The Time, Life, and Career Management Workbook for Scientists E-Book

Karin Bodewits

• Herausgeber: NaturalScience.Careers
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 130

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

This book is a self-management guide and personal workbook for PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and principal investigators. It contains theories and exercises around time-, life-and career-management that has been specifically adapted to natural-and life scientists.The exercises will show you where your time goes and how to effectively find more time for the things you like to do. It will help you to carefully design your life, guided by your personal-, friends- and family missions. At the end, you will engage in more meaningful activities, whether it is going for a long walk in the mountains with your dog or a training course that will help you advance in your career.The content of this book regularly updated. It is aimed primarily at PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and principal investigators in the natural-and life sciences, however much of the exercises and information will be a useful reference for people working in different fields as well looking for an improved self-management strategy.

Leseprobe

The time, life, and career management workbook for natural and life scientists.

Karin Bodewits

Philipp Gramlich

Copyrights

NaturalScience.Careers

Dr. Karin Bodewits

Rennbahnstrasse 99

81929 Munich, Germany

[email protected].

Copyright @ 2019 by Dr. Karin Bodewits & Dr. Philipp Gramlich

Manufactured in Munich, Germany.

We print on recycled paper.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

For more information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact NaturalScience.Careers at [phone] or [email protected].

NaturalScience.Careers can bring the authors to your organisation for a live event or seminar. For more information or to book an event contact NaturalScience.Careers or visit our website at www.naturalscience.careers

Illustrations by: Karin Bodewits and Shashwat Mishra

Cover design by: Benjamin Bowen

E-Book Programming: Bernd Floßmann

ISBN: 978-3-962-55-2329

First edition

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Self-assessment & role models

Part 1: What do I want to achieve? And, how do I get there?

1. If I only had the time, I would…

2. Your 100 dreams

3. Setting goals and writing long-term plans

4. Planning your PhD

Part 2: Creating time

1. Are we all really so busy?

2. Your time log

3. Your 168 hours

4. Early mornings

5. Evenings

6. Weekends

Part 3: Making the best use of your time

1. Your roles

2. Prioritising

3. Productive, creative and concentrated hours

4. Planning & scheduling your weeks

5. The (not) to-do list and dump lists

6. Making best use of buffer time

7. Identifying and eliminating time wasters

8. Work environments

Part 4: Science-life balance

1. Work-life balance

2. Work-life balance for parents

Part 5: Evaluate yourself

Wrapping up

Recommended readings, motivational speeches, and other sources used for this book

About the authors

Acknowledgements

Our seminar programme

Preface

We, as the authors of this book, who sometimes appear in the narrative or give personal examples, did not write this out of being time management gurus ourselves. We are not Stephen Covey, Laura Vanderkam, or Nigel Marsh. We did not have the best time and career management skills during our time in academia or after that. Neither of us is getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning to meditate or run and we, still today, have the feeling there is never enough time. We did, however, spend years on the bench, run a successful business, and have been working with scientists ever since we left the lab. We follow our dreams and directed by our passions and personal priorities. We do not think that we are doing a lousy job fitting career, family and friends together: we have a satisfying work-life balance with our two sons, but it needed hard work and a high level of adaptation and a good dose of recipe optimisation to get where we are today. Still, it isn’t perfect, and the optimisation process will never be completed. Circumstances and personal wishes change. It is an ongoing journey to make the best out of every day.

“Life is a book and you are its author. You determine its plot and pace and you - only you - turn its pages.”

Beth Mende Conny

Introduction

“I would like all of you to pause for a moment –you wretched weaklings – and take stock of your miserable existence,” said Nigel Marsh in his TED talk. That is precisely what we are asking you to do.

PhD students feel the pressure to work very hard. Naturally, they often feel stressed, do not know where their careers are heading and are dissatisfied with their work-life balance. It is predictable enough that starting a PhD was to enter into in a highly competitive world and that was quite a fun and challenging prospect. Less foreseen is the inexorable rise in the bewildering number of roles you come to play: from being a researcher in training, writing an intellectually dazzling thesis, attending conferences and supervising a few undergrads, to being a recognised scholar in the field, writing grant proposals, bearing serious and cumbersome teaching duties, serving on a plethora of committees, building collaborations, supervising PhDs and postdocs, keeping the lab at peace, answering endless emails daily, publicising work and reacting to media requests, attending faculty meetings and the God-forsaken onus of administrative tasks. And, guess what? Once you have done all that, your family and friends are not in the slightest gratified by you. And you didn’t get a minute to yourself; no innocent fun, no relaxing with a book or movie, no time to just stand and stare, not one moment to recharge.

Getting this life under control seems as hopeless as straightening the Tower of Pisa. It all creeps up on you silently, nefariously, insidiously; the trick is to know it’s coming and be ready for it. Only then are you likely to control your life and focus on the things that matter. You have a responsibility to do so; you owe it to yourself. You also owe to loved ones to be a sane, sentient human being who is not boringly overwhelmed all the time. What you need to do is design this life.

If you don't, lots of your time that could have been used to do cool things will be lost and gone forever – simple as that. Other people and organisations will design your life for you. If you work in commercial organisations, which one might argue academia is these days, you'll discover out that their will to get the most out of their people is merciless. If you do not thwart their will, your life will be designed entirely according to the interests and priorities of organisations and other people. You will feel frustrated, small, bullied, unhappy and/or just plain lost in life.

This book deals with how to make the best use of your time, circumventing the negative stress which will otherwise devour your days. It will give you a clearer picture of where you would like to be heading and set goals for personal targets. Good time and career management don't mean that you frantically try to ‘make use’ of every minute of your day. Quite the reverse. It says that you learn to spend your time judiciously; meaning only on what is worthwhile, at work and privately.

If you take the design of your life in your own hands, you will be a happier and more fulfilled person. We hope you find inspiration in this book for making changes to your life which, in turn, makes a hugely significant difference to your success and well-being.

Desired results after reading this book:

You have an idea of what you would like to do with your life.You have a clear idea of where your time goes.You create time for what's important to you.You know how to set goals, and you have set goals for the next 12 months.You increase your productivity, by planning your life.You take the first step to improve your organisational and delegation skills.You have an improved work-life balance.You have lowered your stress levels.You feel happier with how you spend your time.

Self-assessment & role models

Let us first acknowledge the reality of the situation you are in. Please agree or disagree with the following statements:

I use my time wisely.I write annual goals every year and regularly assess and evaluate them.I set career goals as well as personal and family goals.I plan how to reach my goals.I usually reach my goals.I make lists to help organise things that I have to do.On Monday morning I know what I will be doing the coming week.By the time I arrive at work, I know what I will be doing that day.I know where I am heading with my career.I am happy with where I am heading with my career.I know what the next step in my career will be and how to get there.I often procrastinate tasks.I have trouble concentrating on a task.I'm often stressed.I make good use of small blocks of time.I prioritise my tasks.I often leave the lab later than planned.My experiments often take longer than planned.I feel overwhelmed by the number of projects I'm working on.I have the feeling that my projects have a clear aim.I spend enough time on things that will help my future employability (e.g., learning and improving skills/ networking).I spend enough time with my family.I spend enough time with my friends.I have enough time for myself.I feel physically fit.

Questions

Based on the self-assessment above, where do you find room for improvement? Role models can be instrumental in developing career - and life - aspirations. Throughout your career, you have been exposed to a wide variety of people. It is time to learn from the good (and bad) habits you have observed. The attributes of others possess provide tips and warnings.Who around you has excellent time and career management skills?What do you believe makes their time and career management skills so excellent?Which of those skills and habits can you implement in your own life?Based on the self-assessment and learning from your role model(s), what are your objectives reading this book?

Part 1: What do I want to achieve? And, how do I get there?

“There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants and a burning desire to achieve it.” (Napoleon Hill)

You have an obvious plethora of tasks to do, and you might get most of them done. But these are not necessarily the tasks that matter most. Consequently, your career and private life suffer, and frustration will follow. In Part 1 and 2 of this workbook, we will focus on deciding what you would like to achieve in each area of your life and how to get it done. We will follow six easy steps.

Decide what you want to do and formulate your goals.Set a deadline for your goals.Create lists of everything you believe you have to do to reach these goals.Organise the list into a 5-year plan; shorten the time-span of your plan if necessary.Write annual goals and actionable steps moving you towards this major goal.Resolve to do something every single day that will lead to your goals.

1. If I only had the time, I would…

A friend of ours is unhappy in her job. She isn't passionate about her job, her colleagues are okay but not great, and she holds a position that does not allow for the flexibility she desires as a mum of two children. She said the other day: “I would love to become an English teacher for non-natives. If I only had the time to get the certificate… But, I do not.”

Is there something you would like to do (e.g., learn a new language, visit a town, start a new hobby, do something charitable), but feel you don't have the time?

Questions

If I only had the time, I would…If I could develop a new talent or skill, it would be…If I could change one thing in my life, it would be…If I could freely pick where to travel in the world, I would go to…

2. Your 100 dreams

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” (Walt Disney)

Make a list of the 100 things you want or might want to be doing in the future. The file can contain anything that pops into your mind. Some of the dreams can be big, like ’I want to be an expat in Asia for a few years,’ ‘I would like to start my own company,’ or ‘I want to publish a Nature or Science paper.’ Other dreams can be small, like ‘I want to go strawberry picking with my kids,’ ‘I want to win a poster prize,’ or ‘I want to visit my friend Lucy in Barcelona.’ It might be difficult to finish the list in one session, and that's also not necessary. You can write, say, 25 today and add another 5 or 10 every day after.

Generally speaking, you have four areas in your life that need nurturing: your career, your family, your friends and yourself. We would like you to categorise your dreams into these four areas. Do make sure you have dreams in each category.

Especially when it comes to career, coming up with many ideas can be challenging. Of course, if you know what you would like to do professionally, adding concrete plans to your list of dreams is ideal. For example, ‘becoming a patent lawyer,’ ‘write a novel,’ or ‘becoming an excellent university teacher.’ However, it is also totally fine to define your aspirations less precisely, such as ‘start a business one day,’ or ‘work part-time,’ or ‘work from home,’ ‘or having a secure job,’ or ‘be in a leadership role.’

Having said that, it would be quite useful to have an idea in which direction your career should go to define your goals. Your focus, or your career goals, will naturally differ if you want to become a professor in contrast to becoming a popular science writer.

If you do not know what your career possibilities are with a PhD in science and what would fit you, I would like to refer you to our book “PhD! And, next? – The career guide for natural and life scientists.” (available in eBook format soon)

However, for now, you can focus on the things you do know e.g., living close to my family, working part-time, being a team leader, making an environmental impact, working for an NGO.

Note: Use a positive voice and present tense.

Here is the start of Karin’s 100 dreams list:

Exercise

Start creating your list of 100 dreams in a notebook. Add dreams to the list in the next few days until you have 100 written down.Go through your entire list of dreams and colour code the ones that require just a few hours of your time or a simple trip to the shop. Give the dreams that need long-term planning a different colour.Pick five dreams from each area of life and generate time for those dreams. By when would you like to achieve those dreams?

You do not have to put a deadline on every dream. It would just be too much! It is a living list. Not every dream on the list has to be fulfilled. Career and personal desires can be adjusted as life circumstances change. Karin was dreaming about going on an expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula after her PhD. At the time, it was not financially feasible to do such an expedition. Now, almost eight years and two children later, the prospect of having to protect herself from native, 650 kg (1433 lbs) brown bears entering her tent, is less appealing. Consequently, Karin deleted ‘Kamchatka’ from her list of dreams.

Leadership: Employees' dreams