Merlin’s weekly podcast with Dan Benjamin. We talk about creativity, independence, and making things you love.
Designing my own work week (academic) ?
msanford | Mar 24 2007
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 :) ) 15 Comments
POSTED IN:
 What I have learned in the last yearSubmitted by Marmotte_masquee on April 18, 2007 - 9:02am.
Hi I started as a university professor last June. I read David Allen's book, learned a few things specific to academia by trial and error and also by reading a great book by Robert Boice (Advice to new faculty members). Professor Boice spent most of his research life studying successfull faculty members (i.e. that got tenured, that published scientific papers and that students ranked highly) and compared them to their opposite, the ones that did not make it. I highly recommend it. One specific point that comes out of his book is that working in brief sessions regularly (everyday) will get you much closer to your goal than trying to block half a day or a whole day and say "ok, now I have time to do XYZ (writing, thinking, preparing class, conference talk, grading...). He says that big chunks of time do not happen in academia and if you wait for them, you end up working under a deadline and "binging", which is not good for productivity nor for your mood. Its probably true for other types of professions and it scertainly true of PHD dissertation writing, although we all do otherwise. So I started setting a time for working on my next scientific paper, and another brief session to work on the course I am giving in the Fall, only half an hour each in the morning, but every morning. AFTER this writing session, I read my emails, answer my students questions (I have a web forum for my class as mentionned by somebody else, I love it and the students love it, they help each other, etc), go to the mail room, get a coffee and chat in the hallway, open my office door for interruptions... then the day goes depending on my list of NAs, meetings, students, collegues that come by, hard landscape deadlines like grant submissions, grading exams... I work 9h to 16h or 17h and work again in the evening for an hour or two in my home office. That way I can be with my family (while the kid is awake), and get work done, which is my version of "designing my work week". I try not to work on week ends. I read David Allen's book while commuting. I don't think I would have done it other wise. I had the same feeling as you when I wanted to read Robert Boice's book, I thought, well, when I get tenured, I'll have time to read books about getting tenured ... » POSTED IN:
|
|
| EXPLORE 43Folders | THE GOOD STUFF |
