I have been largely silent on my blog and social media outlets lately! The reason is simple: I’ve been busy! June was my heaviest teaching month so far, and I’m working on a couple of exciting projects too. That means that I’ve had to be as productive as I can be. I’ve turned to an old standby productivity tip that helps me do focused work and get things done. I’ve been scheduling myself, like I’m the Prime Minister! Yes, it’s a bit over-the-top and control freakish, but it works.
When I say schedule, I mean that once a week, I plan out the hours that I’m going to be working and what I’m going to be working on. That way, when I sit down at my desk or get in front of the classroom, I already know what I have to do. No checking email and writing endless to do lists. Just sit down and get ‘er done. Speaking of email, part of what makes this effective is that I even schedule when I’m going to deal with my email. Then, my email gets shut down for the rest of the time. I do check it a few times during the day just in case anything urgent comes up, but this way it doesn’t distract me while I’m working or interrupt me during a train of thought or moment of code epiphany.
I use my Mac’s Calendar app to schedule my time. It’s not the world’s best calendar app, but it does a nice job of combining my work and personal calendars and I’m pretty used to it and it’s limitations by now. Since I’m visually oriented (duh!), I create meetings in one colour and work time in another. Personal, bill due dates, when I’m expecting content delivery from clients and project deadlines have their own colours too. Super type-A? Yes. But it helps me from feeling a lot more calm, which helps me do better work.
I know that this isn’t a new or ground-breaking productivity tip. It’s been around for a while but it is pretty effective. I’m curious: What do you do to help you get things done well when you have a lot on you plate? Now, I just need to actually abide by the block of time I have set aside to blog, instead of letting it get pushed out by a particular juicy design problem!
Kate Moore Hermes 