5 ways how to use templates to save you time and make you a better academic

In academia, we struggle for time, every – single – day. If you are ambitious, hard-working and curious, you probably overcommit and end up being super busy all the time. Or maybe with time you have become more realistic on how much time things take. But it does not change your desire to get more things done, quicker. Even if you are great with planning, some things just come up as unexpected opportunities or surprise projects. You may have no choice but embrace them and incorporate them into your busy schedule. 

In these situations, it is important to find some additional time where there is none. But how to do it without compromising the quality of your work or your sleep or family life? Let me offer you some help with TEMPLATES. Preparing templates for the things you do repeatedly can be a solution you need. So let me offer you some examples on how to make your life easier, and save you some time. I believe that the things you repeatedly do or are less important can and should be reduced, to make time for the things that truly matter. Let’s go!

1. Templates for emails

Emails are the things which eat our time, every day. There seems to be no other way than spending time screening, reading and writing emails every day. Many universities have even policies requiring academics to check and respond to their emails at least every 24 hours. Some of the emails are important, and these require your full attention. Many others, however, just require you to take the information in and reply with a standard greeting and thank you. For this type of email, the answer could be automated. These emails could be prepared once and then used as your default answer when possible. 

You don’t have to waste your energy on crafting the usual “hello, how are you doing”. Put them into your default email structure as you do with your signature. Set it up in your email’s settings along with your signature, and that’s it. Every time you start a new email, this small addition is already there, saving you a few seconds at a time. The more emails you write, the more time you save.

They’re also emails we send repeatedly, for example, asking for available meeting times or feedback on publication drafts. Although, you are not sure about the detailed contents, as they will change from email to email, the structure of an email will be similar. Having this structure ready will allow you to shift your focus. You can fill the structure with the important details rather than produce the whole thing from scratch.  Having a template allows you to focus your attention and effort on writing a clear message on what feedback you require for your draft, or what options you have available to meet a person. 

The more email templates you prepare, the more time you can spend replying to important emails. Be careful to not produce too many templates as then you are running a risk of not using them. But having some templates will save you time for doing other important things in your day.

2. Templates of projects’ tasks

Research projects are long and complex. It is not that easy to manage a few of these in the ever-changing academic environment. However, in your research work, you probably have a few types of research projects you base most of your work around. Each type of research project could be broken down into a list of tasks. For example, a literature review can be done in a few ways but you probably do it almost the same every time. 

For each type of project, you could prepare a template or list of tasks that have to be done. The list would include the things you do during design, conduct, data analysis, and write-up phases and everything around and between. 

Having a template for the tasks that need to be done for the project saves you time on so many levels. You do not have to re-invent the wheel, each time you start a new project. When you have a list of tasks, you “just” have to follow it and the project will be done. You always know what needs to be prepared in advance which will save you some stress, allow you time to organize some help if need be. 

Having a template like that will also save you time to figure out what to do next. You have a template, so you can just use it as a to-do list to plan your workflow and optimize what you do when. It also allows you to productively use whatever time you have by drawing tasks from the list whenever you have a spare minute. Some things can be done wherever and whenever right? 

When you have all the stages of your project listed, you can use it in many ways. You can divide the work between collaborators, estimate how much work and when you could delegate to your research assistants. Having all the stages written up is also invaluable in terms of long-term planning. You can predict when each phase has to be finished, what tasks go into achieving each milestone and plan your workload accordingly. You also get to clearly see whether you are on schedule or not. 

3. Templates of to-do lists

If you use daily, weekly or monthly to-do lists, you may want to make templates for these too. You probably have things you have to do every week, such as back-ups. So why not have them sitting on your to-do list template. 

There are two reasons why it is worth putting them on the to-do list template. For one, the act of writing them down frees your brain from remembering them. This can reduce your daily stress level and give you space to think about other things. The second reason is that it provides you with an item to cross from the to-do list. This action can be super rewarding. Again, it will give you some boost of confidence and a sense of achievement. Success will keep your mood high, and that is crucial for your productivity in academia.

Having all tasks listed, no matter how small they are, allows you to realistically plan what you can do in a day, month, year. It shows you also some options for improvement or optimization. 

4. Templates of writing you do

Journal articles, proposals, grant applications whatever you will do more than one time, make templates, I beg you. It seems like additional work, but it will save you so much time the next time. The easy way is to prepare a template first, save it as a template, and then put all the details of the project in a separate copy. Even if the only thing you can prepare as a template is a structure with headings and your affiliations, the next time you will not have to do at least these.

Some journals even have templates of the formatting for their articles already prepared for download. You could use these ones as starters. 

If you have students it can also be useful to have templates of writing to share with them. Seeing an example is often way better than an explanation. It may save time you, as you have some templates handy, but will also save some time and stress your students, as you change the overwhelming task of writing the whole thing up, into simply filling in a template. Priceless.

5. Templates of repeatable research tasks

Whenever steps you have to repeat in your data collection, data processing or data analysis it may be worth considering preparing templates for these too. They will help you to be really consistent with your methods. Following a list guarantees that you do things the same each time. A template will save you from wondering what to do next and will serve as a checklist and quality control tool. 

It is also a great tool to remind what you have done in many years to come. Now the things you do on a daily basis seem to be obvious, but in a few years, it all may become a blur. Especially, if you slightly change your research direction or methods you use. 

End word

Although the template examples I have described here, are all related to writing things down, I want you to think beyond that. Maybe having a template in the form of a basket with compartments for all of the equipment pieces you use on a daily basis would be useful. When you start your workday, you can see straight away what is missing in which compartment. This will save you a painful discovery of missing an essential while in the middle of your work. I would encourage you to examine your work this week and see what templates you can produce.

Academics are super busy, and they shouldn’t. They should have time and space to think, wonder and try solutions. I hope these few examples of what you can template will save you some time my beautiful research friends, so you can go and do the work that matters. 

This post was inspired by Dr Cathy Mazak from a Facebook group I should be writing.

Let me know when you produce any templates (promise that you will), I would love to hear how you use them?