Stress is induced by the time-crunch, the nearing of some inevitable reveal that you feel hopelessly unready for. Recounting his honours journey, Alexander notes:

If it were not for that nervous feeling that my time was coming I would not have felt nearly motivated enough to work regularly on a thesis due in a year. One of such ‘friendly’ reminders that my judgement day was nearing was the schedule I created for myself in September… and again in November … and once more in February (after the RQDA ‘catastrophe’). The schedule was an initially naive draft of when I would complete each section of my thesis: starting with refining the research question, then conducting the literature review, then assembling data, analyzing data, writing about said data, and finally the discussion and conclusion. My initial schedule was broad, and rarely noted the specific days that I would work on these sections. It was, however, later complemented by a weekly agenda, where I noted the readings I needed to do (for all my classes) and the particular sections of my thesis that I wanted to get done.

Time management involves the process of determining needs, setting goals to achieve these needs, and prioritizing and planning tasks required to achieve these goals (Claessens, van Eerde, Rutte, & Roe, 2007). In setting your goals, it might be helpful to adopt the SMART-ER principles (Macleod, 2012):

• Specific (clear, simple, significant)
• Measurable (the ability to track progress )
• Achievable (attainable)
• Relevant (reasonable, realistic, results-based)
• Timebound (time sensitive)
• Engaging (be involved)
• Rewarding (incentivize yourself)

There is of course no uniform way to do this, precisely because these tasks must be sensitive to the very non-conformist entity that is your reality. This flexibility, however, must be tempered with a good-natured rigidity. Think of the schedule as a loving but stern parent… which you gave birth to. The schedule plays a disciplinary and nurturing role. The goal is to make you aware of the steps that need to be taken in order to mitigate the scenario in which you must take on all or a lot of the stress at once. A good schedule, like any regulator, ought to protect you from that scenario by creating small, clear, realistic steps towards your goal. See Table 4.2 for a sample macro outline of how you could set targets for your thesis completion. Adapt it as necessary to suit your working habit, lifestyle and goals.

An important way to balance rigidity and flexibility is to divide your scheduling into a micro and a macro model. The macro model can be the shallow but effective overarching goals you want to achieve (likely by the month). Common macro goals could include “finishing the literature review,” or “read all your media articles and create the first set of codes.” The macro model will serve as the basis of reflection when asking: “Am I fulfilling the larger purpose of my thesis”? This model can likewise be reassurance that all the little micro stuff will add up to something.

The micro-models will be the small, tangible tasks that can be achieved weekly in order to meet your macro goals. The capitalists know this process fairly well. As Henry Ford famously put it: “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” This means thinking carefully about the short-term goals involved in creating your broader goal (the thesis or research project) and setting aside times (which you trust to get work done in) to complete that task. With this in mind, it is important that your schedule does not stay broad. It must specify parts of your thesis which can be realistically completed early on.

A way to facilitate conversation between our micro and macro-scheduling is through research journaling. Many undergraduate researchers use journaling to regularly keep track of their progress and the new obstacles which arose.

References

Claessens, B.J.C., van Eerde, W., Rutte, C.G. and Roe, R.A. (2007). A review of the time management literature. Personnel Review, 36(2), 255-276. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480710726136