UGC NET Paper 1 Mathematical Reasoning & Aptitude.pdf
Important of english language 2
1. Time Management
SAGEX
Dr Peter Whitton
Researcher Development Officer
Durham University
peter.d.whitton@durham.ac.uk
This project has received funding from the European
Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant
agreement No. 764850’
2. Session outline
• Importance of effective time management
• How you are managing your time?
• 22 Time management techniques
• Weekly time planning
• Time management in a SAGEX ESR
context
3. How long is a minute?
Before we start I would like everyone to
stand up and then sit down exactly when
you think a minute has passed
No looking at watches or clocks or phones!
5. Activity 1: How are you using your time
Individually, spend 2 minutes quickly
jotting down
• 5 things you did yesterday
• 5 things you need to do to make the
most of your SAGEX experience over
the next three years
7. What is time management?
• The process of organising your time
between specific activities
• Good time management enables you to
work smarter – not harder/longer – so that
you get more done in less time
It may seem counter-intuitive to dedicate precious time to
learning about time management, instead of using it to get
on with your work, but the benefits can be enormous
8. The cost of poor time management
Failing to manage your time effectively can
have some very undesirable
consequences:
• Missed deadlines
• Inefficient work flow
• Poor work quality
• A poor professional reputation and a
stalled career
• Higher stress levels
9. Managing your SAGEX workflow wisely
Learning how to organise your time efficiently will
help you make the most from your SAGEX
experience. And is likely to …
• Give supervisors, mentors and industry
partners confidence in your ability to self-
manage
• Help you to maximise the benefits of the
SAGEX programme
• Decrease your stress levels!
10. Time is the scarcest resource and unless
it is managed nothing else can be
managed
Peter Drucker
12. Activity 2: Identifying the barriers to productive
research
In groups of three or four spend 5 minutes
quickly jotting down as many of the things
that stop you from being as productive a
researcher as you want to be. Think about:
• Intrinsic dimensions (e.g. personal traits)
• Extrinsic dimensions (e.g. family
commitments and responsibilities)
Be prepared to feedback to the whole group.
13. Do not confuse motion and progress. A
rocking horse keeps moving
… but does not make any progress
Alfred A. Montapert
14. The importance of work-life balance
• To maintain your mental health (reduce stress)
• To ensure your physical health and wellbeing
• It increases productivity
• Become a more rounded individual
• You only get one life!
16. Activity 3: Planning your workflow (part 1)
With the importance of work life balance in
mind, use the weekly planning grid to block
out all the time that you are not available to
do university work you have 10 minutes.
Think about:
• Sleep!
• Sports, recreation and pastimes
• Regular events
• Caring commitments
• Meals
20. Calendar synchronicity
• Work from a single source of
info. Synchronise research,
personal and other
appointments in a single place
to identify clashes and conflicts.
• Synchronise devices (laptop,
tablet, mobile phone)
• If it isn’t synchronised get rid of
it
#1
22. Prioritise
List activities to do the next day
(every day)
• Rank in order of importance
• Do most unpleasant task first
• Write down deadlines
• T planning – list time-sensitive
tasks separately
• Estimate how long activity will
take
• Context – what can you do where
you are?
• Remove some tasks
#3
23. The five six Ds
1. Delete it
2. Defer it
3. Delegate it (or part of it)
4. Diminish it
5. Dissect it
6. Do now
#4
24. For seven consecutive days,
record everything you do …
• socialising
• interruptions
• work on thesis
At the end, total up how you
spend your time. Analyse:
• time spent on important things
• time wasting activities
• the extent to which you
achieved your goals
#5
Keep a time log
25. Work with your energy levels
• How could you change your
routine to make better use
of your periods of high
energy?
#6 • Which tasks could be carried
out during your periods of low
energy?
28. Activity 4: Planning your workflow (part 2)
Returning to our calendar of productive time. Now
that you have identified the times of the day that
you may be able to work in …
• Think about your energy levels and productivity
at different times of the day
• Identify on planner your low, medium and highly
productive times of the day
Feel free to take another template. You have 5
minutes
31. Avoid interruptions
Block off several hours every day
when you:
• Turn off your mobile phone
• Turn off email notifications
• Turn off social media
notifications
• Disconnect from the internet
#7
Alton et al. (2014) found that interruptions as brief as 2.8 s disrupted
participants' flow of concentration and led to increased errors on a
sequence-based cognitive task.
32. Dealing with interruptions
Do you need to deal with the task
now?
• Keep your schedule close to
hand, could you …
• Do it later
• OR review and reorganise
after the interruption
#8
34. Say ‘no’
• empathy
• explain
• short
• clear and direct
• offer alternatives?
#10
35. Minimise your frustration:
• If you think a task will take
30 minutes, allocate 45
minutes.
• If there is spare time, rest
or start the next task
#11
Expect the unexpected
36. Buffer time
Be realistic – time management does
not take place in a vacuum
External factors:
• Friends and family
• Colleagues
• Supervisors
• Fixed deadlines
#12
37. Thinking time
Research involves thinking,
as well as reading and writing
etc.
Factor thinking time into your
schedule. Use it to:
• Write down the problems
you have
• What you do not
understand
• What you cannot
solve
#13
38. Have a routine
#14
Getting up
Nourishment
Hydration
Exercise
Affirmation and
visualisation
Daily journal
Going to bed
40. Avoid multitasking
• Work on one task at a
time
• Give each task 100%
(or 110% if you are
fan of XFactor)
#15
Multitasking makes us less productive. Multitasking makes most
people worse at filtering information and task switching .
Multitasking does not make people better at multitasking
Ophir, Nass, Wagner and Posner (2009)
41. Not-to-do list
I am not going to:
• work through lunch
• work later than …
• go on Facebook,
Instagram, Snapchat,
Twitter, Tinder …
• check my emails
• prioritise less important
tasks
• get Michael Jackson tattoo
#16
43. Timeboxing
• Allocate a set amount of
time (a timebox) for each
task
• Set timer and focus on that
task only
• At deadline, analyse
progress and move on to
next task
#18
44. Regular breaks
A person can perform at optimal
level for 45 minutes
Take a short break every 45
minutes to refresh yourself
• Eat or drink something
• Go for a walk
#19
Ariga and Lleras. (2011) Brief and rare mental 'breaks' keep
you focused: Deactivation and reactivation of task goals pre-
empt vigilance decrements.
45. Pomodoro technique
• 25 minute blocks (pomodoros)
• After 25 minutes, take a short
break (3 – 5 mins)
• After 4 pomodoros, take a longer
break (15 – 30 mins)
http://tomato-timer.com/
#20
46. Kanban principles
• visualise work
• limit the number of tasks
in progress
• pull work from column to
column
• monitor, adapt, improve
#21
50. Activity 5: Planning your workflow (part 3)
Now that you have mapped out your most to least
productive time of day. I want you to think about the
kind of activities that you would ideally like to work on
in these slots. For example …
LOW – answering emails, networking
MEDIUM – blogging, research journal
HIGH – writing academic papers, meeting supervisor
58. What we covered today:
Considered your own
strengths and weaknesses as
a time manager
Procrastinator
Perfectionist
Considered a number of time
management techniques
Time blocking
Visualisation
Routine
Prioritising
Productivity
Mental health
Physical health
General wellbeing
Completed simple time-blocking exercise
Family
Friends
Interests and hobbies
Other commitments
Importance of work life balance
59. Thank you:
All images used in this presentation have been used under
Creative Commons CC0 licensing terms. Most images have
been sourced from
Other images have been sourced from Wikimedia
Commons and are attributed to individuals on a per-slide
basis
Any other images are the presenter’s own or used with
permission
Editor's Notes
Before we start I would like everyone to stand up and then sit down exactly when you think a minute has passed
How accurate were you?
Do you think you would have more accurate if you were estimating a longer period of time?
Are you accurate in estimating how much you can get done in a set period of time?
Writing retreat
These can be
It may seem counter-intuitive to dedicate precious time to learning about time management, instead of using it to get on with your work, but the benefits are enormous:
Peter Drucker Management Guru/Consultant
It may be a truism that time = money. Although neither are the be all and end all of life, both enable freedom and choice. You will be pleased to know that I am not going to give you advice on managing money today – but I will be putting forward a few ideas about how to manage time.
Alfred A. Montapert: Supreme Philosophy of Man
You should now be able to identify the potentially usable time that you have available in a typical (indicative) week shown in red. Put this to one side we will return to it later.
Do you think you have more usable time or less than you thought you might have?
The next few slides will describe a number of time management techniques. Now, I am in no way suggesting that you implement all of them – you could easily get bogged down spending more time on the technique than the actual work itself. However, I want you to think about whether you could introduce some of these ideas into your workflow.
Try to minimise confusion, repetition, duplication
Mimics best-practice in many information systems design and theory, single source of truth (SSOT)
Specific. What exactly do you want to accomplish?
Measurable. How do you specifically measure success?
Attainable. Do you believe you can achieve it?
Realistic. Is it possible to achieve?
Time-sensitive. When is the deadline?
Delete it (aka don’t do it) – ask yourself how important is this task, What will happen if I don’t do this task? What are the consequences of the task not getting done? Can I live with consequences? If yes, not doing it is one of the options.
Defer it – Can it be done later? - What are consequences of delaying it? Would it be a matter of life and death? Is the task must do?
Delegate it (or part of it) – This does not mean that tell some one to do a task and than forget about it. This means taking full responsibility of the work but telling some one else to do it for you. At the same time, you will monitor it and ensure that desired results are achieved.
Diminish
Dissect it
Do now
You probably already understand your mental rhythms and how these relate to your energy levels. We have all heard people describe themselves as early birds or night owls. Perhaps, like my wife, your prime thinking time is early in the morning where you get your most productive work done. Or like me, where you can do anything apart from respond to emails until a second cup of coffee in the morning.
Manage energy levels rather than time
Returning to our calendar of productive time. Feel free to take another template
So you may be left with something like … this we will return to this again
The next few slides will describe a number of time management techniques. Now, I am in no way suggesting that you implement all of them – you could easily get bogged down spending more time on the technique than the actual work itself. However, I want you to think about whether you could introduce some of these ideas into your workflow.
So called “technostress”
Alton et al. (2014) found that interruptions as brief as 2.8 s disrupted participants' flow of concentration and led to increased errors on a sequence-based cognitive task.
Provides structure
Instils good habits
Builds momentum
Can increase efficiency
Routine good for mental health, disruption to routine “daily circadian rhythm” – sleep wake patterns
With a routine – you already have a ‘game plan’ – this doesn’t mean that every day needs to be the same of course
Tony Buzan
A mind map is a diagram used to visually organize information. A mind map is hierarchical and shows relationships among pieces of the whole. It is often created around a single concept, drawn as an image in the centre of a blank page,
The idea of time boxing comes from agile software development (RAD) and project management. The key idea is to define the task and not deviate – the task should be as simple as possible for example “write 500 words” the defined task should take precedence over other concerns such say “quality” – this helps curb perfectionist tendencies
Almost all studies on brain function and concentration agree that most people cease maintain levels of productivity after 50 -90 mins of continuous work
Developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s.
So four discrete tasks will have bee accomplished in a 2 hour period
Kanban means signboard or billboard in Japanese.
Kanban is a scheduling system developed to improve manufacturing efficiency at Toyota where scheduling of tasks is based on demand.
Boards are used to visualise the flow of work
Online Kanban tool – Kanban Flow is free and can be quite useful in managing projects for deadlines
So far we have looked at the principles of time management using a typical week as an example. However, your SAGEX Early Stage Researcher position lasts 36 months.
This morning we have only talked about a few simple time management techniques, and the exercises that I have asked you to do have been about managing a working week. Obviously, your SAGEX experience lasts 36 months so planning on a week by week basis would be too reactive.
You will be asked at some point to create a research plan. The project management of your SAGEX time is really beyond what we can consider today however I thought I would just introduce you to a few options for planning out your time on a medium to longer term basis.
A good place to start is with the kind of negative time planning exercise – block out busy times in order to reveal available time
Managing your time
Research students are often required to produce what is called a Gantt chart