Note: Today I present an interview with Max Ruffert, a Reader at the University of Edinburgh, in which Max shares real life productivity techniques that work.
OD: I’ve known Max for 12 years now. When I pop into his office Max always appears to be relaxed and he always has few minutes for a chat. I have never seen him in a rush or overwhelmed. And yet Max has a successful research career, he is internationally known scientist, does teaching, supervises PhD students and so on.
Today I am talking to Max about how he manages to overcome overwhelm and stay on track.
I’ll start by asking you, Max, what do you get to do throughout the day? Do you sit in your office working at your computer? Give lectures? Travel?
MR: This more or less summarises what I do. Mostly I am in my office at my desk working at the computer; I also do teaching by giving lectures and tutorials to undergrads. The administrative side of teaching takes a lot of time. I would like to travel more, for now I get to travel about once a year. Just three weeks ago I came back from a Interdisciplinary Winter School on Computational Simulation.
OD: How do you feel throughout the day? Do you feel productive and on track or rather overwhelmed?
MR: It varies very much from day to day. On some of the days I feel relaxed. Some days it gets quite stressful when there are a lot of things going on.
I try to smooth it out. I plan ahead, and schedule to do things when I have time. You were just lucky; you always saw me relaxed and having time for a little chat. But when I am getting ready to go to a lecture I would send the people out of my office.
OD: You avoid overwhelm by scheduling work in advance so that you spread the workload over some period of time?
MR: Yes, for example, when I write exams for the course I am teaching, I do my part well in advance. This way it does not get too busy or stressful when the deadline approaches.
OD: This is different from how most people I know approach deadlines. When I was a PhD student I used to start the work close to the deadline. And this is when I got overwhelmed.
MR: Exactly. I used to give the exam papers to other lecturers well in advance before the deadline – when exam papers are set they need to be checked by others. Then I would not hear back from them because they would simply forget about the papers, because it was so far in advance of the deadline. Now I know this and give people my exam closer to the official deadline.
It gets stressful for me when people impose work on me close to a deadline. I like to plan the work ahead and spread it out.
OD: Does it always work to spread the work load?
MR: Sometimes the high workload is unavoidable.
As Senior Director of Studies (Director of Studies is a senior academic responsible for a particular course in undergraduate or postgraduate studies – O.D.) I have to interview many students, with nearly all interviews taking place within 2 weeks (it is the week 0 and 1 of academic year). These cannot be scheduled at any other time.
OD: So the steps you take to avoid overwhelm is to plan ahead and spread the workload over a period of time when it is possible.
MR: Yes, and an electronic calendar is very helpful in this. I write everything in it, all the appointments, deadlines, birthdays etc. So if I am in a pub and people ask me if I can do something on a certain day, I would need to check with my calendar!
OD: Max, have you always been so organised and productive, or did you use to be overwhelmed, and gradually learned certain productive approaches to your working day?
MR: Well I’ve learned that having a calendar is very helpful. I’ve been using a calendar for probably the last 20 years now. First, it was a paper calendar, then electronic ones, now I use Google calendar. It helps me to stay organised and plan ahead.
OD: I want you to explain a bit more in detail how exactly do you plan ahead?
MR: every Friday, I try to take a look at the week ahead. I look what appointments I already have in my calendar for the coming week. My electronic calendar gives me an overview of the week. This way I know what’s coming.
OD: It’s sounds like my favorite productivity technique – I usually take time at the end of the week to plan the coming week: to see what appointments I have, to get clear on my priorities, and set a Sat Nav for the coming week. I also reflect on what I have achieved during the past week. It really works.
When I come to your office I always see it tidy and your desk is clear of paper.
MR: I used to keep all the projects and paper on the desk. It used to be full of paper. But relatively recently I noticed that if I put down a paper and think I will get back to it in a couple of days, I never do. It will lie there forever without me doing with it anything – cluttering the desk.
So at some point I have decided to clear all the paper away. If I want to put the paper down, I either file it away or throw it in the bin. Otherwise it just clutters my desk and gets in the way.
OD: Tell us about how you keep balance between your work and life. I know you are passionate about diving; you also teach other people diving. This is how I met you about 12 years ago, you were my diving instructor in a diving club. How do you keep this balance? Do you make a special effort, for example clearing weekends for this?
MR: I don’t have a strict rule that the weekends are not for work. I don’t mind to schedule some work on a weekend in exchange for leeway at other times to plan a dive for example. But ultimately balancing both is important, yes.
Planning ahead works well; I spread the work load over a period of time so that I have time both to go diving and to get the work done.
OD: Max, the last question I would like to ask you today. Can you identify one big problem that a lot of students have? And could you suggest one thing that will help them become more productive?
MR: Looking at PhD students and project students: they can loose focus and go off track in their big projects. One thing that would help both them and their supervisors is a time plan, some sort of an overall plan to cover the whole period of their studies.
It need not be particularly detailed and it has to be tailored to the project and the preferences of both the student and the supervisor. It is something that they can go back to and see their progress or vice versa to notice if and where they got stuck. The supervisor can then encourage them or point out the problems when the student slows down. Otherwise it is too easy to loose track.
About Max Ruffert:
Max studied Physics in Germany and got his PhD in Astrophysics in 1991 from Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich. He then had several postdoctoral positions: at the University of Arizona, Tuscon, and back at the Max-Planck Institute. In 1997 he became a PPARC Advanced Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and one year later he moved to the University of Edinburgh. In 2002 he became a lecturer. Max is currently a Reader at the School of Mathematics (Reader is an equivalent of a (US) associate professor).
