Too much to do…
Whilst students race to complete their assessment deadlines, the last teaching week of semester is the time academics seem to play calendar Jenga - squeezing academic tasks tightly together in a desperate bid to clear the to-do list. Having seen a strained look reflected on the faces of my academic colleagues, I think many of us have workloads that on paper seem impossible. For me, this week I need to:
assess presentations, first for a MSc class and then a BSc year 3 class,
complete 6-month PhD student reviews,
finalise copyright for a journal paper,
organise report marking and do some myself,
squeeze a working lunch in with the school head,
review admissions applications,
begin to arrange staffing for the summer open days,
finish writing a public evening talk,
hold technical meetings with my PhD students,
review a news article about a module I taught, and
(finally) file the expense claim for a recent trip.
These are the activities I can remember, I suspect there will be others too! Somehow this lot will need to fit within 4 working days… it would have been 5 but we’ve have an extra May Monday UK holiday.
Maybe you are reading this thinking I could have organised my tasking better, but honestly the to-do list in the previous couple of weeks has been equally challenging. This is not meant to be a blog post of frustration, instead let me share some of the tactics I use to tackle an overwhelming to-do list.
Only keep the needed tasks
There are other tasks I need to do but they don’t need to happen this week, therefore they simply do not feature in my schedule. I’ve made a note of them so they are not forgotten, but for this week I will not be thinking about them.
Set times for activities
When the tasks mount up, I block out time for the individual activities in my calendar. This may include factoring in travel times or email checking! This means I know what I am doing, for how long and where.
Maintain personal time
It can be tempting to fill every moment with work, but this is a temptation not to take. Yes work is important, but so is your wellbeing. Eating, sleeping, relaxing, exercising – these need to part of your plan. So my tasks will be booked in the diary, but so will be times for sport, cooking a decent meal and going to bed at a reasonable hour.
With the breeze of summer research drifting closer to my office, this last semester teaching week looks as full as always. Somehow I know all the tasks will happen but, maybe next year, I’ll be able to slide into the exam period without the crazy last semester teaching week!
Caroline, Dr CST