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Structure and Discipline
May. 9th, 2007 08:09 amWell, the summer is beginning. This means two things: more time to get things done, and less structure to my days.
Usually, when I reach this point, a couple of things happen, mostly related to Parkinson's Law. I end up spending a lot of time on silly projects, like reading personal productivity websites and adding to, reading, and organizing my humongous, constantly growing stack of articles. I also spend time navelgazing, trying to decide what to make of the summer and the academic lifestyle. Oh, and of course I also spend time surfing the 'net and drinking coffee. I actually find the flexible schedule to be one of my biggest challenges, because now I don't have the excuse of other, more pressing matters to explain my (un)productivity. My days are also one long stretch, instead of chunks of time.
In some respects, it would be really nice to have a metric for my relative degree of productivity. How many things should I reasonably expect to accomplish? How much of my time should I set aside for myself? I need to come up with answers to these question so I can figure out what to say "No" to, and what to leap into. This would also be useful so I can determine the length of a reasonable academic day.
Usually, when I reach this point, a couple of things happen, mostly related to Parkinson's Law. I end up spending a lot of time on silly projects, like reading personal productivity websites and adding to, reading, and organizing my humongous, constantly growing stack of articles. I also spend time navelgazing, trying to decide what to make of the summer and the academic lifestyle. Oh, and of course I also spend time surfing the 'net and drinking coffee. I actually find the flexible schedule to be one of my biggest challenges, because now I don't have the excuse of other, more pressing matters to explain my (un)productivity. My days are also one long stretch, instead of chunks of time.
In some respects, it would be really nice to have a metric for my relative degree of productivity. How many things should I reasonably expect to accomplish? How much of my time should I set aside for myself? I need to come up with answers to these question so I can figure out what to say "No" to, and what to leap into. This would also be useful so I can determine the length of a reasonable academic day.
