However, such productivity won't last long without proper time and energy management.
I have always been interested in how we could increase our productivity as academics since I've realized that we always have a massive pile of work and, without knowing it, always add things to our plates unconsciously. This is where we need to determine if our plan is aligned with our big focus, especially when the academics tend to have different interests. Some of them like research, but most of them love teaching. Since the performance review is always related to education, research, and community services, most academics think staying close to the performance review aspects is more important than developing their skills in other areas. To spend more time on other interests.
We could still be successful, though, in many areas. We need courage, determination, and huge energy to cope with so many different activities.
One wise piece of advice that I've heard came from Prof A Pellert, while we took her class in Berlin 2015. She said, "We couldn't possibly do everything, but we need to manage doing all activities at different times, at different stages of our life." She mentioned how difficult it is to divide our energy into all activities without putting our priorities in a certain period of time.
To be professionally productive, another management guru, a Professor from Harvard Business School, Robert Pozen, who works as a consultant, academic, and father, mentioned that productivity will be easily achieved when we think carefully about our goals and then apply specific techniques to improve our effectiveness. So, we need to focus and increase productivity, which is worth the time and energy we spend.
He divided three types of personal skills that need to be mastered by knowledge-based workers to have great productivity:
a) Effective reading- Stay focused on your purpose for reading
His method of reading:
- Grasp the structure of reading
- Read the introduction and conclusion
- Skim the tops of the paragraphs
b) Effective writing- Plan your writing to focus on the final product, make a map and translate the map into an actual piece of writing
His method of writing:
- Create outline
- Be persistent to revise it
- Make a routine or break the writing into smaller pieces
c) Effective speaking- Well prepared: structure the speech and keep practice
His method of speaking:
- Prepare a road map of speech
- Keep the speech relevant to the audience's background and time
- Engage the audience and highlight the takeaways
I've seen many professionals in my area (civil engineers, researchers, academics) who have the skills to enhance their careers in the long term. They are very focused and engaged in being productive and work on their best to achieve many accomplishments in a relatively shorter time than us, the academics. I can't imagine how they could find the energy to get involved in some projects, write papers, and do regular presentations about their projects! The key is being effective and productive, of course!
So, now that we're the academics, perhaps we could learn a lot from them and stay productive throughout the semester without having trouble adjusting our focus and interests at work again to get results with flying colours.
Pekanbaru,
Source: Extreme Productivity, Robert C Pozen, HarperCollins
