Better Productivity at Research/Work

A lot of time in research or work, we procrastinate a lot. I found these wonderful advices on how to avoid it, which I find it useful myself (and some of it counter intuitive).

26 Time Management Hacks I Wish I'd Known at 20 from Etienne Garbugli @egarbugli

What I find really true and useful in the above slides are as follows:

1. Plan 4-5 hours of real work. The truth is research sometimes can be frustrating and you just want to go do something else. In the end, you don't get to work 8 hours a day. But if you make yourself work for 4 hours a day, you will eventually get enough momentum to work 8 hours a day (sometimes)!
2. I really like the idea of turning multitasking in multiple sequential task. In fact, this is what I usually do. If you try to switch between tasks, you will need to spend some time to remind what you were doing earlier, especially technical tasks. By solving task sequentially, you eliminate this waste of time.
3. A big message in the slides is to set (time) constraints on the tasks you have on hand. You really want to do this in research because it is a long term work and it is easy to lose the sense of urgency. Split up your research into smaller portion so that you can set deadline on those smaller tasks.
4. "Doing is better than perfect". This phrase is very true! In research, we procrastinate a lot by finding excuses like "I don't really know much about this topic. Let me read more on it". The truth is - you don't have so much time as you think you have. So start working on the problem once you roughly know what to do.
5. Prioritize your tasks. As a grad student, you might to do research, course work and TA at the same time. It might be tough to accomplish all of them but you will do better if you prioritize your tasks!

Well, I hope you find this useful and you can apply them to your daily life as a grad student. Cheers!