There are many different strategies for scheduling your days and deciding what tasks and activities to do. This page provides an overview of several different strategies to scheduling and some of these can be used together.
Remember: the primary aim of this guide is to offer you options to experiment with to find your own planning system that works for you but also provide strategies that you might flexibly adapt. For this reason, I also have boxes below about:
One of the more common approaches that some people adopt is a time-block planning strategy. This is where you create blocks of time in your day to complete specific tasks or types of tasks.
For example, you might have a 2-hour block of time at the beginning of your day for "deep work" where you might work on writing your dissertation thesis or a research paper. You could also block your time based on the role: writing, research, studying, teaching, etc.
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Thinking about Tools: If your primary strategy is time block planning, you will most likely need a planning tool where you can view your days by the hour (or half hour). This might mean using a digital or paper calendar with a weekly or daily view.
Additional Reading & Resources:
In this approach to time-blocking, you group together similar types of tasks together into the same block of time. For example, rather than constantly responding to emails, you designate blocks of time in your day to send and respond to emails.
If you find that your energy and/or focus varies throughout the day, you can also block your day based on the degree of focus or energy that you will need for certain tasks. For example, Cal Newport argues that Deep Work tasks (like writing and brainstorming) require a high degree of focus and (to a certain extent) energy. Therefore, you should be strategic about how you schedule these blocks of time.
Many researchers often have multiple different roles in their careers (researcher, mentor, teacher, committee member, etc.). Therefore, it might be helpful to have theme days to help manage the activities and tasks associated with the different roles.
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The strategy "Eat the Frog" means identifying the most important, highest-priority (or overwhelming/dreaded) task and doing it first. This strategy is often cited as being effective for procrastinators or for those who have long task lists. This is also a great approach for researchers who often procrastinate writing their dissertation or a research paper.
Key Steps:
1. Identify your frog task
2. Complete this task first thing in your day
3. Go through the rest of your day without the stress or dread of needing to eat the frog
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The Kanban Method is a visual way of organizing your tasks into discrete stages or categories on a Kanban board. Tasks are represented by cards that can be moved into the different categories/stages, which are broken up by column. The example below breaks tasks into stage:
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You could organize your Kanban board anyway that you would like. You could create a column for each day of the week, your role, or type of task. The tabs of this box explore different types of Kanban structures.
Your Kanban board(s) can be physical (like a whiteboard with post-it notes) or a digital one (like Trello).
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One of the most common ways of structuring your Kanban boards is by stages in a process that the cards/tasks can be moved through. Rather than using the traditional (to-do, in-progress, reviewing, & done) structure, you can personalize the workflow stages based on the type of project and tasks.
In the example below from Trello, a research project is broken into several stages: data processing, data analysis, and writing.
If you time block your day based on energy or focus level, you could create your Kanban board based on task classification.
In the example below created in Trello, the individual has multiple roles (researcher and instructor) but the tasks are organized by level of required energy (high, medium, and low). During a "Deep Work" time block, the individual will work on the tasks in the associated column and so forth.
You could also structure your boards by role. For example: you could have a teaching column, a mentorship column, and a research column. Then you know what tasks you need to do when you get to your "Teaching" time block.
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The Pomodoro Technique is named for the tomato-shaped kitchen timer. With this strategy, you set a timer for 25 minutes to get a task or activity done and then you take a 5-minute break. Then you repeat.
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Here are some online applications for pomodoro sessions:
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The Eisenhower Matrix is a simple classification system for determining how to address certain tasks and activities. It classifies tasks as Important and Not Important as well as Urgent and Not Urgent tasks in a box grid. This grid results and four major categories for tasks:
This strategy can be particularly helpful for folks or are overwhelmed or who need to triage a large amount of activities and tasks.
Additional Reading & Resources:
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If you are not sure how long a task, activity, or meeting is going to take, overestimate the amount of time that it is going to take (even if its just 10 or 15 minutes).
You could also schedule a buffer time block before or after a scheduled event if you are not sure how long it will take. This can be particularly helpful if you do not like to rush from one thing to the next. Your buffer blocks can be planned transition times in your schedule.
Depending on how frequently new tasks, activities, or meetings arise, it might be helpful to schedule an overflow time block or even day. Laura Vanderkam suggests using Fridays as an overflow day when planning your weeks, but you can flexibly adapt this strategy to any day of the week. If things come up during the week, schedule it for that day or time block.
Sometimes you can get overwhelmed with everything that you need to do. Here are some tips and strategies for these moments:
Mind mapping is a flexible strategy of organizing your thinking in a visual way. You can use it to take notes or process your thoughts on an idea or topic. Some folks use it when overwhelmed to make sense of all of the things that they need to do. The video below walks you through a few different ways that you can use mind mapping.
Additional Resources & Reading:
Deep Work
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