Begin With - You all know how to manage time. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be in Graduate School. Your heuristics probably look like this.
So now you’re stressed. The solution?
So obviously, you all know how to manage your time and stress but clearly there must be some better ways to live. Plus, you’re all in it for the long haul. Over time, this heuristic will get you burned out.
Time is, for all intents and purposes, constant, irreversible, and uncontrollable. Human perception of time is variable. Depends on amount of attention, energy, level of enjoyment, and time of day. Circadian Rhythms - levels of sunlight, amount of sleep required, problems with industrial living. Managing Time is a problem of estimation. How good are you at guessing how long it will take you to do something? Big issue in programming and manufacturing Most daily tasks are variable and have variable parameters (size of assignment, number of function points, thinking time). Many sources of noise exist - traffic,unexpected interruptions, errors, weather, etc. It’s better to manage your tasks and goals for the week then to manage time. This is a mental shift. You still need to schedule your tasks against a time framework but what you are able to accomplish and how you feel about your time usage will be different.
Good Way of Viewing To-Do lists and daily activities. All activities have importance. Quadrant II activities are the most important because they prepare good foundations for later work and for life.
Priority Order - In general, how we tend to view the world. In terms of must-do’s and should-do’s. It’s still a fairly good heuristics - getting the crucial tasks out of the way is important but shouldn’t be the only heuristic. Task Duration - How much time do you have? What can you do between that meeting at 3 and the meeting at 4:30? Breaking up tasks into large tasks and small tasks is fairly important. Traveling Salesman - Physical location - optimize around travel time and physical location. How can you minimize transit times? Even little times like going from your desk to another room can add up. How can you make your work areas more efficient? Category Order - Research, Personal, Social, Financial, etc. Think of your tasks in context of a goal or in terms of a part of your life that has some importance.
Wastes more time worrying about the outcome or avoiding what seems to be unpleasant.
Brief discussion of Zen and Samurai. Olympic Archer Story - Essentially means that when you undertake a task, you should focus on the task at hand without mental distraction.
Difficult to juggle everything that you need to get done in a day or a week. One problem is that of Context Shifts Scenario of Getting up, meeting with advisor, then a committee meeting on recruiting, checking email about student problems, then research, then database class, then programming.
Many others in both categories.
What happens if you stay stressed for too long of a period of time? Rather unnatural. Experiments with Rats - negative reinforcement - just sits there and twitches. Life ceases to become fun.
Quiet Fridays - no meetings. Creating Quiet Time - turn off phone, don’t check email, tell students and so on to respect this hour or so. My Saturdays - dedicated time for doing my things. Very important to break up your life with quiet periods for reflection, planning, and refocusing.
Build in flexible schedules. Don’t optimize to the minute. Allow for error. Running to-do lists are useful for getting distracting thoughts out of your head.
![Time Management ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)