Time and Project Management Course

I attended this course conducted by Dr Sage Leslie from Academic Skills and Learning Centre. I find this course is particular useful to those PhD students who always complain that they don't have enough time to handle their thesis and course works. Many valuable tips and advice were given by Dr Sage.

First, we should have daily "To do list" and themed checklist. You should know what do you need to fit in the checklist. The checklist should include your daily life and not just your PhD thesis. It is also important to set aside dedicated thesis time each week and set specific goals for this time.  You should know when are you at your best for reading? For writing? Be realistic! The checklist must be a 'whole of life' plan.   PhD is life long journey. You must manage your life well in order to proceed this long journey.

Second, project management is also important for PhD study. To manage the study effectively, try to define the project parameters in terms of time, length and criteria for completion. Break the project into small milestones to make yourself more focus. If can, one should always revise the project plan frequently and sometime may need to work backwards from due date to monitor the progress of plan.

Third, this course introduces some reading techniques and managing the reading effectively. You must have a clear purpose for reading. Try don't read every word of everything. I should try to learn this technique as I always like to read everything and read for pleasure sometime without any purposes. In addition, try to file documents by theme so you can return to them easily. I realise filing is important for time management especially if you have more and more reading materials. I used to save my journal articles in authors name, years of publication, journal name and title of journal. Basically try to rename the files as details as possible and store it in specific themed files. It enables me to extract the file easily from my hard disk in future. We may need to return and read these documents periodically. Even the hardcopy of the documents, I will file them in the proper folders and label the folders clearly. Filing and retrieval save your times!

Fourth, managing your notes. Keep the 'use' for the information in mind. Some information or draft may look irrelevant to you at the moment but try to keep it for the future use. Again, try to write sections as you go. Try to write down anything relevant to your research project. Writing helps you organise your mind and 'force' you focus sometime!

Lastly, look after yourself! Healthy is vital for this study marathon. Only healthy person can smile at the end of marathon! It is not something wrong if you feel you need to rest for a while or even STOP your study for a certain period. Managing life should be in your PhD study plan. All the best!