What are the best time management strategies for research?

Set clear goals and priorities, and schedule your time accordingly. Break down large tasks into smaller, more manageable ones, and set realistic deadlines.

Gantt charts can be invaluable to researchers, particularly those who are pursuing a research degree that may include program-level milestones among the project milestones. Remember to set realistic rather than aspirational due dates, and to account for the time it takes for supervisors to return feedback.

Definitely decide on a detailed file naming system before you collect data. And be consistent with it. Something specific and searchable (example: name_study_instrument_read1_xyz_MMDDYYYY.file) will save you time. Create a data dictionary, if you can. Additionally, practice good data hygiene and automatically back up your data.

Some of the most common practices for time-management in research include the 20-80 rule. This can be applied to getting to the first draft within the determined timeline by parametrizing the research volume to the most important items to avoid scope creep. Factor in time for revisions after receiving feedback or self-evaluation to make sure your outcome is aligned to the scope.

The nonlinear process can be frustrating at times, because it can cloud any feelings of progress. Having semi-weekly meetings with supportive peers and mentors where you explicitly state your goals and what you've accomplished so far can provide insight, perspective, and a morale boost. But also accept that your time is finite and needs to be allocated judiciously among all your projects, not just the most interesting ones!

Real life happens. If you are a research student, and circumstances arise that make it impossible for you to work on your project for a time, have the conversation with your supervisors and with the professional staff in your grad school. There will almost always be mechanisms available to you that afford you the time you need in which to deal with whatever is going on. Communicating that early so those mechanisms can be deployed is infinitely easier (and less stressful) than having progress management processes imposed by your grad school without discussion or the opportunity for flexibility.

Time management is everything. I always remember the advise from a colleague: if you decide to commit half of the week, that means Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday's morning. You have to literally follow your commitment.

Be assertive and take good care of yourself. I have burned myself out when I was a research student simply because I didn’t learn to say “no”. Yes, your supervisor can be very kind to you and offer loads of opportunities, but too many opportunities are not always the best way forward.

Write, write and write. Do not think try to make the first draft your perfect draft that is void of errors. Write what is coming to your mind. Yes, we need to spend some time on thinking, which is also part of the writing process. But write it somewhere, your random throughts are also part of the process, jot them down!

Going bite size may help. Sometime, research can be a very lonely process because once you've identified what you want to research, everybody heads home and begins their journey. Do set up a checkpoint with peers to return for a discussion. The class ends which left only you and your supervisor eventually. When it comes to research, don't be greedy, there will always be tons of material that fits the bill. Do not chew on something too big to swallow, go bite size, dissect your research, reassemble for analysis, do not over burn yourself. Make correction on relevancy. It will also be helpful to the supervisor that he/she doesn't get one big chunk of writings to go through. Bite size research helps me not to go out of point from time to time.

Write & review and continue this process till you feel it is the best. Ask people around for peer review and make changes accordingly. Stay calm and respect opinions.

1. First decide the project development approach ( waterfall, agile or hybrid). 2. Use expert judgements, meetings, historical information etc to gain some preliminiary knowledge on schedule development. 3. Than define, sequence and estimate the activity duration using various tools and techniques like PERT, critical path analysis, analogous estimation, parametric estimation etc. 4. Develop a schedule network diagram including leads and lags. 5. Discuss your schedule management plan with the management for any changes. 6. Changes are common in research projects. Manage and control your schedule management plan accordingly. Most importantly, all team members and other key stakeholders should involve during this process

What you manage is not your time but your attention, your focus, and energy. Stay focused, recharge regularly, and relax when you need to.