Juggling Tasks

*************************************************

”I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what
I want to do, but I don’t know where to begin.“

Stephen Bayne – Episcopal Bishop

*************************************************

This is one of my favorite quotes. I love the visual and auditory image of a buzzing mosquito trying to decide which fleshy, delectable blood source to stick her proboscis . . . Where to start? Which one to pick?

Are you feeling so swamped with projects that you don’t know where to start?

Indecision in the midst of opportunity is a common difficulty.

Many of the junior faculty, post-docs and grad students I work with have difficulty juggling tasks. As one junior faculty member put it: “When I focus on one project, the rest of my life seems to fall apart. But if I scatter my energy, I don’t get anything finished.

“I’m keeping up with my teaching and my departmental duties but none of my papers are moving forward. It is my second year on the tenure track and I still haven’t gotten articles out from my dissertation.”

Do you have this type of difficulty?

Many of us feel like we can only work on one major project at a time. Preparing to teach a new course keeps us from getting any writing done for weeks. Finishing a conference paper leads to unanswered email messages. Scrambling to meet a grant deadline pushes all other activities aside.

I call this the “No Clean Underwear Syndrome”. We focus with single-minded intensity on a drop-dead deadline and even basic life maintenance tasks fall by the wayside. Email inboxes overflow, phone calls go unreturned, exercise regimes are dropped, and our dirty laundry piles up until we don’t even have any clean underwear.

However, much of the time we face the opposite situation. We don’t finish large, important projects that lack clear deadlines because we’re so busy keeping up with day-to-day chores. The regular demands of teaching, service, and life-maintenance chores push aside scholarly research and writing. There is always something pressing that pre-empts finishing the journal article or working on the dissertation.

How can we effectively juggle daily demands and yet move forward on long-term projects?

1) First of all, plan and prioritize.
A comprehensive “to do” list can help you keep track of the multitude of tasks we face. And once your lengthy list is compiled, it needs to be prioritized. Which tasks are most critical to tackle?

2) Whittle and refine this master “to do” list.
What are the items that you can realistically accomplish today? I keep a complete list of projects, but choose a doable number of tasks to work on. Otherwise I get discouraged by the overwhelming size of the list and frustrated when there are so many projects still undone at the end of a day.

3)Carve out at least a small amount of time for the projects without deadlines.
When we work for at least half hour a day on long-range projects – the dissertation, the journal article, the exploratory research for a new scholarly endeavor – we chip away at our career priorities even as we keep up with the many short-term demands on our time.

4)When you’re stuck, start somewhere.
Don’t just buzz around without sucking any blood! Sometimes I get so overwhelmed by the number of items on my agenda that I avoid facing anything. The impossibility of getting everything done kicks me into procrastination mode and I want to surf the web or crawl into bed. At these moments, I tell myself to start anywhere. I try to take a tolerable ten minutes to tackle my top priority. Sometimes, once I get started, it is much easier than I think to make headway on my projects. I feel less anxious because I am moving forward.

How do you juggle the demands of your work and personal life? Do you have systems for managing multiple tasks? How do you consistently move forward on projects that lack deadlines when there are so many pressing, external demands on your time? Do you feel like a mosquito in a nudist camp?

Comments

[Jane]

For me, I've found that the "work for X minutes per day on Long-Term Task Y" works extremely well when I'm really busy (during the semester/term, for instance), but it's not working at all for me on sabbatical. I'm finding that when I have such large blocks of unstructured time, I work much better if I work towards a goal rather than a time limit. So instead of saying "I'm going to work for an hour every day on my journal article", I'll say "By Friday, I'll have the introduction and prior work sections completely drafted." That way I still have something to work towards, but can still go with the ebb and flow of how other projects are going. And I find that I naturally prioritize the higher-impact stuff. I have a vague idea in mind of how many hours per day I want to spend on all of my research tasks, but I don't get more specific than that---and I'm finding that I usually hit those time targets.

[Rachel]

I love that quote!

I'm not a scientist but a coach working with people who want to be productive creatively, but the same principles apply to creative people as to scientists (and creative scientist too I imagine!).

In addition to the strategies you mention (which are great), I also find these habits help me and my clients:

First, Going over my goals and to-do list at the end of the day really helps set up the next day's and week's work.

Second, keeping the I-N-W model in the back of my head helps prioritise. I-N-W stands for Integrity first, Needs second, Wants third.

Third, it's important to be realistic. As the saying goes: Rome wasn't built in a day. It's easy to under-estimate the time required to do something. It's also really easy just to keep on going until you are tired, in the belief that 5 or 10 more minutes will make a difference. In fact, forcing yourself to take regular breaks will more likely improve your productivity. Similarly, allowing yourself 5 minutes extra time when scheduling (e.g. leaving 5 minutes earlier for an appointment), can give you a real sense of mental freedom and reduce stress.

The other thing which really helps me personally is the writing of "morning pages" - 3 pages of longhand brain dump first thing in the morning, based on The Artist's Way and The Artist's Way at Work courses developed by Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan. Writing the pages helps me get clarity, and focus on what I really want to do to make the best use of my time (and my life). It does require a commitment of time (around half an hour), but I find the time spent is more than made up for in extra productivity.

Thanks for a great blog.

Rachel

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

”I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what
I want to do, but I don’t know where to begin.“

Stephen Bayne – Episcopal Bishop

I thank you for telling me who said this favorite quote of mine! When I was a high school senior, I was Student Council President (last time I've run for anything--I wised up!), and I had to call a huge assembly to order and did so by opening an 800+ auditorium of squirming, bored, loud high school students with this quotation. It worked! I stammered, as if I'd forgotten what I wanted to say. They shushed some. I stammered some more words, "If I only could....I would like to say....I mean that...." They got worried for me and got quieter. Then eventually I delivered the quotation. They burst into laughter, all at once. So thanks for giving me a name for the quotation! Your blog is wonderful!

[Julie]

New here but love this post. Just what I needed as I start my MA thesis. :)

[academic coach]

I too like The Artist's Way -- although it is just a tad too 12-stepish for my taste. And very hollywood.

I love her concept of the Artist Date -- weekly time that you go on an interesting outing - such as to a museum - by yourself. Time to feed your own creativity.

[Linda Hampton RN MSN]

This quote is so great! I laughed because it's so true. I especially appreicate it as I try to manage my stress and find I all over the place and getting nowhere fast. That to do list. Now where is that thing and why can't I just stay on task. It's a struggle but the more I make the plan and the list the more likely I'll have a plan to follow