For my Free Inquiry project, I was curious about task management/scheduling methods and how they might benefit productivity for the sake of “work/life balance”.

Question:

What are the scheduling methods that can help establish a work/life balance?

Reason for this inquiry:

The PDPP program is busy and can be demanding, and in addition to the six-course workload, I am working most evenings and some weekends and have a dog and personal life to contend with this scheduling. Throughout the month of September—only one month into the program—I’ve found my self-care to have diminished severely. What I want to examine is how I might be able to be more productive, not for the sake of getting more done or for the sake of productivity itself, but so that I can purposefully re-balance my life with some of the activities and practices that benefit me. Not my schoolwork or degree requirements, but for me personally.

Goals:

Goals are important for achieving a desired outcome, particularly when they are specific and what are called, “high goals”, or hard goals (as opposed to easy and vague goals) (Locke & Latham, 2006).

Therefore, my goals for this project are:

  1. Increase my current physical activity by at least 10% (physical health)
  2. Practice mindfulness at least 3x a week (mental/spiritual health)
  3. Visit the outdoors more often (This is a vague goal, but any time spent in the outdoors will benefit me, and so it is tacked on and less measurable)
How I will measure my goals:

Firstly, I’m in the process of setting a baseline for my physical health. I am taking note of my physical activity so that I know where I am at now and what a 10% increase would look like.

Second, I’ll be making a weekly post (at minimum) to register my progress for that week, including the various scheduling practices I’ve researched and examined.

 

That’s all for now. Wish me luck in self betterment!

 

Work Cited:

Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P. (2006). New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory. Current Directions in Psychological Science 15(5), pp. 265-268. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00449.x