

What are the advantages associated with you achieving your outcome?

What are the disadvantages associated with you achieving your outcome?

What are the advantages associated with you NOT achieving your outcome?

What are the disadvantages associated with you NOT achieving your
outcome?
Worthwhile

Is the outcome you are expecting worth the effort that you will need to put in
to get it?
Take a few minutes to think about your goals and priorities, both
inside and outside work.
Case Studies
In small groups, discuss the following case studies.
14
If you like you can use real-life scenarios from people in your group to substitute
for some or all of these.
Be prepared to share your ideas.
Case Study 1
You have reached the final stages of a full-time doctorate and are starting the
write-up process. So far, you have been the model doctoral student – efficient,
friendly, approachable and involved with all of your department’s activities.
As 2 other students have recently left, your supervisor now wants you to
supervise both MSc and BSc project students and take charge of some of the lab
management.
You feel like you are about to crack under the strain of all of these tasks.
What do you do?
Case Study 2
You have just started your doctorate – you are full-time but self-funded and, as
such, you need to find some paid employment in order to survive. You are
worried about the impact this might have on your ability to complete the
doctorate as quickly as possible.
What options do you have in this situation?
What actions could you take to minimise the impact on the doctorate?
What time management techniques could you use here?
Case Study 3
You are studying for your PhD part-time whilst working full-time. Your partner
(who works full-time in industry) expects you to contribute to running the house
and your research is the one activity that is suffering, but you recognise the
importance that achieving a doctorate will make to your career.
You feel you can never do enough. You would like to be better organised, but you
don’t know where to start.
What can you do?
What prevents progress?
Often, self-sabotaging behaviours can stop you managing your time and work
efficiently. These include:
15

Over-committing

Perfectionism

Procrastination

Getting distracted
Perfectionism and procrastination are both enemies of good time management,
but if you are aware of them, then that is the first step in overcoming them.
Perfectionism

Do you feel that what you do is never good enough?

Do you strive for 110% all the time?
Perfectionism can be caused by a need for external approval. Perfectionists often
set themselves unreachable goals or unreasonably high standards.
Healthy and realistic goal-setting can help. Focus on being ‘good enough’.
The noted academic Tal Ben-Shahar (whose courses on positive psychology were
the most popular ever run at Harvard University) is the author of a book called
“The Pursuit of Perfect”. In this book, Ben-Shahar introduces the concept of
“optimalism” as an alternative type of behaviour to perfectionism.
Perfectionists:

Have unrealistic expectations of themselves and are highly self-critical if
their expectations are not met

Have an intense fear of failure

Focus only on results and not take pride in effort

Never feel satisfied because of unrealistic standards and therefore
effectively reject the possibility of success
Optimalists:

Accept that occasional disappointments and setbacks are a natural part of
life

Recognise that a failure is an opportunity to learn how to do better next
time

Focus on growth and improvement

Value the journey and understand that life is mostly about what you do on
the way to your destination
16
The main message of his book is this: Either we learn to fail, or we fail to learn.
Procrastination

Often caused by:
–
Lack of understanding/confusion about the task
–
Fear of not being able to do the task well enough
–
Resentment about doing the task in the first place
Cause
Lack of understanding/ confusion
about the task
Remedy
Clarify the task
Plan before starting it
Clarify the direction of the plan if
necessary
Fear of not being able to do the task
well enough
Do a small section, seek immediate
feedback
Resentment about doing the task in the Say no, or find a reason to do it.
first place
This is a very interesting article on the Washington Post about procrastination.
Tim Urban’s TED talk mentioned in that article is available here.
17
Your Time Management Toolkit
As well as tools for helping you prioritise and plan, there are also tools and
techniques for

Focusing on your tasks

Sticking to your plan

Avoiding self-sabotaging behaviours
Saying “No”!
One of the most important time management tools is the ability to realise when
you are in danger of over-committing yourself, and to say no to new
commitments. If you’re asked to do something new, think about whether you
really have time for it, and whether it is something that you need to be doing (see
next section on goals and priorities).
Saying no can be difficult, but not saying “yes” immediately is easier. For
example, ask to have some time to think about a new commitment, or say you
need to check your diary. You can also offer to help but on your terms, by saying
“I won’t have time to do that this week, but I could do it on Monday” for example.
If you feel your supervisor is expecting too much of you and overloading you
with tasks, talk to them! First work out what your priorities are (e.g. writing your
thesis, finishing a particular experiment, or getting a paper ready for submission)
and then explain to your supervisor that the other smaller tasks are impacting on
your ability to get the big things done.
Have a “Guilt hour”
Sometimes putting off a particular task can make us feel guilty, and then the
easiest way of avoiding feeling the guilt is to not think about that task, and focus
on something else instead. This tends to leave some items on the to-do list that
just keep getting put off. One possible solution is a “guilt hour” – set aside a time
specifically to focus on whatever task(s) are making you feel guilty, and just get
on with them.
Work for 90 minutes first thing
Try beginning your workdays by focusing for 90 minutes, uninterrupted, on the
task you decide the night before is the most important one you’ll face the
following day. After 90 minutes, take a break. (https://hbr.org/2011/01/themost-important-practice-i/)
18
The Pomodoro technique
Named after the tomato-shaped timer, this technique requires you to work for
blocks of 25 minutes, without allowing anything to distract you. See the separate
handout and the website (www.pomodorotechnique.com) for more information.
You can get various apps ad plug-ins to help you with this, including some (e.g.
Strict Workflow for Chrome – see more suggestions at the end of the handbook)
which will block any websites you tell it to, to avoid distractions during the
working periods.
Tips for managing your e-mail
For some people e-mail can be more of a distraction than a useful work tool.
There are many tips and suggestions out there for managing your e-mail so that
it doesn’t get in the way of your actual work! Here are a few:





Turn notifications off
Set times for looking at your in-box
The “two minute rule”
Use a filing system, e.g. Action items, Waiting
Use rules to filter non-essentials
An acronym to remember:
JFDI
Just Flipping Do It. Pronounced 'Jifdi', this acronym is the antidote to
procrastination and perfectionism, and a reminder that simply getting on
with it is often the best answer to most moments of self-doubt or
hesitation.
Take-home Messages
19
There are a number of good principles that you can utilise to help you improve
your time management.

Have clear objectives. Knowing the aims of your research will clarify your
objectives

Devise a project plan. Make sure to include clear milestones and deadlines in
your plan, and stick to them.

Don't confuse urgency with importance

Devote time to planning

Use a diary and timetable key activities

Don't get bogged down by others. Manage other people's expectations and
make your priorities clear to them

Do one thing at a time

Review an activity before you leave it

Reward yourself, i.e. I'll check my email after I find this reference, or once I
finish the draft of this chapter, I'm taking the evening off!
Adapted from https://www.vitae.ac.uk/doing-research/doing-a-doctorate
References
Covey, S. (2004) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Free Press, NY, USA
Ben-Shahar, T. (2009) The Pursuit of Perfect: How to stop chasing perfection and
start living a richer, happier life, McGraw-Hill,
Webb, C. (2016) How to Have a Good Day, Macmillan
20
Top Tips for Managing a Busy Work Life
 Work at your best time of day – use your worst time for admin work and the
‘no-brainer’ stuff
 When being asked to do more, don’t say yes when you want to say no. How?
Well, you can say “no” nicely, in other words, “Yes I can – but the first time I
have available is …”
 When students and colleagues come to you asking for help, invest time in
making sure that you prevent the person coming back to you repeatedly. So
take a coaching approach – instead of giving the answer ask them to “go away
and come back with a plan” – coaching rather than solving problems
 Have a realistic “to do” list – not a work of fantasy. What can you actually
achieve in the time you have available to you? – you will need to prioritise
 Use a “crop rotation” approach with blocks of time – this time is for teaching,
this time for reading, this time for marking – and be disciplined about sticking
to it
21
 Use travel time as reading time
 Use waiting time to make lists, plan, get organised, book appointments etc.
 Set up surgery times for students so that they know when you are available
and when you are definitely unavailable for anything other than emergencies
(your emergency, not theirs!)
 Identify the needs and wants of yourself and others – what must you do? If
there is a ‘should’ in there, it is probably someone else’s needs
 Have “that conversation” – putting it off takes up time and energy
 Keep moving forwards – “keep buggering on” as Winston Churchill would
have said
 When things are tough take time at the end of the day to recognise what you
have achieved (however small the achievement)
 Begin with the end in mind – and keep it in mind, at all times (is what you are
doing helping you to achieve your desired outcome?
 Go for the 10% stretch in almost everything you do
 Get your working environment right for you – tidy up, switch your phone off,
turn off your e-mail etc if you need to get something done (eliminate
distractions)
 Get the balance right. You have lots of different things to do – what
percentage of your time should you be spending teaching, supporting
students, doing your own research, taking time for your friends and family…
 Externalise deadlines – tell other people your plans, and ask for their help
and support in keeping to them
 Share with colleagues what you do – and with excitement
 Make sure that your ladder is up against the right wall – it’s no good working
really hard and really effectively at the wrong things
 Have a daily/weekly “to do” list – tick things off – and celebrate your
successes
 Get in early and accomplish something before the mayhem starts
 BANJO = bang a nasty job off
 Whatever distracts you at the beginning of the day – don’t do it! Leave
checking your e-mails, Facebook, getting a coffee, reading the news etc until
22
after you have done the first thing on your to-do list
 When up against a deadline try a “focused fifty” – fifty minutes of 100%
attention, completely uninterruptible
 Do a “ten-minute start” – do use a spare ten minutes to start off some new
task
 Minimise time spent in conversations that are not important to you
 Delete e-mails that you are only copied in on – they are not to you, and you
will find out another way of the information is really important
 Keep progress reports – there will be times when you will need to know that
you have achieved something
 Ask for what you need
 Know when good is good enough – it is very rare that you should be aiming
for perfection
 Give other people unsolicited positive feedback – catch people doing things
right, and comment on it?
 Hold each other accountable – who is going to remind you?
 Decide to do something differently – you never know what benefits can come
from breaking the habits of a lifetime
QMUL Researcher Development courses
These are some Researcher Development and Library courses that further
complement this course. To book and to see a full list of courses, visit the QMUL
booking system (www.cpdbookings.qmul.ac.uk) and select Type: “Research
Student” from the dropdown menu.
Some productivity apps/browser add-ons
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Website and app blockers

LeechBlock (Firefox)

StayFocusd (Chrome)

Go F***ing Work (Chrome)

SelfControl (Mac)

Freedom (iOS, Mac, Windows)

HeyFocus (Mac)

Hold (phone app)
Pomodoro-like timers

TeamViz

Strict Workflow

Be Focused (Mac)

Tomato – Be Focused (Windows)

Forest (phone app)
Other useful tools

Focusmate: virtual coworking with a stranger! Book your session, Launch
your video session and work for 50 minutes!

Coffitivity: recreates the ambient sounds of a cafe to boost your creativity
and help you work better. More sounds available.
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