Use front-loading to get high priority work done on time

Amy (not her real name), is an early career tenure-track faculty member in a science discipline, and is one of my coaching clients.

In a recent Monday session, she wanted help figuring out how to complete the institutional review board application for her newest research project. (This committee has to approve scientific studies that involve human subjects before the study can start.)

The application was due the following Monday, but she had been putting it off and had the entire proposal to write.  

Her bigger concern was that she was not spending enough time on writing and research because of other demands on her time, such as teaching. 

She was discouraged.

I suggested that we begin by making a plan for this application:

1. We made a list of the specific tasks required.
2. I asked her to schedule time on her calendar to do the work (a.k.a. "time blocks").

Her plan looked like this:   (I have removed all of her other appointment for clarity).

At that point, I said, "Stop!"  (In the nicest possible way...)

I asked her to instead add a block for today in the first time slot available.

We then looked at each of the remaining days to see what time was available for this project.  When we got to the weekend, I learned that she had plans to be out of town and could not use it to work. This reinforced the need to try to finish by Friday.

Once we had the big picture, we added more blocks. 

The revised plan looked like this:

This plan had several key differences from the first one:

• We added a deadline notice, in red, on the following Monday

• We blocked out the weekend by setting an all-day event shown as "out-of-office." (Outlook). This created a visual reminder that the time was not available.

• You may have noticed that the total amount of time blocked was nearly the same in the two plans. Six hours in the first and 7 hours in the revision. 

• The distribution of the time, however, was quite different.  Half of the time was in the next two days in the new version.

At our meeting the following week,  Amy reported that she had submitted the application on time, and, experienced no stress when doing the work.

She told me that both things I had recommended, the detailed task list and scheduled time blocks, helped.

But the most important thing was getting a big chunk of the work done at the beginning of the week:

• She had time to deal with the questions that came up as she drafted the methods

• When the IRB website had a glitch there was time to get it fixed.

• She was prepared when she met with her collaborator to finalize the application. 

• She was asked to take on an extra teaching assignment late in the week because of the illness of a colleague. She was able to do this without panicking because the application was nearly done at that point.

Front-loading

"Getting a big chunk" of a project done at the beginning of a time period is sometimes called front-loading. 

The Free Dictionary defines front-loading as to "distribute or allocate (costs, effort, etc.) unevenly, with the greater proportion at the beginning of the enterprise or process."  

A very rough schematic sketch....

And that was what we did for Amy's IRB application work.  In fact, we used a  double dose of front loading in Amy's IRB work plan. We front-loaded the week, with half of the planned time in the first two days, and each day by scheduling the blocks as early as possible.

Like Amy, you can benefit from front-loading too.

You will get more time to come up with ideas and transform them into a final product. When glitches arise, as they will, you will have more time to fix them. If that weren't enough, you have much less pre-deadline stress.

But, you may be thinking, doesn't this just induce procrastination?  (You know how that goes, "I have plenty of time so I can put it off to another day."  Not that I have ever had that kind of thought...)

Actually, used properly, front-loading can actually prevent procrastination! 

For me, "properly" means starting work on a project "early," defined as "before I think I need to start." 

Starting early, for me, removes the pressure to get it right the first time.  Ideas and words flow more freely when I know I have plenty of time.

Questions?

What kind of work should I front-load?

• Of course, you can front-load any kind of work.  But, I recommend reserving it for important projects that will take a lot of time, and that you are likely to put off.

What time intervals should I front load?

• Over the entire time project period. Schedule time to get started as soon you add a front-loadable candidate project to your list.

• At the beginning of regular calendar interval planning.
• For long projects, consider the year, quarter, and/or month.

• Always front-load the week and each day. You should do it when making your regular weekly and daily plans. (😉😊)

How many projects should I front-load at a time?

• You need to be choosy.  Pick the work that is highest in impact, especially if it has a hard deadline. Maybe one or two projects at most.

• This is not incompatible with working on multiple projects simultaneously. Putting in a big chunk of time early often means you can keep the project moving forward later in smaller amounts of time. Writing a paper is a good example. If you can get a first draft done quickly, you can do the revising in smaller time blocks.

• In practice, this means you will often have one project in the front-loading stage and the rest in "regular time" mode.

What if I am always fully scheduled at the beginning of the week or every morning? (For example, teaching, client meetings, patient care, or group meetings that you can't change.)

• Try choosing a different day or hour the beginning of your planning interval.  Instead of Monday, use Wednesday (or the first day with open time). Instead of 8:00 am, block the first time that is available that day.

Journal! Who, me?

I have read, avoided reading, saved, and deleted countless articles on why and how to do regular personal journaling.


But, despite promises of more happiness, creativity, productivity, and becoming a better person, I could not get myself to try it.


The sources of my resistance: 

• The recommendation to do it every day - yikes! Except for brushing my teeth, not my strength.
• I already have writer's block (the evidence: 25 blog posts since 2011). Why would I want to have yet one more type of writing to avoid?
• Directives to use a particular format or write about particular topics. I don't like being told how to do things. I prefer bespoke productivity tools, even if I end up creating something that looks very much like a method I rejected.
• And of course, how would I find the time...

Then about a month ago, out out of the blue, I started to journal most days. I liked it.  I'm here to tell you how I am doing it so you can try it too.

Now that I'm doing it, I get it. The promised benefits are showing up.

Made up sample journal entry.

If you are interested, this the way I started :

(You can do this at any time of the day. I do find that morning works best for me.)

1. Find a piece of paper. Although for this idea you probably want to save the paper, so a bound notebook would be good. (Or a digital app - I use Evernote.)
2. Put the date at the top of the page. Maybe the time as well.
3. Write at least one sentence, about anything that comes to mind.
4. Stop or keep writing, whichever seems right at that moment.
5. Do it again later that day (on the same page) or tomorrow or whenever the fancy strikes (on a new page).

I intentionally did not include advice about what you should journal about. 

Instead, I use a "no topic rules" approach:  Whatever pops into my head gets recorded. If I stick with it for another minute or two, inevitably more ideas emerge.

These are the categories that often show up, and the "results" that I often get:

• Thoughts about a problem I am dealing with; sometimes solutions emerge.
• Ideas for something I am writing.
• The progress I am, or am not, making on a project or goal which usually is followed by ideas about how to move forward.
• Frustrations about the state of the world.
• Experiences for which I am grateful and things that are going well.
• A plan for dinner.

If you want to read more about journaling, try these:

• Julia Cameron's The Artists Way. Originally published in 1992, Cameron's method set the standard for personal journaling.

• Check out this 2020 review of "best" journal notebook options. This is not exhaustive but will give you an idea of the possibilities, as well as more references to the benefits of journaling.

• Anna Goldfarb's guide to beginning a journal.

Ann

"Writing is easy.... not !" Simple ideas that can help.

For many of us, the ability to produce quality publications on a regular schedule is critical to our career success and advancement.  But those "drops of blood" moments that characterize writer's block can be an obstacle.

As you go into the "spring semester," you may have writing goals on your list.  I thought a reminder of some strategies to overcome block might be helpful.

I had the opportunity earlier this year to write a short piece (400 words!) on writing for the newsletter of the AAMC's Group on Women in Medicine and Science (GWIMS).

Here it is:

"First, writing is hard.  Ernest Hemingway, when asked how to write a novel, famously replied "First you defrost the refrigerator." So don't beat yourself up. Instead, figure out strategies that help, and keep moving.  

               One effective strategy requires a paradigm shift... click here to keep reading.  

The article, titled "Scale Your Writer’s Block" is on page 3. 

When  you go to the newsletter, take a look at the rest of the articles which include:

• Proactively Plan for Promotion: Considerations for Turning Your Clinical and Educational Work into Scholarship

• Use Your Head, Follow Your Heart, and Persevere

• Book Review: Quiet—The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

If you want a bit more detail about the writing strategies, see this slightly longer piece (1800 words) posted in my Article tab.  

Finally, if YOU have strategies for being a productive writer send them my way - I'm always on the look out for new ideas.

FAQ: Do I have to write EVERY day? Would once a week work?

From time to time, I will share a question that has been posed to me by a workshop participant or coaching client.  The one for today should be relevant to many of you.

The background for the question is my recommendation, based on expert opinion from the writing world, that you aim to do at least a brief session (45 minutes or so) of writing on your scholarly project every day, or at least on most days.  

This is the way many professional writers work, and there is some empirical evidence that this approach produces more writing, and better writing than what Robert Boice calls "binge writing," a term he uses to describe the practice of waiting to write until large uninterrupted blocks of time show up, or a deadline looms.  

I've summarized all of this in one of the articles posted elsewhere on my website titled Becoming a Productive Academic Writer.

Here is the question:

I have heard about the data on writing before (most successful academics write for 30 -60 minutes a day) . I talked to my mentors about that data (your presentation, Dr. Boice, Dr. Kerry Rockquemore). All three said they write in blocks not every day. Some only write once a week but the entire day. I have heard that from very productive physician faculty. Is there data on physician scientist or physician educators who are involved in research careers on when they write and how long?

Here is my answer:

Dear workshop participant,

Your question is a great one.  

I am not aware of any data from a medical school faculty cohort.  Boice's work was mostly in a Liberal Arts setting.

However, I'll throw out an "educated guess" response. 

• The major purpose of writing daily is to be more productive.  Classic "binge" writing (as described by Boice) is writing that occurs infrequently, every few weeks or even months, and it seems obvious that such a schedule cannot lead to maximal productivity.The only alternative that has been studied, albeit with small numbers of subjects, is the daily method.  The rest of the evidence is based on interviews with professional writers - who don't have anything else to do with their time, unlike clinicians!  
• The second purpose of writing daily is that your brain stays engaged in the work, so that "warming up" is not needed, and, new ideas show up spontaneously more readily.

I would think about the idea of weekly writing like this:  

The daily method (using the minimal time approach) yields a minimum of 30-60 minutes a day of writing, with the advantages of the close connection between writing sessions i just described.

The weekly method could yield the same minimum of writing time (2.5-5 hours), and the sessions are probably still close enough to  get the other benefit as well.

You can see if you start to move the long session out to every 2 weeks or longer, it will be difficult to get the same amount written as the daily method, and the "session proximity benefits" will be  increasingly fewer the longer you wait between sessions. 

So, my "logical" conclusion is that once a week should work fine, as long as you make the session at least 2.5 hours!!

Let me know how it goes,

Susan

I'll add that this approach of taking daily action is recommended for any major project you are working on, so you can use this advice even if you don't have writing on your agenda. 

What do YOU think?  What is your experience with the time frame YOU use to write, or that of your peers or mentors?  You can write to me directly (srj.susanjohnson@gmail.com), or post a comment here.