Do, delay, delegate or dump

The key to effective time management is to prioritise and plan so that everything essential and important gets done. A useful strategy is to use the following matrix to help you to make decisions about what to do.

Do delay delegate dump

So whenever you are given a task to do, or notice something that might be relevant to your research mentally file it in one of these categories.

Do: What you are going to prioritise right now.
The list in this box should get smaller as you get better at time management. 

Delay: Things that don't need to be done immediately, but that are still important.
You should always keep an eye on this list to prevent things getting urgent. 

Delegate: Things that you can give to someone else.
Remember that you don't have to do everything (even it if interesting). 

Dump: Things that you don't need to do or aren't important.
Throw these jobs away and forget about them. There is no point in worrying about something that you will never do.

Make a list of all the things you have to do and put them in one of these categories. The most common problem is failing to differentiate between urgent and important! To determine the importance of a task think about whether it is helping you to achieve the aims of your doctorate - if not, should you be doing it? Who is it important to: should they be doing it?

The real skill in time management is to do the important things before they become urgent: i.e. plan never to have anything in the ‘DO' box! You should always be working on the ‘DELAY' box.