Time Management for Graduate Students - Powerpoint - SFU Library

Time Management
for
Graduate Students

•Discussion:
What are your key
time management
challenges?

Your Time Management Goal
• Not to be “the perfect student”
• To get a little bit better in your time use
every week!
• How?
◦ Get in touch with your time use priorities.
◦ Gain awareness of how you currently use your time.
◦ Push yourself every week to do a bit better than the
week before.
◦ Build on past successes and analyze/ trouble-shoot past
challenges.

Time Management for Graduate Students
PRIORITIZATION AND SCHEDULING

Priorities: The Pie of Life
• What activities are pieces of your pie of life?
• How happy are you with the size of the pieces?
• As one piece gets bigger, others need to get smaller.

Prioritization and Illusory Priorities:
The Quadrants
Important
Unimportant
Quadrant 1
Eg: Plan tomorrow’s tutorial,
Go to work today, Make
dinner for family.
Quadrant 3
Urgent
Eg: Attend unimportant
meeting, check emails
quickly, answer phone when it
rings.
Quadrant 2
Eg: Work on thesis or longterm
project, Get a good
night’s sleep, Pay attention to
fitness, Search for postgraduation
job.
Quadrant 4
Not urgent
Eg: watchTV, play computer
games, “Tweet”
Based on Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Know Thyself: Self-Monitoring
• Keep Daily Activity Log for one week
• After the week, reflect on what you did well
and what you would change
• Your Guide: “Time Use Log Reflection Sheet”.

Next Steps
• Make use of what you have learned from selfmonitoring.
• The next week, make a schedule that:
◦ Builds in more of what you did well
◦ Makes a few key changes
◦ Gradually increases time on task
• Review your time use weekly to gradually
build better and better schedules.

The 4 Schedule Strategy
1. Semester at a Glance Calendar
2. Master Weekly Schedule
3. Weekly Schedule
4. Daily To-Do List

Time Management for Graduate Students
Strategy for Large Projects

Strategy for Large Projects
• Break down the project into small, actionable steps.
• Dissertation Calculator:
http://library.queensu.ca/qlc/dissertation/
• What is meant by “small steps”?
◦ Eg: “Write Introduction” is not a small enough step.
◦ Introduction has several parts:
• Eg: Intro 1: General Context
• Intro 2: The Issues
• Intro 3: Specific Problems
• Intro 4: The roadmap to the chapter
• Each step should = 1-4 days work, maximum

Strategy for Large Projects (ctd.)
• Capture the steps in writing
◦ See example of matrix.
• Identify which step to take on next.
◦ Write down a time estimate of how long it will take to
complete the step.
• 1.5 x what you think it will take
◦ Write down a completion date for that step.
◦ Note steps in your larger time management system
• Eg: calendar, agenda, phone alarm, daily to-do-list …
• Give yourself credit for completion of that step.

Tracking Progress and Giving yourself credit
Thesis
Section
Chap. 1
Data
collected
Data
entered
Data
analyzed
Intro 1 100 80
Intro 2 100 80
Intro 3 100 50
Methods 100 80
Methods1 100 50
Methods 2 100 0
Results 1 100 100 90 50
Results 2 100 100 50 10
Results 3 20 0 0 0
Disc. 1 10
Disc. 2
Words 1 Words 2 Words 3

Keep up the forward movement
• Continually ask, “What is my next step?” and
commit it to writing with deadlines.
• For each step, continually ask “What is my
next action?”
• Identify some easier steps you can do when
you are tired, sick etc. (eg: data entry).
• Tackle harder steps during peak energy times.
• Always have something you can work on.

Major Projects: Motivational Step
• Don’t judge how far you have come by
looking forward. Turn around and see
how far you have come.
Versus

Time Management for Graduate Students
Strategies to overcome time
management pitfalls

Perfectionism
• When writing, separate your critical voice from
your creative voice
◦ Write first, edit later.
◦ Freewrite or talk into voice recognition software
◦ Just initially get it down
• Know when to call a task “complete”
◦ Pareto’s Principle: The 80-20 Rule
• Don’t spend a lot of time perfecting your
matrix – another procrastination tactic.

Anti-Procrastination Strategies
Videos from McMaster
University:
“Procrastination
Avoidance Made
Practical” and
“Winning through
Wedging”
http://maclife.mcmaster.ca/
academicskills/online_res
ources.cfm

Action Step
• What is one new strategy that you will try
from this workshop?

Additional Resources
• SLC Time Management Page (Study Schedules & Procrastination)
http://learningcommons.sfu.ca/strategies/managing-time
• McMaster videos on Managing Time, Procrastination and
Motivation
http://maclife.mcmaster.ca/academicskills/online_resources.cfm
• Time Management for Graduate Students (University of
Western Ontario)
http://www.sdc.uwo.ca/learning/index.html?gradtm

Additional Resources (ctd)
• Perfectionism resources:
o http://learningcommons.sfu.ca/sites/default/files/218/Perfecti
onism-U-of-Texas.pdf (University of Texas at Austin)
o http://www.dundee.ac.uk/studentservices/counselling/leaflets
/perfect.htm (University of Dundee)
• Studying in the Child Zone (Athabasca University) – Tips
for balancing schoolwork and parenting
http://lss.athabascau.ca/counselling/child_zone.php