1. Time Management From Dissertation Proposal to Dissertation Defense
Alicia Best and Other Faculty

2. Opening Questions
How much time you have between now and your ideal defense date?
How do you rate your ability to effectively manage your time (on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being optimal)?
What are you biggest “time sucks?”
Let’s start with some basic questions…Let’s go around the room and state
How much time you have between now and your ideal defense date?
How do you rate your ability to effectively manage your time (scale of 1-10)?
What are you biggest “time sucks?”

3. How much time do you have?
24 hours in a day
7 days in a week ( 168 hours)
365 days in a year
The thing about time is that it’s fixed, right? We can’t create more of. We can only work on strategies to optimize how we use time.

4. “Managing Time”
Processes and tools to increase efficiency and productivity
Create a master list, working backwards from a specific goal
Know the rules of the program (formal and informal)
Become familiar with department, college, and university deadlines (each are different)
Inquire about your Committee’s other obligations, and their turn-around time for providing feedback
So in the previous slide, I said time was fixed. We only get 24 hours in a day, so some would argue that you can’t actually manage time, but you can manage your activities during a fixed period of time. Time management is really about the development of processes and tools that increase efficiency and productivity. And one way to do this is to start with a master list of everything you have to do, working backwards from the large end goal – like Defending your Proposal. Work backwards listing every little step required to from where you are currently, to your end goal. This can be tedious and may a whole day or more, because you may have to visit multiple websites and read various documents to find deadlines and requirements for various tasks, etc. But this is an important first step because its only once you have this master list that you can effectively begin to plan.
Some things to consider when making this master list:
Know the Rules of the Program (formal and informal)
Become familiar with department, college, and university deadlines (each are different)
Committee & time/turn around

5. Sample Timeline/Schedule
Here is an example of a partial master list that I used during my dissertation process. As you can see, even University deadlines are built into this…

6. What are your goals? Make your goals specific and concrete
Set long-term and short-term goals
Set a deadline for your goals
Monitor your goals
Change goals if needed
What are 3 short term goals you each have between now and graduation?
Example short-term goals between proposal preparation and dissertation defense:
Get IRB approval by December 2016
Tasks – Draft all collection instruments and guides by X date, Get letters of support from community agencies by X date, draft recruitment protocol and informed consents by X date etc…
Probes for goals:
Are there additional skills you need?
Do you need time to build strong community relationships to access your sample?
Get approved to conduct your dissertation
Finishing the dissertation

7. Difficult Balance Between…
Our Needs
Eating, sleeping, personal hygiene, etc.
Our Desires
Facebook/Instagram, vacations, reading, exercising, shopping, TV/Netflix/Hulu
Our Obligations
Work/GA/TA, commitments to others (e.g. guest lectures),dissertation, etc.

8. Not Urgent / Not Important
Set Priorities
Urgent / Important
IRB application
Data collection
_________________
Important / Not Urgent
Personal life
Community work
Urgent / Not Important
Commitments to others
Guest lectures
Not Urgent / Not Important
Social media
Reality TV
The last box is called a time suck!
Ask students to list other examples of each for them; and discuss here.
Learning to say no is important to discuss on this slide…

9. Procrastination
A major obstacle that can prevent us from practicing good time management skills is simply procrastination. We are all guilty of it from time to time. For me, procrastination gets worse when I have a ton of work on my plate…its like the more overwhelmed I get, the more I want to lean towards doing nothing. But we have to overcome it. So I’ll give you some of my tips and hopefully other faculty will share theirs.

10. Overcoming Procrastination
Break tasks in smaller parts
Get organized
Practice positivity
Reward yourself
Just do it
Take the task apart - Sometimes a task can appear to be overwhelming. For example, thinking about the entire dissertation as one massive assignment can be intimidating. Breaking it up into smaller, more manageable parts will help. Set dates to work on each of the pieces. Also, work on one task at a time. It’s a mental boost to complete something and check it off your list; and its less productive to multitask.
Get organized - Having everything you need right at your fingertips will save a lot of time when starting a project. Also, having a clean, well-organized workspace helps increase productivity.
Practice positivity- Avoid speaking negatively about the task and your ability to move toward completion. Instead, practice being positive, and I say practice because this can take work. Tell yourself, “I know that I can finish this work.”
Reward yourself- Do something for yourself that you would not normally no, but withhold the reward if the task remains incomplete.
Just do it - The moment you find yourself procrastinating, the best thing you can do is recognize it; call yourself out about it and then complete the task. After that, you won’t have to think about it anymore.

11. Time Management Tips Start with the end in mind
Write daily or weekly “To Do Lists”
Prevents forgetting
Boosts confidence to cross things off
Set priorities
Carry a notebook
Write down those great ideas and brilliant insights
Say NO to low priority requests (in a nice way )

12. To the best of your ability, plan for the unexpected!