Time management as a graduate student

I am definitely not a person who has mastered the art of time management. Therefore, I think it’s best if we learn how to do this together.

Here’s a good case study to start with. There are only 4 days left to submit this article while I have had it on my to-do list for the past month and a half. How did I get here? I had more than a month to write this thing, so why did I wait until now? Normally, sitting in my office, this is how I handle questions like this: first, I propose a hypothesis about what could have been done, and then I research to confirm or eliminate that hypothesis. It’s 8:30PM right now, and my current goal is to finish this article today.

Maybe that’s where the problem lies, with my goal. Here are a few tips that popped up in my research about how to set a goal as I test my hypothesis that it was, in fact, the way I set goals that is the problem. Most of these come from reading the Doran et al. article, cited in the resource section below.

Tangible Tips

• A goal needs to be time-based. I did put “write the article” on my to-do list every single day for the past month, but I never set a time limit other than the actual due date. If you are like me, procrastinating to the last minute, then this is the game changer. Instead of vaguely including the task you are trying to accomplish on your list every day, set a limit, get it done, and never worry about it. So, my goal now is to finish this article today.

• A goal needs to be attainable. Being a graduate student, my time is often fragmented by things like timepoints for data collection or experimental procedures that follow a prescribed protocol. In these cases, it is best not to set a goal that I know cannot be completed in the limited time I will have between experimental work. It is also helpful to break big tasks into pieces, especially when tasks like writing this article are amenable to stopping while my experiments may not be so flexible – leaving bacteria in lysing buffer for too long, for example, is going to decrease the yield of DNA. So experimental tasks may not be so forgiving to scheduling changes.

• A goal needs to be specific. It is important to think through the scheduled task. When we put something down on our to-do list, we need to not only think about the title of the project, for example, but we should also provide some thoughts on how to approach it. It is so much easier to do experiments with a clear protocol rather than having to figure out what to do as the experiment proceeds. The same applies to other tasks in life; it is all about planning: the more detailed your plan is, the easier it is going to be when you act on it. With a clear plan in mind, a task that once seemed insurmountable suddenly become achievable.

• A task needs to be measurable. When is a task considered complete? We need to have a quantitative measure of what should be done. My goal was to finish this article. I need to define what “finish” means in this case. I could ramble endlessly, but I think 1 to 2 pages, single-spaced with 12 point font should be sufficient in making at least 3 points about time management. So now, my to-do list for tonight has become to research about how to become better at time management, collect ideas, and focus on what is the most applicable to my life – in the hopes that these same tips will be useful to others in my position. Finally, I need to condense everything I learn into an article that is reasonable in length.

I just took a half-hour break – it is now 10:30PM. It all started with a text message. I picked up my phone, talked to my friends, and the fingers just found YouTube on their own. The next thing I knew, I’m watching an 8-minute video. In the 21st century, technology has become such an important part of our lives that we need to find ways to keep it out sometimes. Stop checking messages and emails randomly. It not only helps us to stay focused, but also leaves the control of time in our own hands. Ironically, I’ve learned there are a number of technological hacks to keep us away from our devices. Apps like “Rescue Time” keep track of your activities on the computer and give you a sense of where our time goes. Less passive options are apps like “SelfControl” and “StayFocused”, which allow you to set restrictions on time spent on distracting websites. For more information on options like these, check out the third link in the resources section below this article.

While I kind of place the blame on technology, I know the real problem here is procrastination. Through my research, many books came up talking about this phenomenon but the one by Brian Tracy really caught my eye (see the resources section below). He compares different tasks to frogs that have to be eaten. Gross, but it really simplified things through the exaggerated comparison. Imagine if we have to eat frogs today – I know I would be dreading it, like many other tasks I have to scratch off of my to-do list. Although I was talking to my friends and surfing the internet, I knew I have to come back and finish writing this article all along. And now I have just pushed the finish line a little further than it was 2 hours ago. This doesn’t quite apply here tonight, but I really want to share this: Brian Tracy suggested to eat the ugliest “frog” first. Having done that first thing in the morning, we would continue the day knowing there wouldn’t be anything more terrible than that first frog we ate, which serves as a positive feedback: the feeling of accomplishment and success will help us to build confidence in handling all other tasks throughout the day.

But is procrastination the enemy all the time? It turns out that procrastination can sometimes have positive effects. Check out this interesting podcast episode on the TED Radio Hour by NPR (see resource section) that I came across, which discusses the positive side of procrastination. It turns out that some amount of procrastination is useful to promote creativity. If our schedules and tasks become too rigid and prescribed, according to research in organizational psychology, we lose the opportunity or need to come up with creative solutions and ideas. Not surprisingly, too much procrastination is also not good for creativity. But there’s a sweet spot of procrastination that boosts creativity. Food for thought, perhaps something to think about optimizing as I procrastinate on my next task.

Useful resources

This article is a useful resource that helps understand how best to set goals.

Doran, G. T. (1981). "There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives". Management Review. 70 (11): 35–36.

This article provides tips for avoiding procrastination.

Tracy, B. (2017). Eat that frog!: 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time. Oakland: Barrett-Koehler Pub.

This article summarizes some of the current top apps for blocking distractions.

https://wallstreetinsanity.com/10-apps-that-block-distractions/

This podcast episode on the NPR’s TED radio hour explores the positive impact of procrastination.

https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/490624293/slowing-down