Walking the Tightrope: Making Time for Online Education
Posted by Jennifer Buchholz on January 27th, 2009
Time management is an oxymoron. We don’t manage our time, we manage our tasks to fit the time available. In doing so, we often are trying to fit more tasks into that finite amount of time.
When I started school, I convinced myself that it was the perfect timing. I was young(er), single, no kids, settled in a job, etc. My plan was that I would start and finish my PhD by the time I was 30 (in 2003).
I was determined not to let school get in the way of my life - I didn’t want to change any habits. I still wanted to work full time (plus overtime), hang out with my friends, date, spend time with family, etc. I actually didn’t talk much about being in school, keeping it quiet meant that it wasn’t intruding into anything.
I found that I was able to plan ahead for my classes. I often spent lunch hours doing reading or participating in online class discussions. That way I was able to enjoy my free time.
As time went on, school took up more time. I found that when the end of the term came, I needed to take 1-2 days off work to finish the final projects for the term. That process actually worked well for a while.
I really needed (and appreciated) the structure of the coursework. I needed deadlines.
As time went on and I progressed, the work became less structured and required more self-discipline. That’s where I’ve fallen short. It is now 2009. I finished my comprehensive exam in 2006 and officially became a PhD candidate. For the last 2-3 years, I’ve been working on TDD (That Damn Dissertation). The self-paced nature of this work has been a real challenge for me, and I hope to make significant progress with this throughout this year.
I would encourage everyone to become aware of how you best accomplish tasks and try to make the most of your time.
Tags: children, phd, Time Management
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Student Voices, Time Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
