The Researchers' Newsletter – August 2024

Time management and managing priorities

In this newsletter we cover issues around time and priority management.

 

Feedback, queries, suggestions for topics most welcome; please email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Competing demands

What most researchers need to sort out for themselves are the many competing priorities, the work and non-work demands and your own motivations, barriers, opportunities and ways of working.

 

Identity, priorities and saying “no”

A clear idea of your research ‘identity’ and of your intentions and your goals is a good way to sort your “must do” activities from the “nice to do” ones. This gives you permission to say “no” to things that are marginal to your goals (or to your expected contribution to team projects).

 

Your role and your career

To succeed as a researcher you must fulfil two things:

  1. the performance expectations of your employer;
  2. your own career expectations.

The activities that you decide to do should be guided by these two expectations.

 

Balancing other duties and protecting yourself

Work intensification and demanding teaching, administration, clinical, student or project duties are challenging. How do you manage these ‘pain points’? By…

  • Being clear on your priorities…
  • Saying ‘no’ or negotiating if you can…
  • Managing those around you…
  • Staying focused…
  • Finding space to work on your goals…

 

Personal issues

The impact of personal factors including, family, health, disadvantage and discrimination may need professional advice. Insufficient networking, collaboration or management skills, and no strategies to “work smarter” can benefit from mentoring – find someone you can trust to talk to. 

 

Unsupportive work settings

Work situations that are not supportive, or not supportive of your career, can hinder you - there is no substitute for advice from someone you trust. Work through several options, not just finding a new job.

 

Looking after you

Working harder and harder is a short term game. There is a growing literature on energy management as a strategy for working healthily to “top up” your energy levels so that you can work as well as you would like, with lower stress.

 

What next?

We have found four things that make a difference:

  • Knowing how to manage the people in your work environment including upwards to influence supervisors about your work life.
  • Creating opportunities to obtain development in your job that supports your research goals.
  • Opting for creative resilience rather than “managing your career and life” can be a good strategy.
  • Using institutional policies and strategies that enable you to have opportunity issues taken into account, including through developing a ROPE statement