Thursday, September 24, 2009

Time management




When I met the new MJs last week, managing the insane demands on their time seemed to be their biggest concern. It’s possible that it became their biggest concern because everyone kept telling them about how insanely busy they were going to be until they got freaked out. But nevertheless, I hope this will be a useful topic. Here’s a list of tips.

Break tasks up into small chunks. Concordia’s Centre for Teaching and Learning Services recommends that you take a big goal, like marking a stack of research papers, and break it into smaller tasks, like marking five before dinner. They also recommend that you remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing: “I am marking this giant pile of research papers because I need this job to pay rent next month and I’d like to use this professor as a reference,” for example.

Do high priority work before you have a chance to get distracted
. I never have enough self discipline to actually do this, but Penelope Trunk recommends working on a high-priority project for an hour before you look at your email or open anything else that might distract you.

Only touch things once
. For example, if you get an email suggesting a meeting time, write the time down right away, then file or delete the email. If you have to go searching for the information later, you’ve just taken twice as much time dealing with that email. But Penelope Trunk also reminds you that:

Good time management doesn’t mean dealing with everything right away
. The classic example for TAs is the student who emails you in a panic the night before he has to present or hand in a paper asking you for help. That’s his time management problem, not yours.

Schedule when and where you’re going to do things. Peter Bregman has a very good if slightly insane list of time management tips at HarvardBusiness.com. He cites a study that found 100 per cent of women who said when and where they would do a breast exam actually followed through, whereas only 53 per cent of women who had a more vague plan did. Think about when you have gaps of available time in your day, then plan what you’re going to get done during them and where.

Congratulate yourself on your excellent time management skills
. Make the first item on every to do list “make list.” When you’ve finished the list, you already have one thing to check off. You are so efficient. Buy yourself a cookie. And while you’re waiting for your cookie:

Read the newspaper while you’re standing in lines. And waiting for the bus, and waiting for class to start, and waiting to meet friends. Also, listen to the radio while you wash dishes and get ready in the morning. Send emails while you watch The National. Keeping up with the news is much less daunting if you multitask.

Remember to schedule your daytime hours. It’s Thursday morning. You have a news story due Tuesday. Think you have plenty of time because you have five days to do it? Wrong – you’ll be in class all day Friday (if you’re an MJ1) and you won’t be able to reach anyone on the weekend. If you don’t start today you’ll be in a mad scramble to get interviews on Monday.

Ban instant messaging. I made this fabulous discovery in fourth year – if I don’t log in to MSN, I finish whatever I’m doing twice as fast. Instant messaging is the biggest time vampire in the universe, because it’s constant random interruptions that people expect you to reply to immediately. I also discovered that I read and write twice as fast if I’m not listening to music with words (music with no lyrics is fine).

Schedule happy time. Everyone deserves an hour with some ice cream, wine and streaming TV on a regular basis.

It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Matt Pearson, who graduated last year, came up with this metaphor for the program. It’s a good one. Don’t burn yourself out early.