Time Management Tricks You Need to Know

You will only get busier as you advance in your career, but that doesn’t mean your life has to feel unmanageable.

Use these tips to manage your time, self, and overall goals.

Prioritize

• What’s most important to you? How can you protect what you value?
• Control your schedule.
• Designate specific days to focus on certain responsibilities.
• Establish protected time. That may mean working from home one day per week or just blocking off time on the calendar. 
• Stay organized to clear your mind and remain focused on what you’re doing.
• Concentrate on work during work hours, and on self and family at home.
• Learn to say “no” politely.

Delegate

• Should you really be working on that part of the project?
• Empower people to do certain tasks with authority, responsibility, and resources.
• Cultivate growth in people, so they can do more.
• Provide constructive and timely feedback.

Be accepting, flexible, and forgiving

• Do your best.
• Recognize when it’s “good enough” to let go.
• Negotiate and compromise your time with others and yourself.

Be grounded

• Take time for yourself: besides your neuroscience work, hobbies, partners, and family are important.
• Consider: what’s most important in your life?
• Reflect on: what do you want to be remembered for?
  

Plan your career

• Identify your five- to seven-year career development goals, which are usually aligned with your next promotion.
• Work backward and create your career development plan to achieve your goals.
• Review your goals and accomplishments and adjust as necessary depending where you are. Flexibility is paramount.

Know your institution’s policies

• Recognize that external factors will influence how you allocate your time and make long-term plans.
• What’s your institution’s tenure clock, and do any extensions exist?
• Is any family leave offered?

Remember, at the end of the day, life is about choices that help create balance.

Adapted from the presentation, “Time Management Workshop: Balancing Family & Neuroscience,” by Mary Lou Voytko, PhD.

About the Contributor

Mary Lou Voytko, PhD

Mary Lou Voytko is Director, Office of Women in Medicine and Science, and Professor, Neurobiology and Anatomy, at Wake Forest School of Medicine.