Last week, some other grad students in my department met for a couple of hours to discuss time management in grad school.
We had a really good discussion and I took away some interesting thoughts and tips and had a few of my own I wanted to share here as well. I feel that time management is the best way to get things done without being totally overwhelmed by toxic productivity. I have attached some notes from our session at the end of this post. This will build on a blog post from a couple of years ago about how I stayed on top of things in undergrad.
Writing is one of the main pillars of graduate school. This is one of the many elements that is new to me. In undergrad or in high school, you write only when you have to – for a final paper, in an exam, at the last minute. Then you send it off and hope that you never have to reread what you wrote. Now, I need to be writing all the time (knowing that I, and others, will read and re-read what I’ve written). There is a big focus at UCSD on creating a sustainable writing habit. I’ve gone to a retreat at the writing hub here and they helped a lot with helping to build a positive attitude towards writing and setting up a sustainable way to write throughout different stages of your projects. The things that have made the biggest difference to me are 1) making the time to write, 2) making the space to write, and 3) write without being a perfectionist. The first and second of these are intertwined. At my desk, I am often distracted because I work in a space with other people. I have been going to the library in the mornings and writing for two hours. I make the time – it’s from 9am-11am one a week (for now, hopefully I can do this another day of the week as well) – and I make the space – in the library.
Because in previous degrees, I have only ever written for a set deadline, I am used to writing and needing the outcome to be perfect (or at least worthy of an A). That’s not necessarily the goal in writing all the time. First of all, it’s not really about the grade. Second, there are deadlines (like the dissertation deadline, publication submissions), but in general the writing is spread out over weeks, months, and years. You’re not sprinting, so much as running a marathon. Every time you sit down to write, it doesn’t have to be perfect. That’s what I’ve been trying to keep in mind. Writing up smaller sections, or using that dedicated time for editing and tweaking is powerful. Writing a little bit but often is crucial.
One of the other pillars is reading. Most weeks I have to read around 200 pages of academic articles and textbooks. I wrote about this in my other blog post, but the way I keep on top of my readings is I make a list of all my deadlines for the week (which is mostly just readings I need to do before my classes). I then can see in front of me what I have done and what I still need to do. When you’re reading everything online, it makes the list of what you have to do tangible – and you get to cross it off with a satisfying red pen! This has really helped me keep track of everything and manage the never-ending list of things to read.
As a student, a teaching assistant, a researcher, and a social human being, I have a lot of talks, meetings, classes, and events to keep track of. I do everything in Google Calendar. As soon as I get an email or text or talk to anyone about something I need to do, I put it in my calendar. This might be obvious, but it means I don’t have to fill up my short-term memory with small tasks, meetings I need to set up, etc. I get notifications on my phone so I don’t forget anything. I also have different calendars for different types of things (which are of course color-coded). Looking back at the Google calendar screenshot from undergrad, I can’t believe how much free time I had to work and study. In contrast, this is a typical few days in my schedule this quarter.
Last, I have a 5-year plan, which helps me keep my longer-term goals in mind. It helps me see what deadlines or conferences might be coming up in the next few months. It helps me visualize how the rest of the year and the rest of the PhD are going to look. I made a LaTeX template on Overleaf, because I couldn’t find a good template when I was making my 5-year plan.
Like I mentioned earlier, you can download the notes I took during that meeting. I hope this was helpful!
