The following was supposed to consist of a book recommendation, and a couple of personal observations on time management. What popped out was a full-blown brain dump on the subject. I thought about trying to cut it down and focus it, but I decided my time would be better spent on other projects. So, I'm posting it as is. Sorry about the length. I hope that interested people might be able to glean a useful tidbit here or there without being overwhelmed.

I've been thinking about time management lately. Zed posted a great little piece of time-management related irony recently. And Jed posted the shocking revelation that he needs to work on his time management skills. And I've had a couple of e-mail and real life discussions recently with friends about time management. Most people think they need to work on their time management skills.

A few years back, I decided that my time management skills needed a major revamp. Either they'd decayed, or the skills that had gotten me through high school and college just weren't adequate to the demands of grad school. Probably a bit of both. It's quite easy, in an environment like grad school, to delude yourself into thinking that you don't need time management. After all, there's only one really important task that you need to do, and that's generating the mountain of experimental data that you'll need for your next paper or for your thesis. Just concentrate on that, and everything else will take care of itself, right?

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to spot all the errors in the preceding two sentences. (One of them is thinking of "generating the mountain of experimental data you'll need for your next paper" as one task.)

By far the most useful book on time management that I've ever read is Lee Silber's Time Management for the Creative Person. It's so good, that I'd even recommend it to people who think of themselves as non-creative persons. (To me, the phrase 'non-creative person' makes about as much sense as 'colorless green idea', but I do know people who assure me that they aren't creative. The people, I mean. Not the colorless green ideas, which may be quite creative. Actually, it may be 'creativity' that's the problematic concept. But that's for another journal entry.)

The great part about Silber's book is that he doesn't try to prescribe a single time management system. Many books on time management are written by people who are very organized and very fond of system. And so they will explain to you why their system for time management is the only good one. And they will tell you that you must get exactly this kind of planner, and organize your files in exactly this way, and so on.

The problem with this is that there's a big set up cost (in mental energy, if not in money or time) to getting the new system underway, and that adopting somebody else's system wholesale means that you usually have to abandon whatever it is you are already doing that works for you. Of course, you also have to abandon whatever it is you are already doing that isn't working for you, which is the point. But still, if you're like me, you tend to think, "Look, if I have to special-order custom Dayrunner pages, and buy color coded file-folders for each day of the month, I think I'll just stay disorganized."

Silber positively bombards you with options. You need some kind of planner. That's not really negotiable. And it should have, at the minimum, a calendar, space for addresses and phone numbers, and space to jot notes. And then he describes a bunch of different planners that fit these characteristics, including several ways to "roll your own" from a simple three-ring-binder or spiral notebook. And offers a bunch more tips on how to customize your planner to suit the way you work.

So, it's a book from which you can take whatever works for you, and leave the rest. And it's very non-intimidating. If you're not ready to totally revamp the way you work (and who ever is?) you can start by just making a few of the small changes that Silber suggests. And when those are working, you can move onto other changes. (Any time management expert will tell you that breaking a big task - like revamping your time management skills - into lots of small, easy to accomplish tasks is just good time management.)

The only complaint that I have about Silber's book - and it's an extremely small one - is that his model for a "creative person" is "visual artist." So he spends a certain amount of time reassuring "us creative people" that it's okay that "we" are "non-verbal and non-linear" in our thinking. This tends to provoke a certain irritable, "Who's 'we', non-verbal man?", since I'm about as verbal as they come. And I suspect that just about any creative person who chooses to express their creativity in writing would be. (I'm not sure about the non-linear part. Sometimes my brain seems to go in circles. Does that count?)

Anyway, the biggest lesson that all my reading and work on time management a few years ago brought me is that time management is a set of skills and practices (or perhaps habits.) And many of these skills and practices are quite simple, but you have to do them, and do them deliberately. Which is why I could spend ages and ages resolving to "work harder" or "be more organized" or "spend more time on task X" without seeing much result, but could pick up and apply just a couple of tips from Silber's book, and see myself getting more done in a matter of weeks. So, if you think of yourself as a hopeless time management basket case, take heart - you're not hopeless, you just haven't found the right set of practices yet.

On the other hand, the downside of this is that time management is something that you have to keep doing. And keep doing, and keep doing, and keep doing. Certain aspects of it will become habit. But if you're the kind of person who has trouble setting priorities, you're going to have to keep making an effort to set priorities. (The one partial exception to this is procrastination. Procrastination tends to be a self-reinforcing habit. Thus, it is a real pain to get a serious procrastination habit under control, but once you do get it under control, you find that the urge to procrastinate lessens.)

If you're working on developing time management skills, or giving your skills a tune-up, the first thing you should do is track where your time is currently going. I originally did this by carrying a small notepad with me, and noting down when I began and finished particular tasks. Now I use a slightly higher tech method: the "Daily Journal" function in my Handspring Visor's Calendar program, which timestamps each new entry. You get two benefits out of tracking your time like this. First, the discipline of paying such close attention to how you use your time tends to discourage you from getting lost in distractions. Second, tracking your time will help you find what your big timewasters are, and help you figure out what time management skills you need to apply. A few days worth of tracking should let you see where the trouble spots are. (There are those who advocate tracking your time constantly, but I can only think: If I were anal retentive enough to be able to track my time usage constantly without going nuts, I wouldn't need to work on my time management skills.)

Time management is really a collection of five skills: Planning, Scheduling, Organization, Prioritization, and Controlling Procrastination. (I don't remember if I took this breakdown from Silber or from one of the other books I read, or if I made it up myself. Most books on time management use a breakdown something like this.) A few observations on each in turn:

Planning

If you find yourself constantly scrambling to deal with unanticipated tasks or hold-ups, then you may need to work on your Planning.

Planning is the art of breaking a large task down into smaller steps, and figuring out what you'll need to accomplish them. If you have a report to write for work, then planning is what you need to do to figure out that a) you need some data from your co-worker Bob to write the report, so you'd better ask him for that right away, b) that the report needs your boss's signature, so you'd better give him a couple of days to read it over, and maybe you should check that he's not out of town just before the due date and c) you should check on the level of toner in the laser printer, so that you don't run out just when you're trying to print late at night. Planning is checking that you have the critical reagent in stock before you start running the chemistry experiment.
For most people, the biggest trick to Planning is bothering to do it. Most of us rely on vague mental lists of what we need to do to complete a project. For simple tasks, this is fine. For more complex ones, it guarantees that you'll forget something. For most projects, I'll plan by taking a sheet of paper and scrawling out a list of sub-tasks, or perhaps drawing a flow chart or mind map, if that seems more natural. Then I can take the key sub-tasks and put them in a to-do list, or on my calendar. But that's part of Scheduling.

Scheduling

If you're constantly late for appointments or deadlines because you forget about them, then you need to work on Scheduling.

Scheduling is the most mechanical part of time management. It's simple: you must keep a written record of what you need to do and when you need to do it. The key is that you must make sure that all sufficiently important tasks go into this record, and that you actually refer to this record often enough that it serves as a useful reminder. This seems obvious, but it's amazing how many people keep a planner or calendar, but either don't record all their commitments in it, or never refer to it.

My scheduling tool of choice is my Handspring Visor Edge, plus a small notepad on which I can jot short-term to-do lists and other ephemera. A good scheduling tool should fit the way you work, so that it is as easy and convenient as possible for you to use and refer to. It can be simple or complicated, low-tech or hi-tech. Silber details many options in his book.

Organization

If you lose important papers, or if you waste time looking for items you need to finish projects, then you need to work on Organization.

Organization just means that when you need something for your work, you can find it. It doesn't necessarily mean having a spotless desk, or having file folders for everything. An obsessive quest for neatness can be a colossal time waster. A good test is the "five minute" rule: if someone asked you for an important paper, could you find it in five minutes or less?

When I started off on my quest for better time management skills, I was astonished to discover that I actually passed the five minute rule with flying colors. Astonished, because my desk usually looks like the aftermath of a hurricane. Though it be madness, yet there is method in it. One good organization tip that I can share: every sufficiently complicated project gets its own notebook or file folder, and everything related to that project goes in there.

Prioritization

if you're constantly busy, but there are important tasks that always seem to not get done or to get put off until the last possible minute, then you need to work on Prioritization.

Prioritization is pretty simple. Basically, you make time for more urgent or more important tasks first. And you realize that there are probably some tasks that are not worth doing at all, and you stop doing them.

Learning to prioritize was the thing that made the most immediate difference to me in my quest for better time management. First, the idea that I was going to make deliberate decisions about which things were important to me and concentrate on doing those first, was psychologically empowering, and helped me to conquer a procrastination problem I was having. (More on that below.) Second, I learned how to say 'no.' And this made an incredible difference.

When I sat down and did a careful examination of my work habits, one thing that immediately became clear to me was that I was wasting a lot of time during my best 'experiment running' hours answering co-workers' questions and dealing with minor lab crises. A computer would crash. Somebody would need a reference to a paper. Somebody would want to talk about my data. Somebody would want my opinion on their data. Somebody needed to be trained on how to use a piece of equipment. These small interruptions, combined with other bad work habits of mine, were depriving me of time that I needed to spend running experiments.

So, I made a resolution that the next time somebody asked me a question, that instead of dropping everything and running to their aid, I would say, "I'm sorry, I really need to do X right now. Can I get back to you on that at 5:00/tomorrow morning/in an hour when I want to take a coffee break?" And nobody ever suffered for not getting my immediate and full attention.

Another thing I learned is that Prioritization and Scheduling go hand in hand. Got something to do that's really important, but somehow you keep putting it off? Pull out your calendar and schedule time to do it in.

Prioritization is still a challenge for me, though. I don't really like the idea that I can't do everything, that I might have to choose which things are really important for me to do. I'm also prone to sudden enthusiasms, and it can be really hard for me to lay those aside to work on things that, while I know intellectually they're higher priority, just seem dull at the moment.

The really advanced form of prioritization is goal setting: keeping a written list of long-term goals. Much has been written about how keeping long-term goals contributes to success, much of which turns out to be highly exaggerated. In any case, I highly recommend setting long-term goals. I find that they give me a sense of direction, and a good excuse to pat myself on the back when I make progress. It's important to build in a little positive reinforcement in our lives. We spend a lot of time punishing ourselves for not doing what we should; it's good to reward ourselves when we do accomplish something.

Controlling Procrastination

Ah, procrastination. I probably don't need to tell you if you have a problem with procrastination. Most people procrastinate once in a while. Sometimes it's just a matter of falling prey to distractions in the environment: witness the number of people who've had to delete games like Minesweeper or Freecell from their windows installation in order to get anything done.

Serious procrastination, however, is a different matter. It's a strangely compulsive behavior. When deep in the throes of procrastination, I've been known to work incredibly hard and accomplish a great deal -- on anything other than what I knew I should have been doing.

We procrastinate because doing so fulfills an emotional need. Common reasons for procrastination are perfectionism/fear of failure, fear of success, and need for control.

Procrastination driven by perfectionism or fear of failure is the classic type. It's the kind I've observed most often in myself and in others. You've probably experienced it yourself: You put off a task because it seems too big, too intimidating. You tell yourself you'll tackle it later, when you have more time, or more energy, or when you've gotten organized. And the longer you put it off, the larger the task looms in your mind, the more intimidating it seems. So you put it off more.

The best solution to this type of procrastination is to put your Planning skills into overdrive, and break the task (or at least the start of the task) into such incredibly small pieces that it's not possible to be intimidated by them. Start with an easy to accomplish step or two to build your confidence. I've actually written to-do lists that began with:

1. boot up computer


2. open a new document in Microsoft Word

because that would give me two items that I could check off my list right away. (I love crossing items off my to do list. It's a simple, harmless vice.)

Another useful trick is to tell myself that I'm just going to spend 10 minutes on whatever task it is that I'm putting off. After all, 10 minutes isn't very much. I can do just about anything for 10 minutes. And usually once I get started, I'll go for a lot longer than 10 minutes. (Interestingly, from tracking my time, I've figured out that my "natural" attention span for most tasks is about 1 hour and 20 minutes. After about an hour and 20 minutes of doing something, my attention will tend to start to wander and I'll want to take a break or do something else for a while.)

Procrastinating driven by fear of success seems a little odder, but it may just amount to the realization that successfully completing a difficult and unpleasant task may result in one being assigned more difficult and unpleasant tasks in the future. Or the realization that finishing the first draft of the short story that you're working on means that you'll have to get down to the hard work of revising. Sometimes it gets a more subtle than that: Silber notes that many creative types sabotage themselves in their day jobs because they conceive of creativity as being at odds with traits like organization or business savvy. Therefore, if they display too much organization or business savvy, they threaten their own conception of themselves as artists.

Usually, the cure here is just to bring these feelings out into the open. Fear of success is usually pretty easily exorcized once you recognize it.

Procrastination driven by need for control is a fun one. I went through a short period in grad school where my advisor was (I felt) really running my life: giving me lots of tasks on short notice and short deadlines, and generally leaving me feeling like it was he and not I who controlled my time. I responded by ferociously procrastinating on the tasks I most resented. This was, needless to say, a stupid thing to do, since it didn't get the tasks done and probably reinforced my advisor's perception that he needed to manage my time for me. What kicked me out of this vicious cycle was some determined effort on Prioritization: the more I felt that I was the one in control in my work, the easier it was for me not to put things off.

And then there's the procrastination that isn't really procrastination: when you keep putting something off because it's genuinely a low priority. Sometimes we make ourselves feel guilty for doing that, particularly if the low priority task is one that used to be important to us, or that is socially or familially sanctioned as important.

Whew! With all the facets there are to time management, I suppose it's small wonder that most of us don't feel that we are masters of our time.