As a professor, you will have a lot of responsibilities on a daily basis. Apart from teaching, you will need to write papers, organize projects, grade tests, supervise your students, write proposals, respond to student emails, help your colleagues with their work, and attend staff meetings. This can get a bit overwhelming at times. You may feel as if there are simply not enough hours in a day to accomplish everything. Not to mention that strategies like multitasking don’t help because you just reduce the quality of work you’re doing. The only thing you can do is learn how to manage your time properly.
Stay Organized
Being organized will help make your job less stressful. Instead of allowing yourself to do tasks without a plan, you should create a list of recurring tasks that you have to do on a daily or weekly basis and schedule a time for each one. This way, it won’t be so overwhelming dealing with simple day-to-day activities. Aside from doing this, you should declutter your workspace. Make sure that you have a place for your books, equipment, keys, and files. This way, you won’t have to waste valuable time searching for items.
Schedule Time for Answering Emails
It’s no secret that you will receive a ton of emails every semester. Some students will have questions about the lectures, and others will want to know more about the project they’ve been assigned to. There’s a good chance that you may get at least several emails every day. Nevertheless, you should learn to resist the urge to answer them right away, as it will distract you from any other task you’re doing at the moment. The best way to handle answering emails is to schedule a time for this activity. For example, you can do it once in the morning and once in the evening.
Learn to Say No
You may find it flattering if people constantly ask you for help, but you need to know when and how to say no when you have too much on your plate. If you accept new assignments even though you’re already extremely busy, the quality of your work will suffer and your contributions won’t be useful. Not to mention that you may end up sacrificing spending time with your family just to help somebody out. And once you gain the reputation of being a busy and effective person, everybody will want your help. Because of this, it’s important to know how to politely decline a request when you don’t have the time for it.
Schedule Everything
You shouldn’t just schedule meetings and the more important tasks. To improve your time management, you will need to schedule every activity you have to do. By scheduling only meetings, it will seem as if you have a lot of free time, which isn’t true. It’s crucial not to create this illusion that you’re available. You can do this by writing down every single thing you have to do and dedicate a time block for each task. Make sure that you keep track of how long it takes you to finish each task. It’s recommended not to use a smartphone to check the time, as it may distract you from your work. Instead, get a reliable and elegant watch like a Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso and use it to track your time.
Prioritize Tasks
Not every task is important as the next, which is why you should prioritize them. Write down everything that you have to do and determine which ones deserve your immediate attention. Make sure you do them one at a time for maximum focus and efficiency. It’s also a good idea to delegate as much as possible and ask some of your students for help.