First published in the Careers Cafe at University Affairs. Republished with permission.

Everyone struggles with time management. Everyone.

If it were just a matter of accurately estimating how long things would take and then allocating time to do those tasks, it wouldn’t be such a big problem. Perhaps you would be able to make a rational argument that you have objectively more work to do than hours to do it in, and someone would reduce your workload. And sometimes that is the case. Though sometimes they’d just tell you to do it all anyway and figure out how.

However, more often the problem is in the seeming simplicity of that calculation.

How much time does it take to grade an essay? Prepare a lecture? Read an article? Write 1000 words?

Poke at those questions and you begin to reveal all kinds of difficult issues:

• How carefully do you need to read this article?
• How much feedback do you need to provide to this student?
• How well do you know the subject of your lecture?

You quickly get into ideas about standards.

Which can lead to disagreements about what is a reasonable standard for this particular task.

Sometimes those disagreements take place in your head. You argue with yourself about whether you can afford to spend the time to do this task (whatever it is) to a particular standard. You wonder if you can live with the consequences of lowering your standards. You aren’t even sure what those consequences are. Maybe you recognize that no one else would mind but that you have standards, dammit and …

In addition to standards, you’ll also find yourself arguing about priorities. In academia the big one here is the relative priority of teaching and research. Priorities will show up at other levels, too.

Priorities and standards are connected. You probably have higher standards for things that are a higher priority.

All this emotional processing is perfectly normal.

And it takes time and energy. No matter how good you are at estimating time and putting appointments with yourself in the calendar, you never put that time for emotional processing in there. The key to time management is recognizing that there is an emotional element. Just noticing is a huge step.

You can’t wish that element away. We have different standards. We have different priorities. We disagree with our colleagues, our employers (and sometimes even ourselves) about those standards and priorities.

A starting point:

Notice what you are spending time on and how much time you are spending on it.

Does this line up with what you say your priorities are?

If something you say is a priority is not getting time allocated to it, is it really a priority?

What standards are you setting yourself?

What standards do others expect of you?

Originally published at University Affairs on Feb 11, 2013. Edited June 2, 2016.