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Designing my own work week (academic) ?
msanford | Mar 24 2007
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 :) ) 15 Comments
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 I think if you look...Submitted by tychoish on May 22, 2007 - 10:25am.
I think if you look seriously at it, most academics take a Noon friday to Noon sunday weekend as it is. This is a holdover from ye' ole' college days. There's some sense in this arrangement, and the problem with bucking it is that you're out of sync with other people. If you need feedback and they're on "weekend" and you're not, you're SOL. It screws with dependencies. I've also found that I can work fairly intently for about 3 hours at any given time, but stretching that can be a problem. Know what your magic number is and plan around that. Also whatever your best time of day is for working is worth firewaling around. If you're going to be up late at night, make sure you can take a nap in the afternoon or sleep in, and vice versa. People say "do works best for you." That's true, but I think that the common interpretation of this is just do what you've been doing because clearly it works, which isn't entirely true, it's about finding all the variables and being able to tweek them just right. Also, learn how to caffeinated right, and not just habitually. I find if I can wake up the right way, I don't need caff to wake up, more to perform sim functions when I'm working to help stay focused and what not. Figuring out how much you need and what time you need to consume it and working that into your day is crucial for me (at least) to be productive. Best, » POSTED IN:
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