Every Monday from April to June, the GATA Network will be sharing advice on how to make your summer productive. This week we offer suggestions on how to stay on top of that growing “To Do List”.

Image courtesy of earnmbadegree.com

Last week we shared a tweet from @academiccoaches announcing their June webinar on managing small and large projects. Yes, the “break” in summer break does imply stepping away from at all, but most of us also use our summers to reinvest ourselves in those projects that have either gone neglected or simply just aren’t finished. It’s true that you can’t catch up on sleep, but you can catch up on your projects if you’re smart about it.

Making a List

Being smart starts with making a list. No need to check it twice. Just jot down all of the projects you have on the go and everything else on your horizon. Include all of those applications, administrative work, and other housekeeping items that tend to take a back seat to the big ticket projects that dominate your thoughts. It’s a common mistake to think about one and forget the other, so that when you’re catching up on your major projects you’re forgetting the minor (but still important) tasks. The app crazy among us might want to check out Alan Henry’s “Five Best To-Do List Managers” at LifeHacker.

(Update: Patrick Hankinson from Hello Focus recently shared his list with us, “To-Do List Software,” with 51 apps…and counting.)

For Each Task, Action Items

Rarely does a project large or small have just one step. While you’re making your list of things to do, you should think about what each entails, and even attach some timelines to each action. It doesn’t have to be exact, but it should give you a sense of just how much time each item will require. A simple spreadsheet will do the trick here, or you can use something more complicated like the services in Jason Fitzpatrick’s “Five Best Personal Project Management Tools“, another piece at LifeHacker.

Trim the Fat

It doesn’t take a Master’s Degree in Quantum Mathematics to know that there are only so many hours in a day and so many days in a summer. Now that you have a list of things that need doing and some guestimates about how much time they’ll take, you need to be realistic about which projects are worth pursuing and which you could live without. Here’s why it’s important to include the day-to-day items on your preliminary list: you can’t often get rid of them. So how do you go about making that project list shorter and manageable? Follow Les McKeown’s three steps:

1. Review your significant, current projects. The key here is to limit your reviewing to two key questions: what is clearly successful/unsuccessful, and what are your goals for this coming year? If the projects on your list are a.) unsuccessful or b.) don’t build towards your overall goals they might not be worth seeing through. For instance, if you’re working on revising a paper for publication but aren’t interested in the topic and can’t seem to make progress, it might be better to reinvest your time in researching something you are interested in.
2. On that note, cut those items that aren’t progressing. It’s not that we should all become big quitters and just walk away from our projects, but we have to be realistic about how much time and energy we have and how we can use both for the most benefit. Taking this step requires a lot of honesty on the reviewer’s part about what’s working and what’s not. This also means what’s working at the moment; it doesn’t mean these dropped projects couldn’t reappear on your list somewhere down the road when you have more time and more interest.
3. Set clear, short-term goals for “blah” activities. This is when you decide to put more effort into those items on your list that are important but have been only attempted half-heartedly up until now. Outside of McKeown’s business context, it’s harder to define what exactly the “return” might be for a scholarly project. However, think of this as an opportunity to attack those questions that have been nagging at you throughout the year – about your teaching or your research – but were never fully explored. These questions should be projects on your list, and you should use the summer to explore them in more detail.

More Resources

• Oregon State University’s Academic Success Center has a great collection of tips and organizers for time management. We especially like the Urgency Index, though it can be the bearer of bad news.
• The University of Nevada’s Academic Success Center has created a “Master To-Do List” that is both interactive and informative, but it’s better suited to managing your classes in the Fall/Winter.