Kathleen’s “How to Get More Than You Think You Will Out of a Semester’s Leave” got me thinking about upcoming summer “vacation,” which is fast approaching (barring complications, it should be here by the time this post goes live!) and what I need to do to make sure that the summer is both relaxing and productive. I suspect that I’m not alone in having a hard time balancing the two.
Like Kathleen, I teach at a small liberal arts college, so my semesters are packed full of responsibilities and obligations to my students, my department, and my college. By and large, I enjoy these responsibilities, but they can make sustaining a research agenda difficult. When I have time to pursue my own thinking and writing, I often am without energy, and when I have the energy, I usually don’t have the time. As a result, I have a tendency to romanticize the summer as “All This Time” that I haven’t had during the year to tackle all sorts of different projects, both personal and professional, that I tend to hold in reserve during the academic year. Consequently, in the summer I usually end up biting off more than I can chew.
ProfHacker is full of all kinds of technological tips and tricks for managing your time: applications, plugins, programs, and websites. While I find many of these useful for managing specific tasks, I find that they also have some drawbacks. Specifically, they encourage a kind of micromanagement, which can lead to terrific productivity, but they can also blind you (or me!) to the big picture. Don’t get me wrong: I love my smartphone, and I love my laptop. Both have saved me from potential embarrassment by helping me to track my tasks and manage my time effectively, but I’ve also realized that both have serious drawbacks for me when it comes to long-term time management.
Moving my dayplanner to my phone has been a lifesaver this past year, and I have come to rely heavily upon the reminder function. I prefer to view the calendar by week so that I am prompted to remember meetings and appointments. The time is blocked off visually, and if I click on a block the details appear. This has been great in helping me stay on top of committee meetings, faculty meetings, student appointments, vet appointments, etc. But obviously, when working on a week-to-week scale, it’s hard to see the month or the semester holistically. I have the monthly view on my computer, but even then I can only track my time in 4 week blocks. For those of us who work in semesters (or summers), this view still limits us to just 1/3 of the picture.
To that end, I’ve been looking for ways to help me think in macro- rather than micro-terms. For this purpose, I’ve basically ruled out the digital. There is only so much space on a laptop display, even if you have a 17″ screen (and I don’t). Even my desktop, which has a moderately sized display is lacking in this department. But because I have ruled out the digital for this post doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t love to hear about any techno-tools that readers might want to share in the comments section-please, prove me wrong!
Basically, when I say “big picture,” I mean “BIG PICTURE.” In graduate school, I used to wait for Barnes & Noble or Borders to have their annual calendar sales in mid-January, and then I would stock up so that I could have three different wall calendars hanging side by side above my desk. I can’t remember who suggested the multi-calendar system, but it was terrific. Having three months next to each other really helped me when it came to planning ahead. I knew how many weeks there were until my comps or until the next batch of papers came in, or until the deadline for the CFP that caught my eye. For some reason, when I moved to the tenure-track, that habit didn’t make the trip.
For a couple of reasons, the calendar plan won’t work in my house, so this summer I am going to try something new: the chalkboard wall. Basically, I will be painting the wall next to my workspace with chalkboard paint. I am hoping that this wall will help me to both keep better track of the big picture (my chalk board will have calendars) and help me to map out my ideas more effectively. Tracking the big picture will help me to stay on track, I hope, rather than to fall into the Prufrockian trap of thinking “There will be time, there will be time.” Indeed, I can look at the wall and see for myself just how much time there is. Ultimately, my goal is not to fill my summer days and nights with all work and no play. To the contrary, I believe very strongly that we need some downtime in the summer to relax and recharge. What I am after is a balance so that I can advance my research agenda and also return to campus in the fall rested and ready to go instead of feeling frazzled by last minute tasks and the rush to finish some writing before the semester begins.
How do you keep track of the big picture? Do you have tips or tricks for macro-thinking? Please share them in the comments section.
[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user Simone Hudson]
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5 Responses to Effective Summer Planning
billso - May 14, 2010 at 5:09 pm
There are some GTD (getting things done) tricks that can help. One tactic I will use this summer is to dedicate specific days to specific projects, and to set specific goals for each portion of the day. This helps me avoid overloading my days.This can be done using your favorite calendar (Exchange, iCal, iPhone, BlackBerry, etc.) but it’s important to be realistic, and to treat each time slot as an important appointment or meeting. Otherwise, you’re working with Mr. Prufrock.
scirider - May 15, 2010 at 10:33 am
I’ve been fanatical about testing out various time/life management tools, because I’m juggling two businesses, being the PI of a large lab, and having small kids at home (along with writing a book).For many years I used the GTD (getting things done) methodology, but I found that it had exactly the problem you discuss here – no focus on the “big picture” was encouraged. I’d get lost in the details, and never get the “big stuff” done.Then I found Simpleology. After overcoming my initial reluctance due to the marketing hype (it took me six months before I came back to it seriously after first looking at it), it has been a godsend.The key thing that Simpleology does is force me to ask, each and every morning before I get working, “What is really important to me, and how am I going to take a step TODAY towards that goal?”Even though SImpleology is free, I have to log onto the website to use it, which is sometimes annoying (e.g. when I’m working without an internet connection on my iPad).So, I’ve tried devising a system using OmniFocus (a GTD software system) that mimics Simpleology. But, so far, I’ve found that the days I log in and go through the “daily target praxis” on Simpleology are still more productive, because of the particular way in which it forces me to remember the goals that I set forth, and the emotions associated with those goals (i.e. when you put goals into the system, you don’t just list what the goals are, but you list how those goals will make you FEEL – which is incredibly important in my opinion, and being reminded of that on a daily basis is key).So what I’m doing now is using a combination of Simpleology through their website for 10 minutes a day, then I transfer all the daily tasks into OmniFocus, which runs on my mac and on my iPad. I’m planning to write this up in more detail sometime soon for anyone else who is interested on my blog (morganonscience.com). It is by far the best combination I’ve found so far for “getting the Important Things done (TM)” :)If you can overcome the common reaction to the initial marketing hype of Simpleology (which is free at simpleology.com), it is well worth the steep price of admission (i.e., putting up with a little hype).But, alas, I know of several academics, including a family member of mine, who can’t overcome their objections to the way it is promoted, and so aren’t benefitting from it. It is unfortunate – I now have one book half way written, on top of all the craziness in my life – because of it. It is like a diamond hidden inside a Chevy sitting on a used car lot with a pushy salesman. Once you get past the salesman and in the car to discover the diamond, it is all worth it…. (and then some) But most people that I know won’t ever walk onto the lot, so they’ll never find the diamond.Morgan Giddings, PhDps – I nothing by
stachowiak - May 17, 2010 at 10:07 am
You may want to check out Idea Paint (ideapaint.com), which will turn that same wall into a dry erase board, instead of a chalk board (which can get pretty dusty and doesn’t offer the same clarity). You can also then take digital photos of your drawings and store them in Evernote, where the hand-written text in the photographs will be searchable. Bonni Stachowiak, EdD
nmhouston - May 17, 2010 at 10:58 am
I’d second the idea to look at creating a dry erase surface instead. You can buy very large dry erase blank calendar grids at any office supply store (just fill in appropriate dates) — nice because the grid lines are already there for you. Another option are removable stick-on wall decals that are dry erase (Wall Pops are one brand, but there are others)
mddeeg - May 17, 2010 at 12:00 pm
(Note: I am a graduate student, so I have more free time than the average person). One thing I have found very useful is blocking off the time I have in the evenings into segments. My job is such that I return home around 3pm. I know that I want some time to relax after getting in from work, so from 3pm to 4pm is relax time (put your feet up and do nothing, maybe watch tv or something else mindless). Then I devote from 4pm to 6pm to reading or other intellectual pursuits (blogging on topics I’m researching etc.). 6pm is dinnertime, which allows about an hour for my brain to recharge from all the work it’s been doing. Then 7pm-9pm is more reading/intellectual pursuits. Then I shut it all down and start winding down for bedtime.I have found that setting aside set hours of time for reading really helps me maintain focus. Also, if I finish a book (I typically finish a 200-300 page book (on higher education theory/practice) in 2 hours) before my allotted time is up, then I move on to my next thing. Sometimes, I have found that I keep reading past the allotted time so that I can finish a book.Anyhow, I tend not to look at the summer as a long project, but a series of mini-projects that I work on in 2-hour increments, thus allowing me to not stress.