1. Michael Orshansky The University of Texas at Austin

2.  Efficiency: doing things right  Control: doing the right things ◦ For a faculty member, control is even more important than efficiency  There is an infinite number of things you could be doing ◦ Improving teaching, more research, more service  Academia is very laissez faire ◦ You are ultimately responsible for defining what is on your plate  Not Department Chair or Dean or your senior colleagues

3.  Need to understand your long-term priorities  Depending on the type of institution and the specifics of your Department, different emphasis and expectations on ◦ Publication productivity, fundraising, teaching excellence  Be involved in Departmental social networking early on ◦ Almost always expectations are not stated anywhere explicitly ◦ It’s your job to find out!

4.  Have clear, articulate long-term (year(s)) and short-term (semester) goals ◦ Spend some time at the beginning of each semester evaluating and revising your long term and short term goals

5.  Most likely, that’s your highest priority ◦ Scholarly reputation, funding depend on it  Block time for research ◦ Ensure 2-3 hours spent on research every day ◦ Stay at home, work at the library  Be ready and willing to modify your research focus  Start funding search in the first 2-3 years  One of the biggest time sinks ◦ Students who “didn’t work out” ◦ Learn to be decisive

6.  During your first years, avoid major teaching innovation projects, e.g. new classes / labs ◦ Ask your colleagues for teaching materials  Lecture notes, homework sets, exams  Teach the same class  Teach a graduate class ◦ Will help you with your research and vice versa  Don’t allow teaching to dominate your week ◦ Settle for reasonable in lecture preparation

7.  Look for alternatives in service and teaching ◦ Smaller classes, graduate classes, less service ◦ Often it is just a matter of asking  Know what you can’t control ◦ Departmental politics and policy discussions can take a lot of time  Avoid perfectionism ◦ Know when something is good enough

8.  Be selective! Evaluate each request in terms of your goals and your schedule ◦ What you decide to do, do really well  Be clear up front about the scope of the job and the level of commitment you can bring  Use it as a chance to let go of something else  Work with people who are good at getting things done, it does rub off  Learn how to say “no” nicely and don’t say “yes” when you mean “no”  Avoid saying “yes” on the spot. Say "let me think about it”, then assess and consult

9.  Make it realistic ◦ Learn how long things take  Avoid fragmented time ◦ Back appointments up to one another ◦ Schedule big blocks of "thinking time” ◦ Schedule "synergistic" tasks together  Know when something is good enough ◦ Keep track of deadlines  Put your life in there somewhere ◦ Family, culture, exercise, professional development

10.  Know when you work most efficiently – don't squander that time, don’t get distracted  When "on a roll", keep the momentum going even at the expense of other things ◦ Conversely, when a task seems like a grind, push a little, but then switch to something else  Multitasking is a myth ◦ Minimize disruptions  Learn to context switch fast  Schedule “low skill” tasks (like reading email) at less productive times (evenings?)  Don’t confuse hard work with hard thinking ◦ In the end people care about quality

11.  Email can be a huge time sink ◦ Turn off the audio notification ◦ Restrict your reading to certain (less productive?) times of the day ◦ Be organized in email – keep folders ◦ Respond immediately, if possible, and file – don’t keep rereading the same email  Don’t conduct confrontational discussions over email. ◦ If you must, craft the email and let it age 24 hours before sending it out.

12. Time management is a skill that you’ll need to cultivate throughout your entire career Try to maintain some balance and to love what you do

13.  Prof. Janie Irwin, Penn State University  CRA-Women (especially Jan Cuny, Fran Berman, Leah Jamieson) http://cra.org/Activities/craw/ ◦ Career Mentoring Workshops  Randy Pausch http://www.alice.org/Randy/timetalk.htm http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=- 5784740380335567758