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Designing my own work week (academic) ?

Submitted by msanford on March 24, 2007 - 9:16pm.

I'm completely new to GTD methodology (but will be heading to Chapters tomorrow to buy David Allen's book). I've also been listening to Merlin's podcast and getting some good ideas from it.

I'm currently in the phase of preparing my research proposal for my (Master's) thesis, work on which will commence in May. As my coursework is complete, unless I'm offered another sessional lectureship next year (which is very likely barring budgetary problems) I will be at liberty to create my own work week. At most, I will have three hours of lecturing and several more hours of correcting and preparation each week to schedule.

I've been looking for suggestions, studies, personal accounts, or just good old advice on setting the most efficient work week for myself.

For example, I find I work best (i.e., most creatively and efficiently) in the evening. I also have obligations to family and various other extra-curricular activities (I'm a competitive level climber who's had to hang up his harness for the past 6 months for failure to make time to train!)

Should I work a traditional work week? Should I take Thursday and Sunday off to break up my work so I don't lose momentum? How about never working in the morning and working 6 days a week? Just brainstorming to illustrate my idea...

Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated. I hope to be able to contribute something useful from my experience to this community too!

(I already posted this but it didn't appear. Maybe there's a bug relating to activated users starting a thread before being activated? In any case, that's my excuse in case this ends up being a double-post :) )

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One of the things about...

Submitted by msanford on March 26, 2007 - 7:54pm.

boris;8695 wrote:
One of the things about being an academic is that you're often negotiating very different temporalities: in the teaching environment, you might be planning down to the 10-minute span, and dealing with many different people. In research, you're dealing with a time scale of months or years, and this requires a different kind of headspace.

Indeed! This is one of the things I've been struggling with, actually. I also have an 'open-door' policy with my students. As I work predominantly in my office, and I encourage my students to come whenever they can, I run the risk of suddenly "losing" (re-purposing is probably a better term) hours one day. I should probably fix that...

boris;8695 wrote:
Unstuffed is right however, in that everyone has their own style and you have to go with what works for you.

I was thinking the same thing, despite having posed the question. Ratification of my gut instinct is always good, though.

Thanks for the insight!

(PS. As promised, I bought David Allen's book and am, ironically, finding it hard to fit time into my day to read it! It's an interesting recursive problem: I need the information contained within the book to plan my time effectively enough to be able to give myself time to read it).

Another comment, which might as well go here, though it is off topic: reading the first sentence of the book "It's possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control" (p. 3). I couldn't help but think of The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy: "DON'T PANIC" :o