AGREE OR DISAGREE: TIME MANAGEMENT IS HARD!
And it’s also only a small piece of the academic puzzle. When we struggle with time management, it’s likely that we also struggle with planning, organization, or communication.
These are the four components of a system called project management, which is something I never learned in grad school. But I do believe that project management is essential for combining success in academia and living a fulfilled life at AT THE SAME TIME.
What is a project?
According to the Association for Project Management (APM), a project is
a unique, transient endeavor, undertaken to achieve planned objectives…a project is determined to be successful if it achieves the objectives according to their acceptance criteria within an agreed timescale and budget.
What stood out most to me in that definition is that a project must have a planned objective and it must be time bound. And yes, there is mention of cost as well. I think that in academia, everything we do has a time or energy cost that we should consider as we plan our projects.
This is a long list and it doesn’t even include your personal/life responsibilities…or hobbies!
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a system/framework to manage is all?