Working Smarter, Not Harder? Time Management in an era of ‘Yes’

The following is not specific to “nature”. Rather, it is a reflection on the working conditions of early-career researchers and professionals. Posts on topics more congruent to the missions of YESS are marinating — I hope to share these soon.

But first, YESS! I mean, Yes. I’ll do it.

“Don’t you want to know what it is?”

No, dammit! I said I’ll do it.

Sound familiar?

Surely, I’m not the only person that willfully self-sabotages themselves. My early career, and possibly the rest of my future career, may be characterized as purgatory between over-commitment and undeniable procrastination.

As early-career researchers and professionals passionate about the relationships between people and nature, it is difficult not to overload oneself, especially if you, like I do, have many (work and non-work) interests. Following up on Carla’s post about inspiration, often the inspiration I seek is to push through the millennial burnout, not inspiration for my chosen ‘callings’.

I’ve often facetiously thought that if I narrowed down my interests and focused my 10,000 hours of practice to reach mastery into one or two pursuits, I may instead be playing hockey in the National Hockey League. Beyond ‘work’, I split my ‘free’ time between the gym, hockey, skiing, tennis, golf, mountain biking, guitar, concerts, films, reading (for fun! imagine that), sports fandom, friends etc., etc. But enough about my many side-hustles. This is about primary careers. In academia those hours are distributed amongst some core ‘jobs’, right? Learning, teaching, generating knowledge, disseminating that knowledge via peer-reviewed publications, and perhaps, mentorship.

On top of that, to be considered ‘well-rounded’ there are additional opportunities (and expectations) beyond our regular workloads: review papers, serve on executive committees and editorial boards, interact socially outside of the workplace, write blogs, host a personal website, attend conferences, organize conference sessions, run training workshops, give media interviews, write for media, to list just a few. In academia there is also now a particular emphasis on disseminating knowledge beyond academia to the public and policymakers. Similar analogies exist in non-academic professions.

So, no shortage of stuff to say ‘yes’ to. Ok, but aren’t we as early-career folk supposed to take on as much as we physically and mentally can? Our job market is uber-competitive, this is especially true of PhDs, so we need to ‘separate ourselves from the pack’. An alumnus from my current lab published 50+ papers during his PhD for #$@&*’s sake!

Further, it is argued that we have more time and less familial and financial responsibilities and therefore have more opportunities to contribute to the generating and sharing of knowledge… so, they say.

Sooooo, saying yes is a good thing! Living in the affirmative is supposed to lead to all sorts of amazing and transforming experiences, right?

Heck, it worked for Carl Allen (Jim Carrey)! Should work for you and me.

But I don’t feel liberated and euphoric like old Jim-bo here. Instead, I often feel like a general or captain on a battlefield paralyzed from being pulled in multiple different time-sensitive directions.

Ok, yeah, that’s a critically woeful metaphor. Having the freedom to work on the things we are passionate about is a privilege and to complain or compare it to something horrific or bleak is petty. Plus, we do enjoy our work or else we would’ve chosen much less competitive and more financially rewarding careers, right? But stick with me here. Those different directions that paralyze us correspond to different choices we have to make. It is a balancing game. Prioritization. Triage. We have a limited amount of time to work with.

While many of us would philosophically like to say yes at every career crossroad opportunity — heck we love our work (mostly) — we must (if not for the advent of personal cloning) pick and choose when to say yes. By that token we must at times learn to say no when deciding and prioritizing which things to say yes to. We are all bound by limited mental and physical capacity.

If you don’t plan on spending every waking hour doing or thinking about work, you need to be successful at managing your time. This is something I still struggle with, so I don’t have any real profound wisdom to impart. But here are some general guiding principles that I try to consider:

· Look far ahead and prioritize accordingly. Is your time better-spent joining a project as a co-author or developing a workshop for your local community? Well that depends on your long-term goals and the necessary requirements to meet those goals.

· If your brain is on empty, take a break and re-fuel the tank. I find I’m most productive (whatever that means) in 20–45-minute spurts. I’ve also learned that I’m not a 9–5 Monday-Friday person. I work better in several hour blocks throughout the week. If you don’t know what works for you, play around with your schedule.

· I get BORED. I like mixing up my routine regularly. Office, café, home, outside park bench. Statistics in the morning, writing in the afternoon. A couple of hours on this project and then a couple on a different one. No day is ever the same.

· Don’t get in the habit of sacrificing your personal time and interests for work. Physical health (proper nutrition and exercise, especially outdoors!) keeps the engine running smoothly.

· It’s tough, nearly impossible, but minimize comparisons between yourself and peers. Everyone’s circumstance is different (e.g. children, parents, health, finances, hobbies). We all have different specialties and personal lives which all interact in varying ways on the time we do have.

· Become an efficient reader. For example, for academic papers I like the following ordinated approach: title, abstract, methods, 1st sentence of result paragraphs then followed by a deeper dive of the results, discussion and introduction if warranted. Strategic skimming. No point in reading a whole article if you’re not going to retain it even an hour later. There’s a certain retention threshold that you must find personally. By the same token, be somewhat impersonal and unforgiving with your email inbox. Some emails are worth the read, others you just have to let go.

· Be wary of social media. Sometimes it’s really useful, sometimes it’s one of the darkest and most vile places on Earth.

· Set descriptive goals and timelines with the understanding that failing to meet them does not constitute failure but an opportunity for progress.

· Learn to accept that it’s ok to say no sometimes. It’s all about finding the proper balance to avoid over-commitment and burnout.

If you have any other tips or observations, please add them into the conversation below as comments!