As part of my role as an academic editor and coach, I provide productivity coaching to faculty and PhD students in similar circumstances to yours. The majority of full-time and even part-time faculty deal with the kinds of stressors and demands that you mention. I'll share some of the strategies that have worked for my clients.
First, physical and mental health need to be prioritized routinely, because everything else depends on them. There needs to be a block for these on your daily and weekly schedules, and they need to become automatic habits that you rarely sacrifice. Treat them as nonnegotiable. The main components are sleep, exercise, nutrition, and at least one daily dose of enjoyable activities and relaxation. Some people might also consider a spiritual practice important.
A common human tendency is that we take care of whatever is salient and pressing in the present moment. This is hard-wired into the brain as a survival mechanism, but it doesn't work well for present-day careers because there are silent things lurking in the background that can make or break your career. A common problem is that teaching tends to get most of the time and attention because you don't have a choice about it: it must get done on schedule and it involves a commitment to others. Then research gets put on the back burner, even though research is essential for tenure. So it's critical to be aware of both short-term and long-term demands and have a system for managing them.
I use written life-management plans with my clients. These should be divided into long-term plans (5 years or more), this year, this month, and today. If you rigorously derive each plan from the one before it, when you get up each day you will have a plan for the day that is automatically tied to your true long-term plan. So since research is of course on your 5-year plan, it will appear somewhere on your plan for this week.
Next, an accountability mechanism is needed, whether it's your private accountability or reporting to someone like a coach. This could be as simple as crossing things off your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly plans. But you also need to frequently revisit these plans to see where things stand and adjust your productivity strategies to meet target goals. Reporting to another person for accountability is very powerful, whether a friend, colleague, coach, or peer group. I’ve seen instant improvement in procrastinators when they elect to send me a daily or weekly report on their progress, especially when they also send me a plan at the beginning of the week.
Your weekly schedule is especially important. Set this up on Sunday evening. Ask yourself, “Where do I want to end up by the end of next week?” Commit to specific results by the end of the week, and reserve a block for each task on your schedule.
Personally, I create these schedules in Microsoft Word, print them out, and keep them in a 3-ring binder in a place that becomes a “command center” that I return to frequently throughout the day to see what’s next. There are numerous apps that can serve the same purpose.
Nothing in your post indicates that you’re a procrastinator. It sounds like you’re trying to squeeze extra hours out of your week after meeting the most urgent demands of your job. One way to do this is to track your time use for a few days and scrutinize the results to identify any activities or habits that are sapping your time and that you have control over. Some things to watch for include email, social media, commuting, and time lost transitioning from one activity to the next. Can you combine things like commuting and preparing for classes? Would research collaborations with colleagues allow for the burden of tasks to be shared? Can any teaching or research tasks be delegated to assistants? Are there any nonessential committees that you can let go of after a reasonable period of contributing? Are there department or university duties that you can just say no to? You may need to learn to turn down service requests that aren’t strictly required by your department. Try to put your time into the things that will have the greatest payoffs for your career: presenting at a conference would be a better choice than serving on the student residence committee. For parents, the availability of childcare and a spouse’s willingness to share parenting and household tasks are big factors in your available time, so try to negotiate those.
Regarding tenure, list the requirements and assign a deadline to each one. In the US, the requirements might be three published papers and one published book. Break down each large task into a series of smaller ones and assign a target date to each one. A book usually can’t be written in less than one year. Working with an editor on papers and books right from the initial planning stage will result in a better final product in less time.
The goal of these systems and planning is to end up with fairly large blocks of time that can be devoted to less pressing yet still critical tasks. For most scholars, the big challenge is research time. Smaller blocks of time can be carved out each day, often in the evening, but this isn’t ideal because by then you may be exhausted, especially if you’re a parent. Larger blocks can be created on weekends. Some people are able to arrange their teaching schedule to have entire midweek days for research. Even larger blocks can be created during vacations, during summer breaks, and by taking a longer leave from work or year-long sabbatical. Applying for grants to finance these leaves will help.
I want to stress again that regardless of the strategies and schedule you chose, you should never lose sight of yourself as a whole person and of the necessity of taking the best possible care of yourself as a whole organism. If you’re always stressed, exhausted, and discouraged, what’s the point of all the effort? There have to be large rewards at the end––the satisfaction of work you really enjoy, a feeling of being in control of your life, time for family, friends, and activities you enjoy outside your work, etc. Consider your happiness as essential for your career success, not as something you must postpone for later, “when I have more time.”
