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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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 morning message & RAM sheetSubmitted by duus on August 2, 2007 - 2:31pm.
i find a way to keep myself on top of stuff is to write stuff down constantly. This comes in two forms: 1) at the end of each day, i write myself a note that I read the next morning. it's a narrative of where I was, what I was doing, and what I think I should be doing next. It's more human than simply looking at my kGTD...and it's a place to throw my ideas-in-progress that are too detailed for a GTD list. A friend of mine calls it "parking on a hill." thread here: 2) during the day, as I am working, I have a dedicated steno pad with a dedicated pen attached with a string that I call my RAM. I write stuff down there constantly...it makes interruptions much easier to handle. A student walks in with a question, I can always say "just a second" and write down the current thought, and there is ALWAYS a "right place" to write it down. "working on Wolf/Sheep project, trying to solve quincy's belief problem, thinking of implementing in mathematica. try googling relevant stuff." Then I can say "can I help you?" without being worried I've lost the thread.... » POSTED IN:
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