Dr. Rowe advises several students each year, from many of the programs on campus that have education tracks as well as the main Science and Math Education Free-Choice Learning program. We meet as a group regularly, and yesterday we got into the subject of time management. Dr. Rowe has responsibilities both as a professor and as the Interim Director of Education for Oregon Sea Grant, and he was sharing that in the face of his administrative responsibilities, especially, the “research activities” often get pushed to the side.
As a PhD candidate, I am in the process of tweaking my proposal to send to my committee. Yet it is so much more tempting to spend my time doing things for the development of the cyberlab tools, which I am paid to spend about 20 hours a week on. To me, right now, it seems so much more concrete and efficient. For example, for my proposal, I’ve just spent about half an hour in a frustrating (and so far, futile) search on the web and in the school library for an article to cite for a fact that I know but haven’t had to cite in a while. If I had spent a half hour updating the inventory database for the lab, however, I would have tangible results in the form of organized entries for a number of our new technology items.
Forcing myself to write or revise is a chore, but ultimately, when I get into it, intellectually rewarding, aside from the futile citation searches. Breaking writing tasks down into more manageable chunks than “write a research proposal” seems to be a lot harder than seeing the finite chunks for the lab development. What other strategies do we use as researchers to be sure to make research progress and not let things “drag” on our to-do lists as we accomplish more obvious, yet perhaps less important, tasks?
You know, I have to agree Katie, those more tangible tasks seem so much more approachable to tackle on the daily to do list, and provide instant gratification. I’m considering taking Dr. Rowe’s advice with the “managable chunks” method of divvying up my research proposal to make it more tangible. The only problem is the divvying task itself if rather intangible!
I always give priority to tasks based on when I will be held accountable for them… I have to TA a lab section tomorrow, so I need to prepare for that today. My biogeochemical assignment is due in 2 days, so I will work on it tomorrow. My thesis project is “due” in about a year, so I have plenty of time to figure that out, right?? Things that I’m not immediately held accountable for always get sidelined.
Frequent mentorship from advisors, teachers, and peers helps me stay on track.
I tried many strategies to write and edit my dissertation. The “Hemingway” approach was to get up early every morning and not leave the table until I’d written something. The “Post it” approach was to carry a small pad and write down ideas and inspirations as they came. The “chaos” approach was to work on several chapters simultaneously. Ultimately I realized that there are days when nothing comes and other days when it comes in a flood. Just hope that there are enough of those productive days left before your deadline!