Using time management to live your “ideal day”

Chad Milando

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Boston University School of Public Health

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Big takeaways

• There are only a few things you HAVE to do
• Time management is about prioritizing
• Like sustainability: 10 x 100 MW rather than 1x1000 MW
• Recognize the emotional component

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• Why do I care about time management:
• Be more productive: feeling content, satisfied, confident, also happier PI!
• Be more effective: spend less time in SPH! More time with family, friends, and practicing self-care

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Randy Pausch (1960 – 2008)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0

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From Randy:

• Being successful doesn’t make you manage your time well.
• Managing your time well makes you successful.

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• Be effective, rather than efficient

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• There are no shortcuts in research, just a lot of hard work

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• And most importantly ….

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… the goal is fun!

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Brooklyn ½ marathon with my sister NYC, 2015

Ragnar with other EH PhDs Michigan, 2017

Great Lakes Relay Michigan, 2017

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Questions for you

• What do you think your biggest challenges with time-management are?

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• Write down 10 things from your to-do list

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• We’ll come back to these later!

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Overview

Step 0: What is your ideal day?

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5. Demo!

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Thinking about your “ideal” day

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0. The ideal day

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Credit: Jenna Steiner at

Michigan “Wolverine” wellness

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Everyone has good and bad times

• Find your creative/thinking time. Defend it ruthlessly, spend it alone, maybe at home.

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• Find your dead time. Schedule meetings, phone calls, and mundane stuff during it.

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0. The ideal day

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Challenges with classes / other constraints

Challenges

• Having to re-schedule your life plan every semester
• Weird blocks of free space
• non- “ideal” times when you have to be “on”

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• A new chance to try alternatives

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• Schedule a fake class for yourself
• Take earlier downtime so you can re-charge

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Potential solutions

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0. The ideal day

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Saying “no” can save you time!

• You make time by electing not to do other things
• Saying “no” politely
• Sounds like a great opportunity, but I cannot take on additional commitments at this time
• I am not the best person for this. Have you considered X?
• Right now I need to focus on my research and publications
• I can’t serve this year, but can you ask me next year?

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0. The ideal day

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The Black Academic’s Guide to Winning Tenure – Without losing your soul.

By Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Tracey Laszloffy, page 119

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Interruptions

• Interruptions take 6-9 minutes, 4-5 minute recovery 🡪 five interruptions shoots an hour

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• You must reduce frequency and length of interruptions (turn phone calls into email)

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• E-mail “ding”, phone “ding” 🡪 during your “Showtime” turn them off!

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• Other interruptions: visitors, students, social media, personal email

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0. The ideal day

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7:30a-8a�Let’s start the day!��1. Email

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https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/sun/overview/

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First, some questions

• How often do you check your email?

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• How many un-read messages do you have? Read?

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• Has your PI or any boss ever missed an email?

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• Do you miss things?

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• Do you like your system?

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1. Email

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Email vs To-do list vs Calendar

• Email is part of a paradigm of computer tools that save time and free up mental brain space

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• However, email is not your to-do list!

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1. Email

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http://robert.foo.my/2012/10/messy-desk-cluttered-mind.html

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Tips for keeping your Inbox

• Just like physical mail, touch each “piece” only once

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• Filters (rules & policies), labels, archives

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• Does it have any value?

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Yes No🡪 Archive

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empty

1. Email

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Tips for keeping your Inbox

• For “Yes” email, 4 D’s
• Do it (2 minutes or less)
• Delegate it (forward function)
• Defer it (put it on a to-do list)
• Deposit it (Into a file folder)

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• Keep this process to specified blocks during the day

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empty

1. Email

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Time and Organizational Management For Faculty, 2017. Dr. Robin Gershon, NYU, College of Global Public Health

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~8a�We’ve answered email.�Get ready to work!��2. Tracking your time

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https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/horserace-start-gate-2444479.jpg

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Why track your time?

• Like making any change, forcing yourself to “notice” what your current habits are is helpful

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• Do you know how much time you spent on classwork in the last week? On research?

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• Can be helpful to take your own “pulse”

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• Essential for finding time “sinks”

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2. Tracking time

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What to track?

• What are the buckets of time that academics spend their time doing?

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"Successful Faculty Performance in Teaching, Research and Original Creative Work, and Service" James P. Sampson, Jr., Marcy P. Driscoll, David F. Foulk, and Pamela S. Carroll

• Research
• Teaching
• Service
• (Career development: networking, presenting)
• (Administrative: RCR, …)

2. Tracking time

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How to track time

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2. Tracking time

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App: Toggl

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8a – 12:30p�Its showtime !��3. Saving time using � “Zero-draft” writing

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What is zero-draft writing?

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3. Zero-draft writing

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How does zero-draft writing save time?

• Writing to learn
• Generate new ideas, have fodder for pasting into various other things

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• End of the day: tell yourself what to do tomorrow
• Useful to have a record to look back on what you were thinking

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• Practicing zero-draft writing is really really helpful for dissertation writing, grants, manuscripts, …

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3. Zero-draft writing

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Zero-draft writing for my dissertation

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Every weekday for 2 weeks

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Goal: 1000 words/day

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Since you already have papers, mostly in the Introduction / Discussion / Conclusion

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3. Zero-draft writing

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Location, location, location

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3. Zero-draft writing

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Do what works for you!

This is your time, use it how you want to

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1p – 3:30p���4. Meetings

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Reasons to hold meetings

• Share information
• Ask and answers questions
• Discuss issues and reach decisions as a group, including what actions (and by whom) are needed
• Promote sense of community

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Time and Organizational Management For Faculty, 2017. Dr. Robin Gershon, NYU, College of Global Public Health

4. Meetings

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Saving time before/during/after meetings

• Having an agenda
• Someone leading
• Set a strict time limit (1hr max)
• Being explicit about expectations and responsibilities
• Take minutes and email out after
• With PI, ask for explicit deadlines and priorities

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• Its ok to be stuck and ask for help
• 🡪 it can be a waste of time to struggle helplessly
• 🡪 PIs want results, so ask for help/clarification

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4. Meetings

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3:30p – 4p���5. To-do list for tomorrow!

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Tips for making to-do lists that work

• Work backwards (This is due XX. It will take me 5 days of 1 hr / day on it. So I will start on YY)

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• Academia is very flexible, so set interim deadlines for yourself, and try to hit them (ok if you don’t!)

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• Set short, medium, long-term goals (MyIDP.com)

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• Part of getting “things” done is making sure the “things” are you working on are accomplishable (i.e., SMART)

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5. To-do list

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SMART tasks

• Specific – be as specific as possible
• Measurable – how will you track progress
• Assignable – is this task in your control
• Realistic – given available resources
• Time-related – when is it due

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George T. Doran, 1981 Management review There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives.

5. To-do list

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Randy looks at each task:

• Why am I doing this? What is the goal?

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• Why will I succeed?

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• What happens if I chose not to do it?

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• Doing things right vs. doing the right things

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5. To-do list

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My favorite anecdote:

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https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjQ_o6z_tnhAhXQTd8KHYubCX8QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjamesclear.com%2Flay-a-brick&psig=AOvVaw3gnClpkE-IEpyp7qTd5n3q&ust=1555688648662049

5. To-do list

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To-do list triage – step 1

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Important

Not

Important

Due Soon

Not Due Soon

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Stephen Covey – 7 habits of highly effective people, 1989

5. To-do list

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Make a “Not-important”

To-do list

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To-do list triage step 2 – work backwards, and make SMART

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My method – on paper

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Other resources

• I put a lot of other notes/tools in a blog: phdmeta.com

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Acknowledgements / Sources

• Randy Pausch, “Time Management”
• Dr. Robin Gershon, NYU, College of Global Public Health
• “Writing your dissertation in 15 minutes a day” Joanne Bolker
• The Black Academic’s Guide to Winning Tenure – Without losing your soul. By Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Tracey Laszloffy
• Jenna Steiner at Michigan “Wolverine” wellness
• "Successful Faculty Performance in Teaching, Research and Original Creative Work, and Service" James P. Sampson, Jr., Marcy P. Driscoll, David F. Foulk, and Pamela S. Carroll
• Time management and student services at Tufts
• Beth Haley

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