DOCTORAL ISSUESFrom Ph.D. to JOB: Time management tipsby Nancy Lea Hyer, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University
There is no question that trying to finish a Ph.D., get a job, and maintain some semblance of a normal life (eating, sleeping, maintaining some significant relationships, being a father or mother, exercising) can be a time management nightmare. The good news is that you finish your degree while simultaneously finding a job only once. The bad news is that it doesn't get any better. The pressures of academic life don't abate as soon as you take your first position. If anything, the pressures get worse once you add making it in a new place to your plate. At any stage of your career (and in any career), time management can play a critical role in both the outcome (what you produce or achieve) and the process (how you experience it). With this in mind, here are a few tips on time management. Before sharing my perspective, a quick qualifier. In many regards, time management is a very personal thingþwhat works for me might not work for you. Although I don't hold myself up as a time management paragon, I certainly have some experience balancing (although imperfectly) multiple responsibilities. I'm a faculty member with teaching and research responsibilities, occasional consultant, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, which in my environment means I am responsible for the MBA curriculum and a lightning rod for complaints of every imaginable sort. I'm also the mother of a three-year-old girl, stepmother to 11- and 14-year-old boys, wife, and someone who must exercise to feel good. What follows are some of my ideas for more effective and efficient use of time. You should feel completely free to ignore, discount or minimize any and all of the ideas that follow. But, hopefully, there will be one or two that you'll want to try out. Planning Is Your Friend "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." Without a clear sense of what you ought to spend time on, you will very likely spend it on the wrong things. Decide what it is you want to accomplish and plan your days, weeks and months accordingly. Think about what needs to happen, and when it needs to happen. Then make a schedule. Try to stick to it, but recognize it will get blown up occasionally by unexpected events. I use a Franklin Planner system to keep track of what I want (and need) to accomplish each day. Choose any type of calendar that works for you, but use one. Sit down and plan out what needs to happenþand whenþfor you to complete your degree and find a job. Let this guide you on how to allocate your time among competing activities. Keep track of how you are doing against your plan. If, according to your plan, you are lagging behind in completing your dissertation, let this be an early warning to you that you need to reconsider how you are allocating your time. Admittedly, I'm on the radical fringe when it comes to long-range planning. My husband and I have semi-annual "management retreats" where we set goals for the next six months and revisit our five-year goals. We even have an agenda and ground rules! Also, we have Thursday night planning dinners where the entire family plans the meals for the next week and activities for the weekend. (Pretty weird, I know. But it works for us.) If you can't buy into this model, and don't want to engage in long-range planning or even bother buying a calendar, then at least commit to taking 10 minutes early in the day to plan how you want to spend your time that day. At a minimum, make a list of what you want to accomplish and prioritize it (must do today, good to do today but could be done tomorrow, do if time permits). Then, go for it. Just Say No Success in your career will come a great deal easier if you complete your degree before you assume your first position. Just trying to complete your degree before you leave for your first job is a time management challenge of terrific proportions. Now imagine trying to finish your degree in a new and unfamiliar place, where you don't know the system, in the face of high expectations about teaching and research, and where everyone on the faculty will ask you every time they see you, "Are you done yet?" Resist the temptation to go ABD. If possible, stay where you are until you are finished. I am sure there are exceptions where people have left without their dissertations and managed successful careers. Sometimes family or financial pressures will necessitate moving on to a position that pays real money. However, I want to strongly encourage you to manage your time to finish the Ph.D. before you start your first job. "Just Say No" to leaving ABD. Along these lines, it is okay to say "I can't meet at that time, I have an appointment," even when the appointment is with yourself to work on your dissertation. Protect your time so that you can make progress. Identify your most productive time to work on the dissertation, and then protect it at all costs. For me, mornings are my most productive time, when I think or write the best. I jealously guard this time and avoid scheduling any meetings or other activities during this time block. "I already have an appointment" (with myself to work on my teaching or research) comes in very handy! Again, "just say no" to activities that interfere with your time to work on the dissertation. Finally, there may be a number of fun activities that you really should say no to at this critical point in your career. This is probably not the best time to coach the Little League team or coordinate vacation Bible school at your church. Make "getting done" a priority and stick to it. Pay Attention to Your Work Environment Think carefully about where you work best. In my current job, I either work at home or in my secret office, which is located on a separate floor from my dean's office. As a doctoral student, it was my carrel in the library or the doctoral student computer room. Sometimes choosing the right setting can help avoid a whole series of time robbing distractions. Trying to write chapter three in the doctoral student lounge is probably a time-ineffective choice. Get Personally Organized Take some time to get personally organized as a way of improving your time management. Here are a few tips along these lines. IDENTIFY THE THINGS THAT ROB YOU OF TIME. What are your personal time wasters? What could you do to eliminate them? Apply some of the principles used to streamline manufacturing processes to your personal processesþmistake-proofing (for example, visual control and color coding), better housekeeping, eliminating complexity (rework due to mistakes), clearly defining and documenting processes, changing the layout to facilitate smooth work flow and the like. It really works! FIX OBVIOUS OR ANNOYING PROBLEMS. If there is some annoying problem that can be easily remedied, do it. For example, if you waste time hunting for your keys everyday, find a special place for your keys and always put them there. (Didn't your mom once tell you that?) Combat the Isolation of the Dissertation Writing a dissertation can be an isolating activity. By its very nature it tends to be a solo activity that can leave you spending most of your time alone. Unless you are a natural hermit, this may be an unattractive feature of the dissertation process. It really helps to have a comradeþa friend to commiserate with, celebrate with, and possibly work alongside. The six months I spent writing my dissertation were a highlight of my life as a student. My friendship with Joan Schmit, fellow Indiana doctoral student and now a professor at Wisconsin-Madison, made the last part of my Ph.D. program a wonderful experience. Fellow doctoral students referred to us at "the twins." We were pretty much inseparable as we studied together, worked in the computer lab together, ate popcorn together and suffered through dissertations and courses together. Joan's support and encouragement eased the burden of the dissertation, made the process enjoyable and increased my productivity. Find a support network among your fellow students. Celebrate Your Accomplishments Reward yourself for your good time management. When you achieve a goal you have set for yourself, or reach an important milestone, celebrate. You deserve it and it can give you the energy to continue. Beth and Gary Kern, fellow IU doctoral students, went away for a weekend after either of them had accomplished a significant feat in their program. Their memories of their doctoral experience are punctuated by wonderful recollections of fun times, as well as remembrance of long days and nights in the library or lab. Choose whatever rewards work for you, but do celebrate. Don't Strive for Perfection You may be that one in ten million person who can write the perfect dissertation, achieve perfect teaching evaluations and maintain a perfectly balanced family/personal life simultaneously. If you are, skip ahead to the last section. If you are a regular gal or guy, read on. Give up being perfect while you complete your dissertation. (Actually, I advise giving up perfect forever, but that is probably beyond the scope of this paper.) This means accepting that you may have to do an adequate, but not outstanding, job in any courses you are teaching. I have won a number of teaching awards, including one as a doctoral student. However, the semester that I taught three sections and also completed my dissertation, one of my undergraduate students observed that þdoctoral students who are writing their dissertations should not be allowed to teach.þ Fortunately, his opinion was a rather extreme one (the courses overall were well received), but it does reflect my conscious decision not to strive for perfection in teaching while trying to complete my dissertation. Similarly, give up on writing the perfect dissertation. Remember, this is the first research project you will undertake, but it need not define you and your career. Don't try to "boil the ocean" or write the "great American novel." This is just your dissertation. Keep it in perspective and don't expect it to be perfect. Final Tip: Work, Work, Work Sam, my boss at Hewlett-Packard, was fond of saying, "For every manufacturing problem, there is a solution that is quick, simple and wrong." The same applies to completing your degree and moving on to a job. There is no easy answer. No matter how well organized you are, or how effectively you manage your time, completing your dissertation and finding a job is hard work. Be real in your expectations: you'll probably need to work intensively to successfully manage this period in your career. Expect to work hard and expect to work long hours. Making more time by giving up sleeping or eating would be a creative solution to the challenge of transitioning from Ph.D. to JOB, but probably not a practical one for many of us. Best of luck to you!
Nancy Lea Hyer is Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. She is also the mother of a three-year-old girl, stepmother to 11- and 14-year-old boys, wife, and someone who must exercise to feel good. Dr. Hyer will continue her discussion on time management for doctoral students at the Institute's 1995 Doctoral Student Consortium. Decision Line, July 1995 (v26n4) |