TimeManagement

From ControlsWiki

How long does it take to write a paper? For that matter, how long does it take to read a chapter? The answer to both of these questions is “it depends”. We all have had experiences where we are required to write an essay in, say, 40 minutes in an exam type situation. At the same time, many of us have spent 10’s of hours writing up the a similar essay when we have more time. In some cases the paper that took a long time to write up was better, while in other cases it was just longer or took longer.

The problem with writing, or doing any creative, open-ended project is that there is no definite endpoint. More time spent on the project “can” always yield some benefit. Thus when you stop work on something open-ended is not driven by some intrinsic stopping point, such as getting a number or getting a piece of code to run, but instead by either our own internal criteria (e.g. “this is good enough”), or a deadline (e.g. “this is due now, so by definition it is done”). Based on my own personal experience and in speaking to many of you, the second deadline driven criteria is more often used.

However stopping work only when a deadline comes can be a destructive way to work. Deadlines rarely come at good times, and if given far enough in advance mean that we have a seemingly unlimited amount of time to work on a project. Such an unlimited feeling horizon leads to procrastination, over working, or a combination of both depending on personality. Procrastination arises if we feel like time is unlimited because there is no incentive to start. Thus things don’t get done until the very last minute. The result is that we are rushed when the deadline does come, and don’t have enough time to dedicate to the project to be happy with the product. Over working is the opposite where we put much more work into a project than we need to just because we are given more time to do it. This over working makes us unhappy as we have little time for the other parts of our life (friends, family, sleeping, eating, etc) that make us whole.

The result of procrastinating and over working is a general feeling of being overwhelmed and excessively busy. This is the message I’ve heard from a number of the students in the controls course and one that will only increase in process design and your future work place. Many people never really learn to deal with this , and instead end up burning themselves out by long hours and extreme anxiety. Such burnout is not fun and in the end will mean that we can make less of a contribution to humanity than if we learned better coping strategies.

Below I outline two coping strategies that might help with managing your time, anxiety, and sanity when dealing with open-ended projects. There are many books on the topic and a large body of research, but these are two things that work for me.

Make an plan and use a timer

Professional consultants are paid by the hour, and as such they are trained to become aware of how much time a project takes, how much time they are spending on the project, and how good the project must be.

In our world, we can do the same by laying out a plan for our work (with times), and sticking to those times. Imagine that you are given an assignment to write an article on a topic that is due in 1 week. One way to approach this is the following:

1. Look at your schedule and see how much time you can realistically devote to the project. This schedule should include important things like sleeping, eating, exercising, etc, so do not look at these times as “available”. Missing these important things is possible in the short term, but not sustainable in the long run.
2. Look at the project and decide how important is this project is. Is this something that is very important for you, your business, your education, or your job? Or is it something that just needs to get done? If the deadline is too short to do the job, either turn the job down or reduce your standards.
3. If you have enough time to do the job and want to do the job, then choose how much time you will spend on the job.
4. Create a realistic plan for how long it will take to do each aspect of the job. For example, for writing an article, you may devote some time to reading the material, some time to discussing the article with your team members, and another block of time to the actual writing. View this time schedule as you would a time schedule for an exam. You absolutely cannot take more time than you have allocated, so make good use of this time.
5. Find a good working space, set your timer and start working. Keep an eye on the timer and if you are getting too far behind or too far ahead, modify your pace. If you are reading and taking too long, then start skimming—looking for the most important points. If you are writing and taking too long, then stop editing and start just generating material so that you will have something by the end of your cycle.
6. Keep records of your progress. You will find that sometimes you overestimate your ability, and some times underestimate it. Getting to know what you can and cannot do is invaluable both in time management and in protecting your time.

For me, I create a plan for a project in a dedicated 10 minute block, and assign work to myself in 40 minute blocks. This schedule allows me to focus clearly on my task at hand, but also provides periodic breaks. This whole document was written over the course of two 40 minute blocks for example.

Adopt an anytime strategy for writing

A common problem I encounter is when tackling a large open-ended problem is a difficulty in focusing on the big-picture, key issues of the problem. As a result, I then focus on small details of the problem that are clearly solvable, such as a small calculation, proof, references, or formatting. The problem with this strategy is that once I’ve completed a writing block, I only have a few, well thought out details and nothing suitable to turn in.

A better strategy is to use an anytime strategy. The term “anytime strategy” is used in computer science to describe a class of algorithms that are tailored to solving big, complex problems when you don’t know how much computing time you have available. As a result, the calculation can be stopped at any time to yield a fully complete product framework, with some ill-defined details.

In writing, an anytime strategy means that you first start with the big picture and then fill in the details later. Using this strategy, I devote my first blocks of writing time to just writing out prose of the whole project. There are always holes in this document, and lots of editing that can be done, but if I had to turn in the document I would at least have something to turn in. Often, this document is surprisingly good and needs little editing.

If I have more time, then I devote the next block of time toward the next largest area and try to flesh out this part. The result is that the document becomes more and more complete. As a last step, I edit the document for word choice, and structural details. This final step is usually the worst offender in terms of time drain, but it is also often the least important.

By limiting the time I spend on editing, I ensure that I have something by the end of my writing process, even if that writing process takes longer than expected or ends earlier than anticipated. I may not always be happy with the final product due to a lack of time, but I generally make something I’m happier with using this anytime approach.

I hope these notes help to both make your time in this class more productive and less painful!