Time Management Articles
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Is Time Your Enemy?
Conquer Time with an "Unschedule!"
By
Gina J Hiatt
It is just too easy to allow the slightly harder task to
slide, as you fill in your day with the humdrum and the
emergencies.
The Enemy You Don’t Know CAN Hurt You
In Procrastination: Why You Do It; What to Do About It by
Jane Burka and Lenor Yuen, the authors suggest that
procrastinators (which I’m convinced means most of us) have a
strange relationship with time. They engage in “wishful
thinking:” they believe that they can magically pull and
stretch time to meet their needs. They act as if time is not
finite and limited.
So if time perpetually controls you, it may be because you
don’t understand it. You think that small tasks will be
endless (so you put off doing them,) or you think big tasks
will just take an hour or two (so you don’t leave enough time
for them.)
As a matter of fact, research has shown that most people
overestimate how much time they have actually spent on their
most important long-term projects.
Another reason time controls you, according to Burka and
Yuen, is that you have no idea how much time you’re already
spending on tasks such as commuting, shopping, cooking or
emailing. Therefore it’s a mystery how much free time is
available for the difficult yet easy-to-put-off tasks that
seem so overwhelming.
Or maybe you’ve voluntarily overscheduled yourself due to
your “endlessly-expanding” view of time. Little by little
you’ve used up your free time.
The Unschedule
How can you tame time?
Enter the “Unschedule.” The Unschedule is a time management
tool developed by Neil Fiore, the author of The Now Habit.
To create your own unschedule, either download from the
link in my signature file below, or use a weekly calendar that
divides each day into hours.
Here are the rules to make the Unschedule work for you:
· Use a pencil to allow for later changes
· Write down everything you must do in the coming week, NOT
including your long-term project.
o Include everything, including meals, sleep, commuting,
appointments, and classes
o Estimate when and how long each will take and mark it
in your Unschedule on the hours you most likely will do each
activity
o Include recreation, leisure and social activities
(crucial!)
· Look at your Unschedule at this point to become aware of
o How much unscheduled time is actually available
o What’s missing from your life – do you have enough time
for fun, socializing, and just decompressing?
· As the week progresses, each time that you work on your
Project for at least 30 minutes, mark it in your Unschedule
(Fiore insists on 30, but I say 15 is enough.)
Remember, you don’t mark it in ahead of time. It works best
if you can highlight those time blocks in color. You can then
total the amount of time spent working towards your goal at
the end of each day and week.
Why Fill In the Time Blocks AFTER You Work on Your Project?
This accomplishes several things:
· You avoid being disappointed in yourself (as you may have
in the past because you scheduled so much Project time and
then let yourself down by not accomplishing the work.)
· If you have a rebellious streak, you will not having
anything to rebel against, since you haven’t filled in the
times you MUST work ahead of time.
· You will feel good about what you HAVE done as opposed to
bad about what you haven’t done.
· You will be reminded to reward yourself by switching to a
more enjoyable activity.
· You will more easily be able to track how much you have
actually worked on your project each week, as opposed to how
much time you wished you would work on your project.
· You will prove to yourself that small blocks of time DO
add up, and are worth doing.
· You can look for patterns – e.g., discover your best work
times or days.
If working with a schedule hasn’t worked for you, if you
recognize that you have a distorted relationship with time, or
if you’re just a garden-variety procrastinator like most of
us, then the Unschedule may be for you. Try it!
Gina J Hiatt, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, tenure
coach and dissertation coach and enjoys helping faculty and
graduate students complete research, writing projects, and
publish, while maintaining high teaching standards and other
commitments. In addition to dissertation coaching, she teaches
workshops and teleclasses on time management, writing, career
planning and grad student/advisor relationships. Sign up for
my free newsletter at
http://www.academicladder.com or call me at (703)
734-4945. Download your own Un-Calendar here!
http://www.academicladder.com/siteimages/Un-CalendarDailyCalendar.pdf
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