7 tips for work-life balance

A student writes in:

Dear Sherri:

I am **, a PhD student in ** in ** University. I am trying to work productively. For example, I tried to use some todo list software, such as, remember the milk and omnifocus, and read related books. But feeling of overwhelming happens every day, and no achievements were received. Could you give me some advice to be effective and productive? How to get work and life balanced?

My name is not actually Sherri, but here are some thoughts, in no particular order:

1. I know what you mean, but there’s something funny about the idea of “work-life balance,” given that work is itself part of life! How can you balance a part with the whole? I’m not just trying to be tricky here, I think there’s a deeper issue which is that it is life that you are trying to balance, and work is part of it.

2. A friend once told me he had success with the trick of having a notebook where he wrote down everything he accomplished. For example, reading an article, munging some data, whatever. Every time he did something, he wrote a couple words to note it. That way, he realized he really was doing a lot, more than he’d realized. I’ve never actually tried this (instead, I do the opposite, preparing long to-do lists that I never complete!), but I have a similar experience recently in one of our Stan meetings, when we went around the room saying what we’d each done last week. I was about to say “nothing” but then I realized I had completed one project, and it was satisfying to remember this.

3. I have no mobile phone and I never check my email before 4. I think this helps keep me sane.

4. As they say in chess, try first figuring out where you want to be, and then figure out how to get there. Is it just the “feeling of being overwhelmed” that bothers you, or are there particular things that you’d like to be doing that you don’t have the time or money or calmness to do? Etc.

5. Set your work goals high. Don’t expect to achieve all your goals, but the worst thing is to set a low goal, achieve it, and then what? There’s no point. A statistician can make a difference in the world. Much depends on being in the right place at the right time, but still. I guess what I should really say here is, set fractal goals, some short-term, some longer-term, some small, some large, etc.

6. Do all your work with integrity. Remember that God is in every leaf of every tree. It’s fine to take shortcuts but then be open about the shortcuts you’re taking.

7. Despite what some psychology researchers say, I don’t recommend blowing your spare cash on bullfights.

25 thoughts on “7 tips for work-life balance

  1. I follow GTD.

    The key discipline is doing a weekly review of all to-dos, projects, etc.

    First I look back through my done.txt file (SimpleTask Android app), where I capture done tasks, then calendar (meetings), and archived email and note it all down against the goal for the week.

    Next I review open projects and to-dos and set goals for next week.

    What I find is I get a lot done, more than I think, but seldom meet my goals. Partly because they may not have been too realistic, partly because my definition of done is more demanding than need be, but also because a lot of unplanned staff comes up during week.

    Is a little like a Sprint based agile system, except I don’t have the luxury of blocking off changes not included in sprint.

  2. Any tips on staying focused? I have a research paper to get done (no due dates, which could be more of a detriment than anything else), and suddenly I’m all procrastination. Even cleaning up after the dog is higher priority than working on my paper (it’s not, but that’s been the reality). I haven’t touched it in almost two weeks.

    Sadly, this is fairly common for me, and not just with research papers, but with exercising, or anything else that is “not fun.”

      • Was it Fisher who explained how he got so much done? A distant lab with no telephone IIRC.

        I have never tried it but the pomodoro technique but it actually sounds like it might work if you can bring yourself the pick up the timer. I think I have also read of a “writers’ club” where people show up at some convenient place and write. Anything from a disused classroom to a local coffee shop seems to be fine. It is sort of a social club without the sociability although I suppose one can socialize after the writing period is over.

        I’ve watched people who like to-do-lists, well thought-out schedules, daily planners, etc., try to get someone who does not work that way to use such perverse tools. They don’t usually work.

  3. A few thoughts.

    1. Work-life balance is a first world problem. This provides some perspective.

    2. Having spent my working life in large corporations, any time you hear “work-life balance” coming from an executive, or particularly HR, just use the opportunity for a nap. They don’t mean it. Even if they mean it, they don’t really mean it. Even if they really meant it, “work-life balance” will depart with the first bad quarter. I actually detest the term work-life balance for these reasons.

    3. There are some things you can make up and recover from bad balance decisions. In my case, I discovered marital therapy worked at least well enough so we’re still married 20 years later and reasonably happy. Enough of your friends will be happy to reconnect, and you can make new friends, particularly around shared activities.

    4. But there are some things that are lost forever. When I was travelling incessantly, I spent much of my at-home time with my young children (encouraged by my spouse, who needed the break). This was a good choice. You can’t go back and interact with your two year old when they’re 15.

    5. I think Andrew has an earlier post about procrastination. I think he noted that when he procrastinates, he’s often doing something that is useful in some way, not really wasting time. These things count as at least partial accomplishments.

    6. You’re a PhD student, and the time in my life when I most felt that I was on a treadmill getting nowhere was as a PhD candidate. You are not alone.

    7. Go back to those old to-do lists. Sometimes I find old lists that I misplaced, maybe from a year ago. Some stuff I did do. Some stuff I didn’t, but it turns out not doing it didn’t matter. Some stuff can be done just as profitably now as it was then. The remainder is stuff to feel guilty about and replan.

  4. Another few thoughts:

    1) It is really possible that every p-value from hundreds (?) of comparisons is < 0.002 as in Table 1? Can we make any assumptions about the distribution of p-values from a single analysis as here?

    http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/s13104-015-1691-x.pdf

    2) Would anyone be able to even sketch out a reproducibility plan for this analysis?

    3) And just for full transparency, nothing I've published has ever appeared in PNAS or been impt enough get to a grilling (glass houses etc.)!

  5. Despite what some psychology researchers say, I don’t recommend blowing your spare cash on bullfights.

    This sounds like a poor therapy choice but perhaps it has its uses. I expect patients would have to be in good physical shape though. Are the patients allowed clubs or other implements?

    In my own experience one does not need to pay for a bullfight. Simply being in the wrong field is enough.

  6. My take was always that “achieve goal X” isn’t a primitive action that you can just decide to do, but “spend the next half hour doing Y” is. I was inspired by:

    http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/03/procrastination-matrix.html#2

    To set up a system tracking my time use, while assigning point based on how important the activity is and how much I hate doing it. For example, you can give 0 points for an hour of procrastination, 1 point for an hour reading a book, 2 for an hour working, 3 for an hour of exercise/chores (which I like doing less than work). Then set yourself a goal of, say, 12 points a day and track it with Excel or Beeminder.

    I found that this system both helps with procrastination (I know exactly what to start doing right now to get to 12) and with work/life balance (I feel accomplished based on the time I spent doing useful things). Magically, it turns out that if you spend enough working towards important (but not always urgent ) goals, those goals suddenly become achieved.

  7. Use a spreadsheet so you can easily move lines around. List tasks one per line.
    A: Put the most important task at the top of list
    Work only on that task until it is DONE. This is the most imprtant thing you will ever learn as a do-er.
    Maybe an interruption makes you shuffle the list but after the shuffle only work on the top task
    When DONE, remove the task from the SS
    Repeat from A.

    As you put things on the SS, you will notice lo-priority stuff never makes it to the top. Realize you will NEVER do them. Push them off on someone else – maybe pay someone. Remove tasks after a month when you’re really busy. Don’t feel guilty.

    Regard,
    Bill Drissel
    Frisco, TX

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