1. INTRODUCTION

Managing time is crucial to maintaining a fulfilling and happy career. Women, in particular, need to be able to balance the demands of work against the needs of family. Here are some strategies to help you do so. Keep in mind that your own personal style will be the major factor in figuring out what methods are most effective for you. Also, many of the following tips took years to realize.

There are two kinds of strategies for managing your time: one helps you cram more into the time you have and the other helps you get rid of things so that you have less to do. Both will help you use your time more effectively.

1.1 PRIORITIZE

In a well-known book, How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, Alan Lakein suggests organizing your list of things to do into categories A, B, and C--where A is really important, B is important, and C is everything else. When you prioritize your tasks you should be careful to think in terms of long-term goals. You may find that you don't get through each of these lists all of the time but your efforts will inevitably be spent on the more important tasks. Sometimes you'll work on the A list and discover that, at the end of the day, you haven't crossed anything off. Worse yet, maybe it's even grown. To stave off any feelings of frustration you might want to refer to your B and C lists; finishing off a couple tasks from these lists, though not as satisfying as finishing a really important task, will nevertheless make you feel like you accomplished something.

When you work on something from the A list you might find that it is somehow related to other tasks in your lists. Find innovative ways to incorporate your work from one task to another. For instance, if you write a paper and need to start writing a grant proposal, you might be able to steal some introductory prose from your paper.

1.2 DELEGATE

This is another effective strategy. You can delegate responsibilities in both your professional life and your personal life. This is probably one of the hardest things for people to learn because it means admitting that someone else might be able to do something almost as well as you could. The key is to figure out when you should delegate and to whom should you delegate.

Professionally, make good use of secretaries and staff. Be friendly and respectful towards these people; they will save you, time and time again. You'll find that your secretary might be better at maintaining grade records or creating spreadsheets than you are. Your secretary can also screen your visitors.

Your graduate students are another group you can delegate to. Your TAs can proctor exams, give review sessions, and grade homework. Your RAs can take care of submitting papers and help with reviewing papers. Not only does having your graduate students do this type of work save you a lot of time, it is great training for them, too. Keeping them in the dark about writing grant proposals and reviewing papers can only hurt them.

Surprisingly, delegating work to undergraduates can work out very well too. Some universities have students employed as "work-study" students. They're cheap and they do everything you ask them to do--you give them a list, they go to the library, the Xerox all the articles you listed, and then they bring the copies back. And quickly, too.

You can delegate a number of responsibilities in your personal life as well. Relinquish some of the household duties to your spouse. Sometimes this is difficult to do, but if you can be comfortable with it, sharing the responsibilities of child care and housework will ease the burden on your time. Of course, both of you might be enormously busy. In that case you might consider throwing some money at the problems. If you can pay someone to do something--washing the laundry, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, plowing the driveway--pay them. Consider hiring a nanny--choosing selectively, of course--to do some household work and to care for your children. Finding a good daycare is also important. If you skimp on finding a daycare you can be comfortable with, you'll spend your work day worrying about your children.

1.3 GET ORGANIZED

Scheduling can be particularly effective because you set a lot of deadlines for yourself and you limit the amount of time you spend on particular projects. Depending on how comfortable you are with scheduling, you might want to consider quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily schedules. They can take a long time to create, but if you follow them, they can be invaluable tools to manage your time.

Mix up the types of things you schedule for your day. It is easy to disregard your list of priorities when you are advising students and find that you've scheduled an entire day of these appointments. Leave yourself some time each day to deal with your own priorities. Try scheduling appointments in the morning only, or the afternoon only.

You might not be the sort of person who likes the rigidity of scheduling. Some amount of organization will probably help you manage your time though. Compromise by making daily schedules on alternating days. Being organized isn't an inherited ability; you can learn how to be organized with a little determination and consistency.

1.3.1 HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

This is a difficult thing to do but, over time, you should be able to estimate time fairly. And it is an essential skill when it comes to scheduling. If you badly gauge how long something is going to take your whole schedule falls apart. How long did it take you to make your last test? Can you cut that time down a little the next time you make one? You begin to converge upon a rough estimate and you use it the next time you schedule some time for yourself to make a test.

The first time you prepare for a lecture will take an inordinate amount of time. Once you have taught the course a few times preparation won't take so long, of course. Initially, trying to figure out what is important to the class, what points to bring up, and in what order to discuss them can take up a lot of time. The time you take preparing depends on how familiar you are with the material, if you've taught it before, and how long ago you taught it. Preparation can range wildly from six or seven hours per lecture for a class you're teaching cold to 45 minutes for a class you've taught recently. Looking at other resources--like another professor's syllabus for the class you're teaching--can help enormously.

When you make your schedule, it is imperative that you allot yourself enough time to adhere to the schedule. Let's say you prepare your lecture the night before class. You get it done at 9 o'clock. But you need to make some transparencies--and the class is first thing in the morning. So you spend 20 minutes doing the secretary's job because you couldn't possibly have gotten the notes to her in time for her to do her job. And that's 20 minutes you could have been spending with your family, or writing a report.

1.3.2 CRISIS MODE

This is a technique that will definitely not work for everyone because it actually increases the amount of tension in your life. If you find yourself finishing a paper a week before it's due and then spending that extra week fooling with innocuous little details like fonts and line spacing, you may want to try to time how long it takes you to write a paper, subtract that time from the deadline, and start the paper on that date. This can be nerve-wracking because it doesn't allow for the anticipation of your son getting sick the week your paper's due but it will enable you to save some time. And some people work particularly well under pressure.

1.3.3 OFFICE ORGANIZATION

Keeping projects separate and organized makes them accessible to you. One way to do this is to use separate baskets or file folders for each project. You can do this with information you have on each student you advise, too. For any given project or student all the material is in the right place. This will help you work more efficiently.

1.3.4 HANDLING MAIL

Having a system for incoming mail--postal and electronic--can be enormously helpful. Organizing mail in piles or directories will help you keep track of important mail. You can also mark you mail so you know that you need to respond to it. Don't read mail that you know isn't important. Beware, particularly, of e-mail. E-mail can take over your life. You could do nothing all day but respond to e-mail. Turn off all the alerts that tell you that you've gotten new mail. This in itself can be greatly distracting. Try not to let it build up; read it once and either throw it away or do something about it. One strategy to manage your enormous e-mail flow is to take a big chunk of it, compress it, and save it elsewhere. If you don't need to decompress it in a year, throw it out.

1.3.5 EXTENSIONS

Don't be afraid to ask for extensions. Often, people will accept submissions to conferences up to a week late. You don't want to rely heavily on extensions but sometimes it is a good idea to ask. Also, find out if it is absolutely necessary for the paper to arrive on the deadline date--or if it is all right for it to be postmarked on the deadline date. Keep in mind which deadlines might be flexible and which ones definitely are not, and note these on your schedules. Proposal deadlines are usually rigid.

1.4 STAY FOCUSED

You have to stay focused both in the short-term and the long-term. In the short-term, you have to stay focused on what you are doing immediately. Since you are going to have a lot of different things to do in a day, it is helpful to learn how to switch contexts quickly. You don't want to mistake thrashing back and forth between tasks (e.g., you start working on a paper and suddenly think,"What am I going to say in class this afternoon?" so you switch over to class preparation, whereupon you think,"I have a committee meeting in half an hour," so you switch over to that and, ultimately, you fail to get anything done) for being able to focus on a task, finish it, leave it alone, and start another task. Minimize distractions and pay attention to what you have at hand.

When you are approaching a deadline you might want to modify your daily routine to accommodate your need for focus: scan the subject line of your e-mail for critical messages and ignore all others until your deadline passes, ignore unessential tasks, etc.

Focus on your long-term goals as well. It's easy to go to work early, work hard all day, and not make the slightest progress in terms of your career. Have multiple time-frames in mind. You have to pay attention to what you need to get done this semester, this year, and over the next three years. What long-term projects and papers do you need to finish to accomplish your goals? On occasion, step back and look at the big picture. Are you spending your time on the things that are worth spending it on? If not, you need to focus on the right things.

1.5 RECOGNIZE YOUR PRODUCTIVE/UNPRODUCTIVE TIMES

Most people have a time of the day when they are most effective and a time when they are less effective. Be sensitive to these times and schedule things that need greater concentration for your best times. Perhaps you can do a lot of work at night that doesn't require intense focus; try grading exams and homework then. Or if you notice that you are very productive in the early mornings, you might try to use that time to work on writing your proposals.

Also recognize when you aren't being productive, and be willing to stop at those times. If you've scheduled the morning to work on a paper but you find yourself looking at a blank screen for an hour, drop it. Move on to something else. You can always return to the paper at a better time.

1.6 FIND A GOOD WORK PLACE

You need to find a place where you won't be bothered and you can get some work done. Ironically, your office might not be such a place; when students hear that you're in your office, they'll come by in a steady stream, regardless of your scheduled office hours. You might have to resort to going to a secluded spot in the library, your spouse's office, or even your home.

You can try to "hide" in your office. If you close your office door (when you would usually keep it open), turn off the lights (when you would usually have them on) and quietly work, people might just pass your office by, not realizing you were inside.

1.7 LEARN TO SAY NO

You will be asked to do more things in your career than you could possibly do in two careers so it is imperative that you learn to say no. When you're asked to do something, evaluate it with your long-term goals in mind. Sometimes you're asked to do something you are interested in, but you don't have time. Truly important things will get done even if you aren't the one that does them. Unimportant things might not get done, but that doesn't matter. You ought to say yes to things that are interesting, challenging, and fun--things that will have impact on your career.

When you say no, be honest and polite. There is no point in antagonizing your department head just because you are bogged down in work. People will probably understand if you simply say,"I really have to focus on my research now," or,"This isn't the right time for me to accept this obligation," because assistant professors shouldn't be expected to serve often. If someone makes an unreasonable request you might be able to talk with a senior faculty member, who, in turn, will champion your cause. Once you say no, don't worry about it and let it all go.

One mistake some junior faculty make is that they are so eager to establish themselves as a good citizen of the department that they start to volunteer to serve. Of course, the senior faculty will agree. Be careful about doing this. Most departments don't want to make assistant professors serve but if you volunteer you are obligated.

If you are a tenured professor, saying no is a little more complicated. There is a pervasive myth that, when you get tenure, all of the time pressure and hard work evaporates and life from then on is a breeze. This is not true. Tenure doesn't erase commitment--it merely shifts responsibilities. One of the ways responsibilities shift is that you can't say no as readily as an assistant professor can. There are some things that need to get done, somebody has to do them, and in good conscience a tenured professor cannot try to delegate those responsibilities to an assistant professor. So sometimes tenured professors end up doing a lot of these services.

2. BALANCING WORK AND FAMILY

Don't forget that you need to have a real life. There is a saying--"nobody on their deathbed ever wishes that they had spent more time at the office,"--and it's true. You'll need lots of time to work and you will have to work hard. However, you will also need time to rest, time to exercise, and time to have family and friends. Your objective in your career is to do a lot of creative thinking--which isn't the same thing as doing volumes and volumes of work. In the end you will do more creative thinking and be a more productive computer scientist if you can achieve a reasonable balance between work and your outside life.

2.1 TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

• Take a break. Everyone has experienced the exhaustion and frustration of working on a program for hours even when you're tired. You keep working on it and working on it and you cannot see the answer. But finally you are forced to stop because you've fallen asleep at the desk and someone has woken you up. The next day you are refreshed and suddenly the answer is obvious. Don't hesitate to take a break now and then; you cannot work well under fatigued conditions.
  
  
• Don't deprive yourself. Nutrition and exercise are important. Eating right and being physically active are easy things to dismiss first when you're busy with work. You can get by with eating a chocolate covered strawberry for lunch for a short while, but it won't work for long. Proper exercise and eating will raise your energy levels and help you be more productive.

2.1.1 A NEW BABY

Don't expect to do a lot during the first year. Even if you have someone taking care of your baby 24 hours a day you still have to compensate for actually having the baby and being deprived of a lot of sleep. Give yourself a break. Your first year might not be an entirely creative time for you. Ask your department head to freeze the tenure clock. Universities are growing increasingly sensitive to the needs of women and might have some policies regarding women with new babies.

2.2 WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOUR FAMILY?

Focus on the things that are important to your family. If you spend a lot of time decorating some elaborate cupcakes for your daughter's class on her birthday, and then find out that it's embarrassing to her for her mother to come to class with homemade goodies, you've wasted a good amount of time. Make sure you spend time with your family, and be involved in your loved ones' lives.

2.2.1 COMBINE ACTIVITIES

You can convert weekly chores into family activities. Take the children grocery shopping, or fold laundry together in front of the TV. Your family can work together to clean up the yard or cook dinner.

It's also important for your children to see you participating in their school activities. There are several ways you can do this. Often your child's teacher will send home a list of opportunities for you to volunteer. Choose activities that aren't big time-commitments, and are also visible to your child.

2.2.2 COMPROMISING WITH YOUR SPOUSE"S SCHEDULE

The two-body problem complicates how you make your schedule. If your spouse commutes an hour every day to go to work, then you have to be pretty accurate in your scheduling. If one of you has a long commute the other will probably end up trying to pick up the slack--a method that might work for a while. Eventually, though, having to pick up the slack continuously would erode anyone's level of energy. You could try to find a place to live that was in the middle of your two jobs, but you probably want someone to live close to home if you have children. Communicate with your spouse on this and try to work something out. Maybe he can spend some mornings getting the children ready while you go to work early. Remember that, although you might be the one who is closer to work, you more than compensate for that by dealing with your proximity to home--getting children to school, telling the plumber what's wrong with the pipes, etc. Both you and your spouse have a share of the burden.

2.2.3 HIRING HELP

As mentioned before, a nanny might solve a lot of the problems of having young children while you're working. One time-consuming effort in the mornings is trying to get the children up, dressed, and ready for daycare. If you have a nanny, the moment she arrives you can go out the door, no matter what state the children are in. The nanny can help with young school-aged children as well; she can get the dressed and see them off to school.

2.3 WHEN OPPORTUNITY STRIKES

One of the great things about a career in academia is the flexibility--take advantage of it. Sometimes you can leave work early to go to a special event for your children. Or you can take short break to take them to the doctor. Perhaps you can schedule a lunch with your spouse. This time you can make up in the evenings or over the weekend.

Learning to be flexible in how and when you work is helpful too. You can get a fair amount of work done away from the desk if you can fit it in during various moments of quiet in day-to-day life. For instance, if you are watching a re-run of a television program with your daughter for the fifteenth time, you might find yourself organizing your talk for an upcoming conference. When you actually sit down to write the paper your thoughts will already be organized, and you can prepare relatively quickly. Carrying a PowerBook might be helpful; you can whip it out and do some quick work when you're picking your daughter up from soccer practice and practice is running a little late. You can also get huge amounts of work done when traveling via plane.

Don't hesitate to ask the department head or your dean about alternatives to the standard tenure track. Often, these people will try to accommodate your needs as a mother to attend to your family. Some universities allow a half-tenure track, which allows women to spend more time with their families.

2.4 TRAVEL AND FAMILY

Depending on how important spending time with your family is, and how young your children are, you might want to try being selective about traveling. For instance, if you are in parallel processing you know there are about 437 conference a year that you can go to. Choose the most interesting opportunities to travel.

3. EPILOGUE

All of this will work if you try it--but only if your house is in order, everybody is healthy, both cars are working, and the dogs don't need to go to the vet. If any of these go wrong, your home is in crisis. Fortunately, they don't happen all that often.