So you’ve done everything right. You’ve cleared time in your busy schedule by identifying the activities that didn’t move you forward. You set long-term goals that were SMART – Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-specific. You filled the newly available time slots with productive habits that push you in the direction of your goals. You even found ways to make the most of your time.
But…things don’t always go as planned.
So now what?
525,600 minutes. A fixed amount of time each of us is given to accomplish all that we can in a given year. Time is unstoppable. Time is inevitable. But time is yours. So it’s important to make the most of it.
So far in this series, we have explored ways to prioritize activities and to align the things we choose to do with our time with the goals we have for our lives. In this article, we will examine ways to make minor adjustments to get even more out of the scarce amount of time available while maintaining a balance to life that improves efficiency and increases satisfaction with our writing practices.
In the First Step in Time Management – Having Time to Manage article, we acknowledged the fixed amount of time each of us have to work with in a day, month, or year. We then took inventory of how that time was being used and explored ways to cut costly, less profitable activities from the list to make room for other things that can bring us closer to our goals.
In this article, we will discuss ways to reallocate this newly found time in ways that align with a happier, healthier, and successful life.
Many people look at their busy, cluttered schedule and want for more hours in a day, more days in a week, or more weeks in a year. Unfortunately time is a constant. We each have the same 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and 52 weeks in a year. Time exists for all of us, but most of us have given it away and don’t know how to get it back!
So before we talk about how to manage your time, we must first discuss how to free your time.
You were probably thrilled beyond words (mono- and polysyllabic) when your kids were born and you witnessed the true miracle of those so-young lives. The kids grew older, and you hunkered down into your academic career. Maybe your feelings changed—you don’t love them any less, but you may see the children as distracters and interrupters of your work. After all, we have important completions of all the conference abstracts, articles, books, chapters, dissertations, even the course syllabi. And we need to finish all these projects for advancement.
Granted, children can be annoyances and disrupters. Most of the time, though, barring a fall from the tree house, they are bothering you because they want—no, crave—your attention.
When you’re furrowed-brow deep in your academic project, if your partner suddenly blurts out “I never see you anymore!” it’s time to stop, look, and close your computer. After such outbursts, many of my academic clients with partners in my coaching and editing practice have found ways to manage the complaints and restore a harmonious home. Here are some of the major methods my clients have used as they pursue the (successful) productions of articles, presentations, chapters for a volume, and dissertations.
