Is Time Your Enemy? Conquer Time with an "Unschedule!"
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 Dont 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 Im 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 dont 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 dont 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 youre already spending on tasks such as commuting, shopping, cooking or emailing. Therefore its a mystery how much free time is available for the difficult yet easy-to-put-off tasks that seem so overwhelming.
Or maybe youve voluntarily overscheduled yourself due to your endlessly-expanding view of time. Little by little youve 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 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 Whats 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 dont 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 havent 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 havent 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 hasnt worked for you, if you recognize that you have a distorted relationship with time, or if youre 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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