996006 Where have all the hours gone – How to organize your working life in academia (WS) (SoSe 2016)

From the beginning of their careers on, scientists have to structure their everyday work with high levels of self-sufficiency and autonomy. Single tasks typically require long-term commitment and are quite complex - test series in the lab are based on a fixed time schedule, a paper is not written within one day and a careful revision of a student?s thesis takes often longer than intended. However, external control, for example by supervisors, is usually only exercised when it is already too late. At the same time, distractions are numerous (e.g., short-time interruptions by colleagues and students, or quick escapes to Google and YouTube). In this seminar, you learn to structure and control yourself, your time, your motivation and your workflow. We particularly address the specific characteristics and requirements of your everyday research environment.
Method:
Day 1 of the seminar will take place as a workshop. Day 2 is dedicated to individual coaching sessions for the participants (duration about 30-60 min, individual appointments will be made). The individual sessions can be used to work on personal challenges and issues regarding time management and selforganization in everyday academic life (e.g., intercultural aspects of self-management, optimized planning of one’s own work week, handling lack of motivation, work-life balance issues).