Prodded by several comments, I have finally decided to write up some my thoughts on time management here. I actually have been drafting something about this subject for a while, but I soon realised that my own experience with time management is still very much a work in progress (you should see my backlog of papers that need writing up) and I don’t yet have a coherent or definitive philosophy on this topic (other than my advice on writing papers, for instance my page on rapid prototyping). Also, I can only talk about my own personal experiences, which probably do not generalise to all personality types or work situations, though perhaps readers may wish to contribute their own thoughts, experiences, or suggestions in the comments here. [I should also add that I don’t always follow my own advice on these matters, often to my own regret.]
I can maybe make some unorganised comments, though. Firstly, I am very lucky to have some excellent collaborators who put a lot of effort into our joint papers; many of the papers appearing recently on this blog, for instance, were to a large extent handled by co-authors. Generally, I find that papers written in collaboration take longer than singly-authored papers, but the net effort expended per author is significantly less (and the quality of writing higher). Also, I find that I can work on many joint papers in parallel (since the ball is often in another co-author’s court, or is pending some other development), but only on one single-authored paper at a time.
[For reasons having to do with the academic calendar, many more of these papers get finished during the summer than any other time of year, but many of these projects have actually been gestating for quite some time. (There should be a joint paper appearing shortly which we have been working on for about three or four years, for instance; and I have been thinking about the global regularity problem for wave maps problem on and off (mostly off) since about 2000.) So a paper being released every week does not actually correspond to a week being the time needed to conceive and then write up a paper; there is in fact quite a long pipeline of development which mostly happens out of public view.]
Another thing is that my ability to do any serious mathematics fluctuates greatly from day to day; sometimes I can think hard on a problem for an hour, other times I feel ready to type up the full details of a sketch that I or my coauthors already wrote, and other times I only feel qualified to respond to email and do errands, or just to take a walk or even a nap. I find it very helpful to organise my time to match this fluctuation: for instance, if I have a free afternoon, and feel inspired to do so, I might close my office door, shut off the internet, and begin typing on a languishing paper; or if not, I go and work on a week’s worth of email, referee a paper, write a blog article, or whatever else seems suited to my current levels of energy and enthusiasm. It is fortunate in mathematics that a large fraction of one’s work (with the notable exception of teaching, which one then has to build one’s schedule around) can be flexibly moved from one time slot to another in this manner. [A corollary to this is that one should deal with tasks before they become so urgent that they have to be done immediately, thus disrupting one’s time flexibility.]
It helps a lot here to be able to honestly and accurately evaluate your work potential (a function of your location, your current level of motivation and energy, your upcoming duties and commitments, availability of resources, and the expected level of distraction) for a given period of time into the future (e.g. the rest of the day): being either overconfident or underconfident about what you can achieve leads to taking on either more or less than you can properly handle, both of which lead to inefficiencies (I have learned both sides of this from direct experience).
While I have a large number of things on my “to do” list, at various levels of complexity, difficulty, and length, when it comes to any task requiring dedicated thought, I try to focus on it exclusively, postponing or shutting out everything else; I find that multitasking only works for me when none of the tasks requires more than a fraction of my attention (in particular, it seems to work best when I am not inspired to do any one particular task). Quite often, these tasks take longer to complete than I have the energy, time, or patience for, in which case one has to find a natural break point (e.g. proving a key lemma in a paper that one is writing up, or writing down a full sketch of some idea that just came up in conversation or on the blackboard or scratch paper) where one can safely set the task aside and forget about it for a while, and be able to resume later without losing one’s place. The thing to avoid is to drop a task when it is only partially finished, without any good “closure”; it then either gets lost, or weighs on one’s mind and prevents one from fully thinking about something else, or has to be redone from an earlier point when one picks it up again. But one doesn’t have to finish each task off completely as it comes, as long as it can be picked up later. A mundane example: when I get around to writing physical letters (usually a low priority, when I don’t feel ready to do serious mathematics), I type them, print them out, seal them in an envelope, and then deposit them in my “out” tray, but I generally don’t mail them (or process any other paperwork in my out tray) until it piles up and I have nothing better to do, at which point I go out and deal with all of it at once. [I find that a particularly good time for doing this is when my computer needs to reboot or is somehow not easily usable.]
More generally, tasks that require little concentration seem to be best done in batches if possible, while tasks that require a lot of concentration seem to be best done individually, with as few distractions as one can manage.
Related to the point about “closure” is the desirability of being able to chop up an extremely long task into smaller, self-contained ones, ideally each with its own immediate “payoff”. To give one example: I doubt I would ever attempt to write (let alone finish) the equivalent of my 19 or so lectures on the Poincaré conjecture if I had decided to write one enormous article or monograph rather than 19 reasonably manageable and self-supporting shorter pieces. (It helped also to “paint myself into a corner” a little bit here by announcing the lectures in advance, and building up some momentum, to stop myself from abandoning the project half-way.)
[One very nice thing about modern text editors, including the one on this blog, is that it is very easy to save a draft at some intermediate stage and flesh it out or polish it later, which greatly assists the task of writing long papers by chopping up this task into a sequence of much smaller tasks, as discussed above. I am quite impressed by mathematicians from before the computer era who were able to meticulously write out high-quality papers and even books; even with good secretarial support, I would find this extremely difficult to do myself.]
It also makes good sense to invest a serious amount of time and effort into learning any skill that you are likely to use repeatedly in the future. A good example in mathematics is LaTeX: if you plan to write a lot of papers, it makes sense to go beyond the bare minimum of skill needed to jerry-rig whatever you need to write your paper, and go out and seriously learn how to make tables, figures, arrays, etc. Recently I’ve been playing with using prerecorded macros to type out a standard block of LaTeX code (e.g. \begin{theorem} … \end{theorem} \begin{proof} … \end{proof}) in a few keystrokes; the actual time saved per instance is probably minimal, but it presumably adds up over time, and in any event feels like you’re being efficient, which is good for morale (which becomes important when writing a long paper).
There are also many situations in which it makes tactical sense to defer, delay, delegate, or procrastinate on any given task, and go work on something else instead in the meantime; not everything is equally important, and also a given task may in fact become much easier (and be completed in a much better way) if one waits for one’s own skills to get stronger, or for other events to happen that reduce the importance or need for the task in the first place. My current papers on wave maps, for instance, have been delayed for years, much to my own personal frustration, but in retrospect I can see that it was actually a good idea to let those papers sit for a while, as the project as I had originally conceived it was a technical nightmare, and it really was necessary to wait for the technology and understanding in the field to improve before being able to tackle it in a relatively civilised manner. [Perhaps this very article on time management is an example of this, also. There are also a number of other draft articles hidden in this blog that I felt were not quite working at the time, and are awaiting some further inspiration to complete. It seems that not every idea or topic for an article necessarily leads to a viable end product; cf. “use the wastebasket“.]
My final suggestion is to pick some sort of organisational system and make a real effort to stick to it; a half-hearted system is probably worse than no system at all. [A corollary to this is not to try to make an overly ambitious system ab nihilo that one is unlikely to follow faithfully; it is probably better to let such systems evolve over time.] I have my own system involving a PDA synchronised to my laptop, my email account, some in trays, out trays, and other designated spots in my office, and a “reserved” blackboard, that probably only I can understand completely, and I don’t think I can even explain it properly here, but I’m used to it now and it seems to work well enough (though I sure hope nobody ever erases that blackboard!). The choice of system though is presumably a very personal matter and I wouldn’t be able to advise on what would work best for anyone other than myself. But I do find that such systems free up a lot of memory; if I don’t have to worry about what I’m supposed to be doing at 3pm on Tuesday, or what work needs to be done on X, Y, and Z for purposes A, B, and C, I can devote more of my attention to trying to understand a mathematical argument, or proving a tricky lemma, or whatever else I need to work on. [I also find it psychologically satisfying to be able to physically cross off an item from my organisational system, which can be a useful motivation when one feels otherwise uninspired to deal with something.] On the other hand, one should not obsess too much about such systems; as a rule of thumb, I would say to devote about 1-5% of your productive time to time management, and 95-99% of your productive time to actual work.
Oh, and one final disclaimer: sometimes one should abandon one’s own rules and allow for serendipity. There have been many times, for instance, when I had planned to work on something during my lunch hour (grabbing something quick to eat), when I was interrupted by a colleague or visitor to go out to eat. It has often happened that I got a lot more out of that lunch (mathematically or otherwise) than I would have back at the office, though not in the way I would have anticipated. And it was more enjoyable, too. (Similarly with skipping talks at conferences (or skipping conferences altogether) to go work on one’s own papers, etc.)
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5 July, 2009 at 6:06 am
Ronald Hell
“…my own experience with time management is still very much a work in progress…”
I think, that there are as many time management systems as people using time management, and from my own experience, I agree, it is a work in progress, getting better and more effective with time (however sometimes worse).
Using time management not too overearnest:
“…[I should also add that I don’t always follow my own advice on these matters, often to my own regret.]…”
“…There are also many situations in which it makes tactical sense to defer, delay, delegate, or procrastinate on any given task, and go work on something else instead in the meantime; not everything is equally important, and also a given task may in fact become much easier (and be completed in a much better way) if one waits for one’s own skills to get stronger, or for other events to happen that reduce the importance or need for the task in the first place…”
Many of the strict rules of advanced time management systems do not fit every bodies needs, consistent use of a suitable and even simple system has a lot of positive effects.
“My final suggestion is to pick some sort of organisational system and make a real effort to stick to it; … [A corollary to this is not to try to make an overly ambitious system ab nihilo that one is unlikely to follow faithfully; it is probably better to let such systems evolve over time.]”
The Yield Hill Theory on Time Management supports this statement. There exists a point, where managing more costs more time than time gained.
“…Another thing is that my ability to do any serious mathematics fluctuates greatly from day to day; sometimes I can think hard on a problem for an hour, other times I feel ready to type up the full details of a sketch…”
Doesn’t this experience from real life show, that planning and scheduling strictly, ignores bad shape of a time management user, which never can be taken into account when making plans for a week, for example. So time management use is a highly dynamic process. Mastering this art primarily is not by following 17 rules 101 tips and 50 laws.
“The choice of system though is presumably a very personal matter … But I do find that such systems free up a lot of memory; if I don’t have to worry about what I’m supposed to be doing … I can devote more of my attention to trying to understand a mathematical argument, … or whatever else I need to work on. [I also find it psychologically satisfying to be able to physically cross off an item from my organisational system, which can be a useful motivation when one feels otherwise uninspired to deal with something.]”
Crossing off in the right manner really provides psychological advantages and allows for an ordering means, that doesn’t need to arrange pending tasks in a special manner, just write them down according to some simple guidelines and skim the do do list repeatedly.
The final wisdom
“Oh, and one final disclaimer: sometimes one should abandon one’s own rules and allow for serendipity.”
That’s the essence – allow for freedom among all your duties. Don’t forget, that you are living.
Regards
Ronald
7 July, 2009 at 2:36 pm
John
Dear Terry,
In regards to converting your blog posts to LaTeX format….how do you change the ‘$latex ‘ tags into the dollar sign tags? I know Texter allows you to type in the hotstrings……but how do allow it to change the hotstrings if you copy and paste them as opposed to typing them?
Thanks
John
29 September, 2009 at 3:57 am
Joe
Terence,
Nice writeup. The last note about serendipity is pretty important. Based on keeping such an organized life, I sometimes crave that aspect of life. It seems that every once in a while, I take a vacation from my planning, just to feel the randomness. I’m assuming now that like others, this is common. Maybe I should plan that in to my schedule.
Thanks,
Joe
<a href=”http://www.thetimemanagementform.com”>The Time Management Forum </a>
24 December, 2009 at 9:05 pm
25-Dec-2009 | MohanArun.com
[…] Terry Tao on time management – Link. […]
28 December, 2009 at 8:21 am
Alan
Thank you for this information I found it most useful time managment is essential in todays hectic world
8 June, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Jason Smith of Time Management
Great site!
Success comes to those people who can manage their time according to their priorities. It is due to the fact that they can finish doing important tasks at a certain period of time without rushing things and without becoming reckless.
24 July, 2010 at 5:03 pm
2Time: Time Management 2.0
What strikes me is that whatever time management system one develops has to be flexible enough to grow and change over time, especially with the availability of new technology such as smartphones.
Also, as time demands increase (as they have for most people with the availability of email,) it’s impossible to use the old techniques that worked when one only received 10 messages per day.
What’s needed is a flexible system that can grow — in this sense, time management is not a one time lesson, but a set of techniques that need to be evolved over time, not just to keep up but also in order to stay ahead.
6 September, 2010 at 6:24 am
Student
Dear Prof. Tao,
I am a graduate student, but I am still not sure about if I should work the seven days of the week or not.
At the moment, I work around 6 hours on Sunday but I dont work on Saturdays.
In general, I feel that if I work on Saturdays I get mentally tired in the middle of the week.
I also like it because I can use saturdays to do other supporting activities such as laundry, supermarket, clean the house, ….
Do you think that it is a good strategy to take one day off every week ?
Best,
14 September, 2010 at 11:15 am
Glenn
I disagree with the whole concept of time management – check out my blog post why
http://www.beasuccessfulentrepreneur.com/successful-entrepreneurs-manage-themselves-in-time
Glenn “Build A Business That Serves Your Life”
21 September, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Student
Dear Terry,
Do you have any thoughts if it is optimal to rest one day a week or not ?
It is hard to know when the work amount is overkilling.
Thanks
21 September, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Terence Tao
I’m not sure that this is really the right question to be asking; as the cliche goes, it’s not how many hours you put into your work that counts, but how much work you are getting out of each hour.
As I said in the main post, I find that I sometimes do not have the energy or motivation to do research, and so instead do errands or simply rest; I don’t designate any particular day for these purposes, but adapt my schedule according to my current and anticipated level of energy and focus. But what works for me might not necessarily be suitable for others.
5 September, 2012 at 11:02 am
rgrig
How do you maximize the (expected) level of energy and focus?
25 January, 2013 at 10:19 pm
Umar
Energy: Good food, health, exercise.
Focus: Less stress, anger etc. Have frequent breaks.
10 October, 2010 at 7:10 am
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29 November, 2010 at 11:14 pm
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26 December, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Timothy
Dear Terry,
Do you tend to look at time going forwards or backwards? In other words, do you look at the “time left” in doing a task to provide some psychological boost?
20 January, 2011 at 8:01 am
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11 February, 2011 at 5:30 am
Tessa
Yes time management is the key factor in all works. And as a project manager you must get the things done within deadline.
In order to maintain the time management in my project, I’m using the free project planning software called PlanningForce Express Planner ( http://www.planningforce-express.com/free-planning-software.php )
It would be helpful :)
3 April, 2011 at 5:48 am
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[…] of the best time management article for academic purposes can be found here at https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/on-time-management/ […]
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19 March, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Dfrtx
Hello Terry,
I’m currently a young, amateur mathematician and an aspiring professional one. I’ve learned loads from this!
Thanks a lot for your thoughts =)
10 June, 2012 at 6:01 pm
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[…] There will of course be times when one is too frustrated, fatigued, or otherwise not motivated to work on one’s current project. This is perfectly normal, and trying to force oneself to keep at that project can become counterproductive after a while. I find that it helps to have a number of smaller projects (or perhaps some non-mathematical errands) to have at hand when I am unwilling for whatever reason to work on my major projects; conversely, if I get bored with these smaller tasks, I can often convince myself to then tackle one of my bigger ones. See also my thoughts on time management. […]
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1 April, 2014 at 5:22 pm
ilovesweetpiggy
Reblogged this on ilovesweetpiggy.
25 July, 2014 at 9:11 pm
mathtuition88
Reblogged this on Singapore Maths Tuition and commented:
Terence Tao (Famous Mathematician and Field’s Medalist) on advice on time management. Suitable for students too!
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[…] Probably the single most useful skill I’ve learned is to be more aware of my current state (energy level, focus, sleepiness, hunger, emotional state) and try to choose work appropriate for (doable in) that state. For more thoughts on this idea, I recommend the advice given by Terry Tao here: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/on-time-management/ […]
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Reblogged this on ressonliao.
26 April, 2016 at 8:28 pm
Anonymous
Emacs Org-Mode works well for time-management
14 February, 2018 at 3:41 pm
Anonymous
time management post, I discussed how technology will be my biggest distraction. I made a plan of action on how I would easily be able to manage that. I came up with a study plan, to solely focus on my assignments and any course work, it’s been easy to follow it because of my work schedule, which doesn’t change. Technology was a huge distraction in the beginning so I was forced to turn it off or keep my phone away from me. Now it’s a little easier, when my phone goes off, I don’t have that itch to reach for it. I can even have my television on low, if I do notice it’s distracting me, I’ll either change the channel to something less interesting, or turn it off.
2 June, 2019 at 2:37 pm
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26 August, 2021 at 11:51 am
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[…] There will of course be times when one is too frustrated, fatigued, or otherwise not motivated to work on one’s current project. This is perfectly normal, and trying to force oneself to keep at that project can become counterproductive after a while. I find that it helps to have a number of smaller projects (or perhaps some non-mathematical errands) to have at hand when I am unwilling for whatever reason to work on my major projects; conversely, if I get bored with these smaller tasks, I can often convince myself to then tackle one of my bigger ones. See also my thoughts on time management. […]
5 April, 2022 at 9:55 am
Aditya Guha Roy
I would also like to add a strategy which Kakutani followed and invented. He used to take multiple copies of prints of documents, where the number of copies he printed depends on the importance of the document to him. Then he used to scatter them across his office. By doing so he ensured a higher theoretical probability of finding important documents.
5 April, 2022 at 10:11 am
Anonymous
It would also be interesting to know the time management strategies used by Erdos.
5 April, 2022 at 11:38 am
Aditya Guha Roy
In my opinion Paul Erdos was by far the most productive person the world has ever seen. He worked on so many problems simultaneously, and it is widely believed that Erdos could retain precise details of papers he wrote as long as say 5 years back. Of course we know his time management technique: he removed all the burdens of non-mathematical things from top of his shoulders; he had no home he did not sign up for a permanent post at any university, he just solved problems and did mathematics and I believe that this despite being one of the most valuable strategies is a really tough one to choose.