Practicing Effective Time Management

Time management is one of the most important skills graduate students need to succeed and thrive in their training. This chapter emphasizes the importance of time management as a practice. It focuses on three larger strategies that encompass most time management tricks out there: know your priorities, know yourself, and invest time in yourself. By properly understanding the priorities of your program and your personal goals for your graduate studies, you are best able to focus on the work that must get done to achieve them. Knowing yourself allows you to maximize work efficiency, both a key mechanism and result of successful time management. Finally, investing in yourself helps you balance work life demands and centers your own mental and physical health. This manuscript is part of Strategies for Navigating Graduate School and Beyond, a forthcoming volume for those interested in pursuing graduate education in political science (Fall 2022 publication).