Time Management for
Researchers
Session 1
Judith Shawcross
jks45@cam.ac.uk
Course Aims
By the end of this course you will be able to…….
• apply tools & techniques to manage YOUR time
effectively
• recognise common issues and problems and
know how to overcome them
• know how YOU can improve in this area
Course Structure
Pre-work
Session 1: Understanding time management, time
perspectives, different types of activities and
diagnostic tools Homework
Session 2: Identifying your time management
issues, prioritising activities and the rules of
planning and organising.
Homework
Session 3: Changing time management habits and
applying effective time management practice
The Challenge
Making the course work for you
• Be on time & attend every session
• Participate in whole class and group discussions
• Undertaking individual exercises both in class
and between sessions
• Find a time management buddy or buddies
• Have fun
• Invest time in making a time management
system work for you
Time Management – The Facts!
• It’s not simple
• There are no “one size fits all” solutions - you
have to find the recipe that works for you from a
menu of tools and techniques.
• There are some key questions....by asking these
questions it will help you find your answer?
• It’s a skill for life – ongoing review and
maintenance essential
• Effective time management will help you be
successful
Today’s Agenda
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Introduction
Introducing Each Other
Exploring time management
Benefits of better time management
Different types of activity
Dealing with email
Diagnostic tools
Please feel free to ask questions at any time.
Introductions
First name
Current role
Department where you are based
Length of experience as a researcher
What is the most important benefit you want to get
from this course?
What do you think is your biggest time
management issue?
Time and Success
Being successful doesn’t make you
manage your time well.
Time Management
What does it mean for you?
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Getting organised
Protecting your time
Setting clear goals and plans
Prioritising
Beating bad time habits
Doing two or more things at once
Going with the flow
Getting the research done before the funding runs out
Still having weekends and evenings for fun!
Time – Can it be managed?
• Time stops for no-one – it is an unmanageable
continuous resource
• You cannot borrow time
• You cannot hoard time
• You cannot work and earn more of it
You do get the choice of how you use time.
What you achieve during a certain time is a
direct measure of how wisely you invest it.
You can only invest your time once!
Time Management - a definition
The management of our own activities, to make
sure that they are accomplished within the
available or allocated time
Effective Self Management
• undertaking tasks, activities and responsibilities
that provide a high return for you and your
department
• investing time doing the right thing, in an
effective and efficient way at the right time
and for the right length of time.
Effective Self Managers……….
• Concentrate on high return activities
• Exercise self discipline - stay focussed on a task
until complete
• Plan their work
• Get started
• Strive for results ……..not perfection
• Stay positive ……solve problems
• Consistently strive to improve
To stay effective – ask the following…
1.
2.
3.
4.
Am I doing the right activities?
Am I doing them at the right time?
Am I spending the right length time on them?
Am I doing these activities in an effective and
efficient way?
If the answer is no to any of the above then ask
• Why?
• What is stopping me doing the above?
Who controls / influences what you do?
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Principal Investigator
Other Academic or Research Staff
PhD candidates
Departmental / Group Administrator
College
Friends
Partner / Family
Pets
You
Other...........................
Who/what influences what you do - by how
much and how frequently?
Frequency
High
(Daily)
Medium
(Weekly)
Low
(Monthly +)
Low
Medium
Influence
High
Who is the CEO of your time?
Your perspectives on time will also influence
your behaviour.
http://www.thetimeparadox.com
A Series of Time Paradoxes
• Paradox 1
Time is one of the most powerful influences on our
thoughts, feelings, and actions, yet we are usually totally
unaware of the effect of time in our lives.
• Paradox 2
Each specific attitude toward time—or time
perspective—is associated with numerous benefits, yet
in excess each is associated with even greater costs.
• Paradox 3
Individual attitudes toward time are learned through
personal experience, yet collectively attitudes toward
time influence national destinies.
Time Perspectives - Zimbardo Time
Perspective Inventory (ZTPI)
• Past Negative
– Relive painful past experiences, wish they had done different
things
• Past Positive
– Take pleasure from the past, positive attitudes to the past
• Present-fatalistic
– What will be will be .. It doesn’t matter what I do
• Present-hedonistic
– Impulsive, party animal, live life for today...............
• Future Time Perspective
– Planners, Set goals, To do lists
& Transcendental Future Perspective (TTPI)
– Religious type beliefs, death not being the end etc...
Break
Different types of activities
• Answering the phone
• Solving an immediate problem
• Responding to Email e.g. survey
• Writing up a research interview / lab results
• Reading journal articles
Differentiating activities in terms of
Importance vs. Urgency
Eisenhower Principle:
What is important is seldom
urgent and what is urgent is
seldom important.
Eisenhower Matrix or
Urgent vs. Important Matrix
Introduced by Dr Stephen Covey
Urgent vs. Importance Matrix
Importance
High
High Return
Activities
Critical
Activities
Distractions
Interruptions
Low
Low
Urgency
High
Important Activities
High Return Activities
• Those activities that
will enable you to
achieve your goals
• Schedule
uninterrupted time to
achieve them
• As important as
meetings with your PI
Critical Activities
• Those you have left to
the last minute
• Those that you could
not foresee
Non important activities
These stop you achieving your goals and completing your work
Interruptions
• Hide
• Ask people to make
an appointment
Distractions
• Avoid if you can
• Turn them off
• Set aside time to do
these when you’ve
finished your
important task.
Urgent vs. Importance Matrix
High
Importance
High Return
Activities
Distractions
Critical
Activities
Interruptions
Low
Low
Urgency
High
Dealing with Email – Best Practice
• Turn off visual and audio notifications
• Use your out of office notification
Keeping the Inbox in check
Check your email regularly
• This should not be constantly – you need uninterrupted
time to do work!
• Frequency and timing has to be appropriate for you and
your work – 2 or 3 times a day should be adequate
• Allocate time to deal with email
• Chose times when you have completed a high return
activity or when your energy levels are low.
Researchers can improve their productivity by 20% by
not looking at their email first thing in the morning.
Vitae – The Balanced Researcher
Dealing with Email
1. Scan the headers - if it is not important/relevant - delete
2. Review the rest - either
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–
–
Don’t respond – then file or delete e.g. Information emails transfer to a ‘to read’ folder - and allocate time to read them!
Forward to someone else to respond
Respond – then file or delete
Send a holding response – schedule a full response
Flag or move to an ‘action’ folder - if you don’t have time to
deal with it immediately
3. Apply the “two minute rule” (David Allen)
– if the email will take less than two minutes to process (a quick
read, and a short answer) then take care of it right now, even if
it's not a high priority
Email Organisation – Some Options
• Have a simple set of folders and move any
emails you need to keep to them
– E.g. Action, Read, Reference, Waiting, Archive
– Eg. Project 1, Project 2, Project 3 etc.
• File all emails that you need to keep in a “month”
folder and use a search tool
• Set up rules to help you sort incoming mail into
folders – great for those non-urgent messages
Reducing Email
• Encourage people to send you
– Less
– Short emails – don’t get into email debates – use the
phone or go and see them
– Promote effective email practice in your section /
department
• Unsubscribe from unwanted emails
• Be careful who you give permission to send you
emails
Writing Effective Email 1
• Use the title as the headline message
– Please confirm your availability – Project X Meeting
1100 to 1200, 6th December, Room 1
– For Information: Weekly project report
– Always make sure headline is appropriate
• Keep it short – try for two sentences per reply one or two paragraphs max
• One item per email – particularly for unrelated
issues or ones which require different types of
reply
Writing Effective Email 2
• Multiple items – use only if closely related -make
sure each point is easy to identify
• Always be polite / use appropriate language
• Be very clear what action is required – if any
• Make sure all the details are given e.g.
Meetings: date, start time, finish time, location
• Make sure all emails have your contact details
Q1. Are you doing the right activities?
Would you tell me, please,
which way I ought to go from
here?
That depends a good deal on
where you want to get to.
• What activities are the most important for you?
• What activities do I need to do for my research?
• What are your goals? Long-term, this year, this
month, this week, today!
• Are they written down?
• Are they SMART?
SMART Goals
• S = Specific
• M = Measurable
• A = Achievable
• R = Realistic
• T = Timed
What is to be achieved?
How will I know when
I’ve got there?
Is this possible?
Have I got the resources
to achieve this?
When am I going to
achieve this by?
A1. Define your goals and write them down
• Clearly define what you want to achieve
• Set your self goals – long term, yearly, monthly,
weekly, daily
• Share your Research plan with your PI
• Monitor your progress against the plan
• Review and update plan regularly
“PLANS ARE USELESS BUT PLANNING IS ESSENTIAL”
US President Dwight Eisenhower
Tools & Techniques to be applied!
1. What are the goals for my research project,
long term, medium term, short term?
2. What are my high return activities?
3. How am I spending my time?
Long Term
Short Term
GOALS
To have my
research published
in Nature by July
2012
To co-author a book
on carbon nanotubes by April 2013
Milestones
1.
2.
3.
High
Return
Activities
How am I spending my time?
• Take a week (at least 3 days) and actually record how
you spend your time in 15 minute chunks using the
Activity Log provided or Toggl.com - Time Tracking
Software System
• Activities could include: Reading Journal Articles, Responding to
Email, Answering Telephone Calls, Planning and organising, Tea/Coffee
Break, Writing Papers / Reports, Chatting with colleagues, Lunch, Facebook
/ Twitter, Build Test Rig, Conducting Interviews, Attending Seminars,
Training & Development ,Conducting Experiment , Exercise.............
• Analyse this carefully
- what activities should you eliminate, reduce?
- what activities do you need to do more of?
Effective Self Management
•
undertaking tasks, activities
and responsibilities that
provide a high return for you
and your department
investing time doing the right
thing, in an effective and
efficient way at the right
time and for the right length
of time.
High
Importance
•
Urgent vs. Importance Matrix
High Return
Activities
Distractions
Low
Low
Critical
Activities
Interruptions
Urgency
Define your goals
and
write them down
Who is the CEO of your
time?
High
Managing your time is about
working smarter not
working harder.
What is the best use of my time right now?
Don’t look at your email first thing in the morning
Thank you for listening
Resources
• VITAE
www.vitae.ac.uk
Previously UK GRAD Programme and UK Higher
Education Researcher Development UKHERD
Booklet: The Balanced Researcher
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen
Covey
• The Time Paradox, Using the new Psychology of Time to
your advantage (Paperback) by Philip Zimbardo and
John Boyd, Rider Books, 2008
• Why People Fail – The 16 Obstacles to Success and
How You Can Overcome Them by Simon Reynolds,
Jossey Bass 2012
Resources
• Mike Clayton, 2011, Brilliant Time Management, What
most productive people know, do and say, Pearson
• Brian Tracy, 2004, Eat that Frog! Get more of the
important things done, Today!, Mobius
• Jurgen Wolfe, 2010, Focus: Use the Power of Targetted
Thinking to Get More Done, Prentice Hall Business
• Give Me Time, 2006, The Mind Gym, CIPD
• David Allen, 2001, Getting Things Done – How to
achieve Stress-free Productivity, Piatkus
• Michael Heppell, 2011, How to Save an hour every day,
Prentice Hall Life