As regular readers of the blog (especially in the beforetimes) will know, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I want to allocate my time and structure my days. I suspect I would think about this a lot regardless, but part of why I do is because I have interests and obligations outside of work that mean that I need and want to be pretty efficient and careful with how I spend my working hours.
While I would like to pretend that summer is just beginning, I’m already finding that I need to start scheduling things, including recurring meetings, for the fall semester. (I drafted this in mid-July but delayed posting, so I regret to inform you that, once this post appears, it will be August. Eek!) There is a LOT of stuff that I want and need to do, and I’m trying to think about how I want to set up my weekly schedule. This has me revisiting an idea I was thinking about last year, but never quite fully implemented – the idea of setting a minimum amount of time I want to spend a week on some tasks and a maximum amount of time for other tasks. It also has me thinking about how I want to structure those tasks. I’m sharing this both in case it helps other folks thinking about similar things, and because I’m curious about different strategies people use.
As always, there are a variety of different things that I will need to do regularly in the fall. This is a feature and a bug! I love the variety, but it also can lead to lots of inefficient task switching, and also increases the potential of working on things that are urgent but not important at the expense of things that are important but not urgent.
One thing I tried to do when I tried this out a little last year was just listing out the different major tasks and then thinking about whether it was something that should have a target that was a minimum (e.g., spending at least X hours a week on writing or editing manuscripts) or whether it was something that should have a maximum (e.g., spending no more than Y hours a day on email). My plan was to then move on to blocking off time for the different types of tasks, but I found that, once I had set the mental list of what should have an upper limit and what should have a lower limit, that was all I needed.
I think I need more structure for the fall, including because I will be teaching a new(ish)* course and that will take up a lot of time. So, I think I will come up with the list of tasks, the approximate amount of time to spend on them each day or week or month, and then try to sketch out a general weekly/monthly plan. The amount of things I have to do this fall – and the nature of those things – reminds me of an earlier semester when I blocked off Thursday mornings for writing and editing and really protected that time so that research progress didn’t grind to a halt for the semester. It ended up surprising me how much I got done during those times, and it took away stress knowing those times were there.
I realize that my schedule will end up needing to change — either in a one-off way or as I realize that particular important tasks needs more time. And I won’t be able to fit everything in in exactly the way I prefer in all cases, because there are constraints (e.g., my lab meetings in fall need to be fit in around the field sampling schedule and based on the general availability of lab folks).
I’m curious how much other people try to create a general weekly schedule for a semester, and, for those who do, I’m wondering:
if you also try to think of minima and maxima for devoting to different tasks,
how well you are able to stick to that schedule vs. how much modifying it needs, and
how you try to structure those tasks/days – e.g., do you find it helps to pack in all of one type of task (for example, for me this might be all of my teaching or administrative tasks) or all of your meetings on one day, or do you try to spread things out?Â
And, if you have a totally different approach that works for you, I’d love to hear about that, too! One of the things that is clear from mentoring is that different systems work for different people (and at different times), and I’m always interested in hearing about strategies people find effective!
*I’ve taught a course on this topic in the past, but it was a long time ago! And I’m fortunate that I have materials from others to draw from, but it will still be a lot of prep time this semester.