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Designing my own work week (academic) ?

I'm completely new to GTD methodology (but will be heading to Chapters tomorrow to buy David Allen's book). I've also been listening to Merlin's podcast and getting some good ideas from it.

I'm currently in the phase of preparing my research proposal for my (Master's) thesis, work on which will commence in May. As my coursework is complete, unless I'm offered another sessional lectureship next year (which is very likely barring budgetary problems) I will be at liberty to create my own work week. At most, I will have three hours of lecturing and several more hours of correcting and preparation each week to schedule.

I've been looking for suggestions, studies, personal accounts, or just good old advice on setting the most efficient work week for myself.

For example, I find I work best (i.e., most creatively and efficiently) in the evening. I also have obligations to family and various other extra-curricular activities (I'm a competitive level climber who's had to hang up his harness for the past 6 months for failure to make time to train!)

Should I work a traditional work week? Should I take Thursday and Sunday off to break up my work so I don't lose momentum? How about never working in the morning and working 6 days a week? Just brainstorming to illustrate my idea...

Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated. I hope to be able to contribute something useful from my experience to this community too!

(I already posted this but it didn't appear. Maybe there's a bug relating to activated users starting a thread before being activated? In any case, that's my excuse in case this ends up being a double-post :) )

msanford's picture

Bzzzzt! Turn that around right...

Unstuffed;8873 wrote:
Bzzzzt! Turn that around right now. The only academics I know who are productive in their research and on top of their teaching are ones with defined consulting hours.

Now that you mention it, the most successful academics I know in my institution do that exactly...

Your analogy of regaining focus is especially apt: I am just over the borderline for ADD.

(Actually, I'm a linguist, but one with a strong pure sciences background?math, physics, astronomy?and I'm a part-time PHP/MySQL programmer and translator (English/French).)

 
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