5. Effective work (and a pay rise)
Making my time at work more effective and enjoyable, so I can ultimately be promoted and then go part time again. Part of a long term strategy to earn more and work less.
Design framework: CEAP
Collect information, Evaluate that information, Apply permaculture principles, Plan a schedule of implementation, maintenance and feedback
Dates
December 2017 - July 2018
When I started my diploma in the summer of 2014, part of my initial vision was around my working life. At the time I worked four days a week as a research fellow in a university sixty miles away from home. I travelled to the office by train and bike two days a week, and worked the other two days from home. I worked on large projects run by other people, mostly concerned with social care and disability. I enjoyed my work and liked my colleagues very much, but had started to feel like I wanted more autonomy to control my own work. This is the vision I set out at the start of the diploma:
Work and community: I enjoy my work, but right now it feels somewhat segregated from the other activities in my life. Ideally I'd like a 'patchwork life' where my income comes from multiple sources. I'd like to work closer to home, perhaps for a charity or social enterprise.
I now work full time as a senior lecturer at a university 1.2 miles from home. My job is a mix of teaching, research and an assortment of other roles within the university. It is a permanent post, which does not rely on me bringing in funding (although I am encouraged to do so). I have a lot of autonomy over what I teach and research and how and where I work. My colleagues and the students I teach are a delight, and there is plenty of scope for progressing up the pay scale.
Now (January 2018) I am very happy to stay in this job for the foreseeable future, so I am not looking to create multiple income sources. I consider this job to be very well paid, and as we are about to take on a mortgage (largely dependent on my income) I am not looking to reduce my hours at the minute. However, I would like to drop back down to four days a week at some point in the next few years without compromising our ability to pay the mortgage, and we have decided that the best option is for me to work towards a promotion (and therefore a significant pay rise).
I began thinking about using permaculture design for work at the diploma gathering in February 2017. At the time I was feeling overwhelmed with working full time in a relatively new job and trying to decorate our entire house to get it ready to sell. I had a tutorial with Katie Shepherd, who suggested using Looby Macnamara’s design web to think about my working life and what changes I could make. At the time, I identified a vision for work:
- I want to be positive and cheerful
- To identify with the label 'sociologist' (I still feel like an outsider).
- To contribute to the academic community in my own department and beyond.
- To be a supportive and creative teacher.
- To do useful and interesting research.
- To be a collaborative colleague and generous with my ideas and enthusiasm (but protective of my time).
- To write for different audiences.
Throughout 2017 I collected all kinds of information about my working life. I tweaked my existing time management processes and learned new skills, and did an awful lot of thinking, but really 2017 was my observation year. This design was done at the end of 2017, ready for implementation in the first months of 2018.
I originally started using the design web to think about this design, but quickly realised I wanted to use a more structured design framework so I chose CEAP as I had not used this before. I used Aranya’s book Permaculture Design: A Step by Step Guide to work through the process of this design. I will reflect on this at the end of this document.
I have numerous roles at work, and sometimes the pressure of immediate priorities (usually teaching preparation) can make it difficult to focus on important longer term priorities (for example applying for research funding). I began this process by listing my areas of responsibility.
Area |
What? |
My role |
Tasks |
Approx weekly hours |
Notes |
Teaching |
3rd year module |
Module leader |
Module admin Development of material Teaching Marking |
1-3 contact, 2-3 preparation |
Semester 1 only Most material prepared now |
2nd year module |
Module leader |
Module admin Development of material Teaching Marking |
3 contact 3-5 preparation |
Semester 2 only First running 2018 - new material |
|
1st year research methods module |
Tutor |
Teaching Marking |
4 contact 2 preparation |
Semester 2 only Most material prepared I haven’t done before |
|
1st year theory module |
Tutor |
Teaching Marking |
2 contact 1 preparation |
All year Most material prepared now |
|
1st year skills module |
Tutor |
Teaching Marking Pastoral care |
1-2 contact 1 preparation |
All year Most material prepared |
|
Dissertations |
Supervisor |
Supervision sessions Marking |
6 students, approx
1 hour a week on average |
Time depends on student needs |
|
Work placements |
Supervisor |
Visiting students on placement Marking |
Approx 6 visits in total |
Nothing to prepare |
|
2nd year pastoral care |
Tutor |
Teaching One to one tutorials Pastoral care |
Approx 10 hours per semester |
Material prepared Students rarely turn up |
|
3rd year pastoral care |
Tutor |
One to one tutorials Pastoral care |
Approx 3 hours per semester |
||
Research |
Project 1 |
Researcher |
Writing and dissemination |
1 day per week |
Time bought out of teaching Project ends Spring 2018 |
Project 2 |
Project site lead |
Data collection Analysis Writing |
Approx 1-2 hours a week on average |
No time or money officially allocated
to this project |
|
Project 3 |
Project lead |
Data collection Analysis Writing Dissemination |
Approx 1-2 hours a week on average (would
like more) |
No time allocated officially to this
project |
|
Other
official roles |
1st year tutor |
Organise and run induction for new
students |
Approx 15 hours per year |
New to this role in 2018 |
|
University ethics committee |
Member |
Attend meetings Review applications by other
researchers |
Approx 10 hours per year |
Hours variable |
- Apply for funding for future research projects
- Write journal articles
- Attend staff meetings, research group meetings and departmental seminars
- Present my research at academic conferences
- Stay up to date with other research happening in my field
In addition, I like to
- Use Twitter to be part of an academic and research community
- Expand my knowledge by attending seminars and events in other departments and outside the university
- Write my own blog
Writing this list made me realise how unsurprising it is that I feel overwhelmed at times…
In February 2017, I created a list of all the elements of my job at that time, and identified for each:
- Whether it had a fixed number of hours attached
- Whether it involved a fixed commitment
- What energy/input it required
- What yield/output it gave
- Any actions I wished to take.
As a result of this exercise, I withdrew from my involvement with a community research project, and decided not to pursue a research idea with a friend. Doing this again in December 2017 with a slightly different set of elements gave me further insights.
Teaching preparation
Teaching preparation expands to fill the available time. In reality, I am allocated a fixed number of hours for this task as part of my work plan, and often exceed these. I have now been in this job for two years, and both my knowledge and experience have increased, and I have created a series of lesson plans and materials which I am now able to use each year with just a little tweaking. This year I am teaching two modules which I have not taught before, one of which I am leading, and which requires a lot of new materials. I will try to stick within the allocated time to develop these, and use resources from previous tutors where available, knowing I can make small incremental changes in future years.
‘Free’ research
Since starting this new job, I have become involved with two unpaid research projects, both in some way beneficial to the local community. I like being able to incorporate such activity into my working life, and there are benefits for me too (for example being able to write journal articles using the data collected, and meeting a network of cheery people and potential future collaborators). However, this type of work does not bring any income to my employer, and therefore does not entitle me to be relieved of any teaching duties. I therefore have to acknowledge that time spent on this work means time I am not spending on applying for funding for bigger research projects (which would bring income to my employer and buy me out of some teaching). I have withdrawn from one of these projects already, and whilst I will continue with the other until it is finished, I need to carefully consider whether I will agree to being involved in the extended project they are planning.
Writing
I spent quite a bit of time this year writing a journal article which was rejected (and is unsuitable for publication elsewhere in its current format). This was fun to write, but was not connected to any other part of my work, and has therefore consumed energy without producing a yield (except the pleasure of writing it). In the meantime, I have two journal articles that are directly connected to my work which have not been finished. I need to take on board the principle that each element should support many functions when making decisions about what to write in the future.
I have used time logs at work for many years as a tool to encourage me to focus. The time log is a simple table that I devised which allows me to write the time I start each activity down the left hand side, the type of activity across the top, and to complete the corresponding box with the number of minutes of each activity. There is an example of a completed time log below.
- When I started this job I was regularly working 9am to 5pm. Now I often arrive later (between 9.30 and 11) and leave later (between 6 and 7.30).
- I swap activities frequently. Ten minutes answering emails, twenty minutes working on teaching preparation, ten minutes of emails, half an hour of writing, ten minutes of photocopying, a break for a cup of tea, a chat to a colleague.
- I have not used the logs consistently every day.
- Some logs start in the afternoon so are a conscious effort to get me back on track after a distracted morning.
- I sometimes spend a lot of work time looking at non-work related things on the internet.
- Days I set aside for specific tasks (for example research or writing) often end up littered with many small tasks.
- Teaching sessions are dotted throughout the days, leaving one or two hours of time free during which little productive gets done.
- I sometimes meet people for a cup of tea or go to the gym at lunchtime. This can take up to an hour and a half out of the working day.
- It is rare for me to spend an entire afternoon working on one task.
My work changes with the seasons. This came as kind of a surprise - my old job was research-based and the intensity of the work varied according to the stage of the project, not the time of year. But this job is different. Here, the year starts in early September, with the lead up to the students returning. Late September and early October are times of peak emotional and physical energy use, as new students have arrived and are settling in to what is a very different life for them. I have a pastoral role for some, and responsibility for organising induction, so a lot of my time and energy at this time of year is spent dealing with worries and concerns, as well as more practical issues with timetabling and room changes.
From mid October, things get slightly less hectic as we settle into the routine of the new semester, before things intensify again towards Christmas in the run up to the assessment period. First years are particularly anxious at this time, as they are submitting their first assessments at university.
I take a two week break over Christmas for a well earned rest.
January starts with a couple of weeks of marking and preparation, before another (smaller than September) rise in energy as the students return and the second semester begins. This time, we settle into teaching more quickly and coast along until a peak of intensity before the second assessment period around early April.
I take another two week break over Easter, and return to a few weeks of marking, which are busy but do not require as much emotional energy as dealing with students face to face.
In mid May, the teaching year is officially over, and the next few weeks are spent working on my own research, writing, funding applications, and using my annual leave. This period is far more flexible, and people rarely work in the office (although I have done so far as we have been decorating the house and the office has been more peaceful). I try to take a longer break in August before returning to start the year again in September.
Throughout the year I identified several spirals of erosion and energy leaks.
Small periods of time
The teaching timetable (over which I have almost no control) leaves odd periods of time - often two or three hour-long gaps within a day with sessions in between. These are sometimes useful for small tasks (answering a few emails, or doing a bit of photocopying), but they are often spent chatting to colleagues or doing something that could probably be done in much less time.
Teaching preparation at the wrong times
I often find myself doing mundane aspects of teaching preparation (such as photocopying or making minor tweaks to lecture slides) when I am at my most alert and organised, and when my time would perhaps be better spent on more complex tasks.
Inefficient scheduling of student meetings
I supervise six dissertation students who are entitled to receive a small number of hours of direct supervision over the course of the year in addition to their scheduled classes. However, I often find myself agreeing to meetings over and above these hours, and scheduling them for times that are inconvenient for me and break up a morning or an afternoon.
Unnecessary photocopying
Several of my students have learning contracts, and require lecture slides to be provided electronically 24 hours in advance, or a paper copy to be provided at the start of the session. If I miss this 24 hour deadline, I usually end up printing a copy for all the students, so as not to single out those with a learning contract. This uses a lot of paper, takes time - and could easily be remedied by me being slightly more organised.
Not making time for reading, writing and research
During the teaching semesters (twelve weeks before Christmas, and twelve weeks after Christmas), I find it difficult to make time for keeping up with reading, writing and research (apart from the project for which I am allocated a day a week). This means little progress is made on these important tasks.
Starting late and finishing late
I waste time in the morning on social media, resulting in not arriving at work until after 9.30 and feeling like I have to stay later and later to make the time up. This can result in me spending less time with my partner in the evening. This causes friction between us.
Aranya, in Permaculture Design: A Step by Step Guide (p95) identifies key functions of a design as being
- The most important things that your clients want
- Those remedial strategies (points of intervention) that will plug the worst energy leaks (spirals of erosion) on site.
Working through the information I had collected in the first stage of the design process, I identified several key functions:
1. To meet the university's criteria for promotion, which involves
(a) Applying for research funding
(b) Taking on a role in a professional organisation
(c) Publishing peer reviewed journal articles
2. To work no more than my contracted hours (37.5 a week)
3. To be a supportive and creative teacher
4. To be a good academic colleague
I created goals for each key function which are specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and time-bound.
Key function |
SMART goal |
Date |
|
1. Meet promotions criteria |
a. Apply for research funding |
A. Apply for one research grant in
2018 |
December 2018 |
B. Identify funder to approach in
2019 |
December 2018 |
||
b. Publish journal articles |
C. Submit article 1 (currently with
co-author) |
February 2018 |
|
D. Submit article 2 (currently in
draft) |
March 2018 |
||
E. Submit article 3 |
December 2018 |
||
c. Take on role in professional
organisation |
F. Rejoin
professional association and volunteer for a position |
May 2018 |
|
G. Apply for position on an editorial
board |
December 2018 |
||
2. Work no more than my contracted
hours |
H. Arrive at work by 8.45 |
Ongoing |
|
I. Finish work by 5.30 |
Ongoing |
||
J. Only one non-work activity between
9am and 5.30pm each week |
Ongoing |
||
3. Be a supportive and creative
teacher |
K. All lecture slides on electronic
blackboard site at least 24 hours in advance |
Ongoing |
|
L. All student emails responded to
within 48 hours |
Ongoing |
||
M. All course materials prepared in
advance for September |
June 2018 |
||
4. Be a good colleague and academic |
N. Attend and contribute to research
group meetings |
Ongoing |
|
O. Pay a colleague a compliment every
day |
Ongoing |
||
P. Share my course materials with
colleagues |
Ongoing |
||
Q. Do one thing to support more
junior academics each month |
Ongoing |
Potential systems and elements
I created a mind map to identify potential systems and elements that could meet my key functions for this design. This is shown below. I now had a list of elements to choose from.
Earth care
I can reduce the amount I photocopy for the students by ensuring that I make lecture slides available to students more than 24 hours before a session. This has a people care element too as it allows students time to prepare should they need it. There are other changes I can make over time to lesson plans which would reduce the amount of other material I bring to classes.
I currently walk or cycle just over a mile to work, and I usually work in the office every day. However, we will shortly be moving house which will give me a 27 mile commute, for which there is no public transport. I teach on approximately 3 days a week for 24 weeks each year, and on the other days will work at home. On the days I must travel to the city, my partner will schedule his more flexible activities and travel with me (meaning he can also work at home on the other days).
People care
I get overwhelmed sometimes with the sheer number of different things I have to think about each day, and this can lead to me being inefficient and making poor decisions about what to do with each block of time. I need to create more balance between work and home, and prevent myself being pulled in too many directions by saying no to some optional tasks.
I like to be supportive and encouraging to my students. I think I can do more to help them to develop their own skills - for example I get a lot of emails from first years asking what specific things to read, when these are already set out in the module guide they receive at the start of term. I will think about how to make this information clearer and more accessible to reduce the amount of time I spend responding to these emails.
Fair shares
I like to contribute to the general academic community by, for example, reviewing journal articles that other people have written. I would like to put more thought into what articles I say yes to, so that I am reviewing only those articles that best fit with my own knowledge.
I like to give a little of my work time to community projects where appropriate. In the past this has resulted in me saying yes to open ended projects, and becoming involved in a way that takes a lot of time and energy, preventing me from doing things that are actually in my job description. I would like to continue to give to the local community in some way, but I want to think carefully about the most appropriate way to do this.
I am contracted to work for 37.5 hours a week, however this is a salaried position rather than hourly paid and while I try to stick to these hours, I often find myself working over them at particularly busy times of the year. I would like to plan to avoid this in future.
My time each year is work planned by my head of department - a set number of hours are allocated to many of the roles I have. For example, I have one research project which has outside funding, and this officially has one day per week allocated to it. For each module I lead I receive 15 hours, for each hour of teaching another hour of preparation is allocated, and I am allowed 15 minutes for each student essay that must be marked.
Some of these allocations are realistic, but I have found others are not - for example it takes on average around 30 minutes to mark an essay to the standard I currently achieve, and some classes take more than 1 hour of preparation, although this is getting more accurate now that I have built up a stock of materials from previous years that I can reuse.
I therefore need to make more of an effort to ensure that I complete teaching tasks within the hours that are allocated so that time is left to work on longer term priorities. I also need to use this in decision making - it is ideal if any new research project can bring in external funding, as this will reduce the amount of hours I teach.
I applied the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and constraints analysis to some of my potential elements.
Element |
Strengths |
Weaknesses |
Opportunities |
Constraints |
Writing
one hour each day |
Consistent, regular routine, writing
becomes a habit |
Difficult to do ‘deep’ work |
Do this in another location before
going to the office? |
Struggle to find time on teaching
days |
Writing
half a day per week |
Focused time |
Lack of daily routine |
Go somewhere else (library, cafe) |
Difficult to find half a day at a
time |
Reading
one hour each day |
Consistent, regular routine, keep up
with other research |
Disjointed - won’t have time to read
a full paper each day |
Keep printed copies of articles for
train journeys, can fit between teaching sessions |
Sometimes difficult to give this a
priority on busy days |
Reading
half a day per week |
Focused time, can read two articles
and make detailed notes |
Is this really a big enough priority
to warrant this time? |
Keep up to date with literature, make
other things easier to write, combine with writing time? |
Difficult to make this a priority
during teaching weeks, especially if combined with half day writing |
Twitter |
Useful for finding teaching
materials, peer support from academic community, keep up with research areas |
Time waster, sometimes irrelevant,
can make me cross! |
Twitter lists to identify most
relevant people, spend more time contributing rather than reading, link to my
blog more? |
Feel pressure to write and ‘be
interesting’ |
Blog |
Fun! Writing practice, place to
gather my thoughts |
Not sure who this is aimed at, is it
a time waster? |
Decide what I want it to be, write
posts relevant to my research, create a realistic posting schedule to get
into a routine |
Pressure (from myself) to be
interesting? |
Volunteer
in professional organisation |
Meets promotions criteria, fun, meet
other people (potential collaborators?) |
Will take time and possibly mean
travelling, another thing to think about |
Integration with wider community (not
just my employer) |
Where does the time come from? Choose
the role carefully - what else would I need to drop? |
Editorial
board |
Meets promotions criteria, giving
back to community |
Time, mental energy |
Read other people’s work, develop my
own writing skills, may lead to other interesting things |
Time, may be difficult to get
accepted on to a relevant board |
Gym
before work |
Exercise, out of house early, doesn’t
disturb the rest of the day |
Will I really get up? |
Start work early, be energised,
listen to work-related or productivity podcast |
Tired or late starting work, will it
work when we move house? |
Gym
after work |
Nice work/home buffer, doesn’t
disturb working day |
Have
to finish on time, gym busier |
Other exercise classes |
Home from work late, tea delayed,
less time with partner (unless start work super early) |
Work
elsewhere |
Quiet, no distractions or
interruptions |
Where? Home is distracting too! Won’t
have access to all paperwork |
Can be more flexible eg running outside during day time |
May end up eating more eg if in cafe |
Checklists |
Routines, save time |
None! |
Can pass to other people if useful,
make use of existing checklists (eg for module
leaders) |
Responsibilities change a bit each
year, may become redundant |
Blog/volunteering
- Could I write about my volunteer role?
- Could I get a volunteer role that involved blog writing?
- Listen to academic podcasts in the gym
- Create a regular short blog post about what I have been listening to
- Does it make sense to read more than I write?
- Less junk reading - make each thing count
- Get writing done before anything else
- Could I start the day writing in a cafe or the library for an hour before going to the office?
- Share what I’m reading online as a kind of reading group?
- Set a time to go to a cafe and read each week as a ‘treat’?
- Schedule a weekly blog post
- Need to write something other than blog though!
- Have a checklist for reading useful or interesting academic blogs eg once a month?
- Whatever professional association I volunteer for may have its own offices - possibility of working there for variety?
- Is there a communal workspace near to our new house that I could use?
Timetables
My timetable changes throughout the year, but for the purposes of implementing this design initially, I wrote out my timetable for Semester 2 of the 2017/18 academic year (mid-January to April).
This was an interesting exercise, showing how little time I realistically have available for these things. However, there are some opportunities:
- Sometimes only a small number of students will turn up to a two hour session, and the work will be completed in one hour
- Some weeks I will have Wednesday afternoons available
- In some weeks, I share teaching for one class with another member of staff. They will take over preparation in these weeks.
I need to create a system which allows to me to easily make use of these unexpected bits of time, getting my immediate, short term activities (often teaching related) done whilst also leaving time for longer term priorities (writing, applying for research funding).
The workbook contains (click names to open Google doc):
- List of key functions and SMART goals for 2018
- Teaching timetable
- Weekly teaching preparation checklist (not shared as very specific to role)
- Decision-making tool
- List of areas of responsibility (not shared as very specific to role)
- Sheets to be filled in each month
- Checklist for weekly reviews - I use the Getting Things Done system and my template is heavily based on the system in the book
- Checklist for monthly review
- Progress towards SMART goals for that month (same as SMART goals list above)
- Checklist for semester review (same questions as monthly review)
- Checklist for annual review (same questions as monthly review)
I planned to review the workbook itself at the end of the semester (April 2018).
|
Comments |
Decisions |
|
Plus |
Monthly reviews have been consistent
and useful |
These are a straightforward list of
questions so easy and quick to complete |
Keep monthly review format |
Decision making tool has been really helpful |
This has helped me say no to an
unfunded research project, and yes to a temporary leadership role. The one
time I did not use it I said yes to something I perhaps should have said no
to and was annoyed with myself |
Keep using, print a copy to pin on
wall |
|
Teaching prep checklist was very
useful |
Allows me to see all weekly teaching
prep and complete this in advance if possible |
Complete for next semester and try to
finish all prep before the students return |
|
Can see progress towards goals |
Not always as much progress as I’d
like |
Review goals to make some more
specific, renew focus on the more important ones |
|
Minus |
I rarely get to the end of the weekly
review checklist |
The way the questions are set out
encourages me to do actual work (crossing
off small tasks) rather than just reviewing. This leaves me little time to
finish the review |
Move some of the bigger, more strategic
tasks to monthly review Reformat some of the questions at the
start to discourage completing items off to do list during review time |
Format is awkward |
This is a large document but is just
stapled in one corner |
Tweak and print a new document for
next academic year. Get this spiral bound with a proper cover |
|
Interesting |
I didn’t leave space for a second
timetable |
My timetable changes after the first
semester |
Make sure I include space for a second
timetable |
My main goals are research-related but these aren’t being met |
This will change over the summer
anyway (research is often neglected during term time) |
I need to allocate space during term
time for research activities to contribute towards goals |
|
I didn’t really use the areas of
responsibility table |
This was useful to complete, but I
didn’t refer to it during any of the reviews, as it was at the end of the
weekly review checklist which I never reached. I also didn’t leave room to
update it with new responsibilities |
Leave extra squares to add new
responsibilities (not too many!) Move review to monthly not weekly |
|
Some goals are ‘ongoing’ |
This is difficult to record against
and to know when I have achieved them |
Review goals to make them more
measurable |
I'm really pleased with the way the workbook has worked for me, and I'm confident that making the small tweaks outlined above will improve its effectiveness. I haven't met my goals yet but recording my progress keeps them in my mind, and the decision making tool helps me to stay focused.
I've talked about this design to a number of people, and several of them have asked me to share a blank copy of the workbook. So far I have been reluctant to do this, as I designed it specifically for my job and it would need substantial revision for others to use it. I did feel like I would have to make it more 'generic' before I shared it, but on reflection I have just shared the sections I feel comfortable sharing so people can adapt for themselves.