I have a looming deadline for a conference paper. When you’re working to a deadline, there are 3 options: start early, start as late as possible, or panic. Two of those are approved Project Management practices. Here’s a simple technique from Project Management for planning out your work to avoid panic.
1. Break the work into tasks. In my case this is: do literature review; write first draft; write second draft; write conclusion, introduction and abstract; and polish.
2. Estimate how long each task will take you. Be generous here – it’s better to have spare time than run late. My estimates were 2 days for the literature review (I already had a lot of information), one day for the first draft, one day for the 2nd draft, and one day to polish.
3. Work out when you could start and finish if you started each task on the earliest possible date from today. I started on February 18th, and can do research every Friday, so my dates went like this:
| Task | Duration | Start | End |
| Literature Review | 2 days | 22 Feb | 29 Feb |
| First Draft | 1 day | 7 Mar | 7 Mar |
| 2nd Draft | 1 day | 14 Mar | 14 Mar |
| Abstract etc | 1 day | 21 Mar | 21 Mar |
| Polish | 1 day | 28 Mar | 28 Mar |
4. Adjust to meet the due date. Unfortunately, that’s March 14th. If I get up early Saturday morning, I can do a full day’s work by lunchtime, so that gives me an extra day a week. Now my plan looks like this:
| Task | Duration | Start | End |
| Literature Review | 2 days | 22 Feb | 23 Feb |
| First Draft | 1 day | 29 Feb | 29 Feb |
| 2nd Draft | 1 day | 1 Mar | 1 Mar |
| Abstract etc | 1 day | 7 Mar | 7 Mar |
| Polish | 1 day | 8 Mar | 8 Mar |
This also gives me some slack time in case things don’t go as planned – although not a lot.
5. Monitor your progress and adjust the plan as needed. The literature review took an extra day, so I had to find time during the week to work on it. I’m half way through the 2nd draft, and it’s looking good – but it’s March 2nd, so I need to finish that today (not a planned working day) to stay on track. Why did this happen? Because that’s life. I didn’t know about the deadline until recently (correction – I didn’t think to find out about the deadline til recently), I had hoped to work on it during the week, but in the first few weeks of the semester that’s impossible… other things get in the way. Sound familiar?
To get an even better plan:
6. Work out the latest start dates as well: From the deadline, work backwards -
| Task | Duration | Start | End |
| Literature Review | 2 days | 8 Feb | 15 Feb |
| First Draft | 1 day | 22 Feb | 22 Feb |
| 2nd Draft | 1 day | 29 Mar | 29 Mar |
| Abstract etc | 1 day | 7 Mar | 7 Mar |
| Polish | 1 day | 14 Mar | 14 Mar |
7. Put reminder notes in your diary in big red letters – 8th Feb – Must start literature review today!!!! 15 Feb – must finish literature review today!!! That way you won’t let things slip pas those dates, because you know in advance that you have to start on those dates to finish on time.
Try it for yourself – it only takes a few minutes, and saves a lot of panic at the end.
