My Friend Outlook Email
I noticed that I would be a person that suffered from both “get it done right now as soon as it is given to you†and “I’ll do it later.†Being a person that walks between both worlds I know how hard it is to manage your time. One of the Tips that I would like the share with others would be Outlook!
Instead of setting up a to-do-list that I have no time to check, I set up my Outlook email to do that for me. If someone assigns me a task that I know will take more than 10 minutes I tell them to please email me the request so I don’t let it fall by the wayside. Once they email it to me I flag it and assign a quick category to it. This helps me out a lot. As I get tasks done I delete the email. As more come in I assign them flags and tags.
One by one they go away, but the queue is never clear? I guess that is another problem for another section HAHA!
Quang, Sounds like an excellent system! Leveraging modern technology can make a real difference in teaching, once we figure out how to use it.
Dr. Melissa Read
I actually use outlook as well to keep myself updated on tasks. I block out time for class preparation and important due dates for assignments.
The biggest problem that I have experienced latley is others respect for my time. recently we made the change from MS office 2003 to MS office 2010; a pretty big leap; I'm sure all will agree. During the time leading up to the change many things had to be accomplished: new syllabi, reviewing lessons, and the biggest task learning the new material before it was time to teach it. Corportate would continually blaze out emails requesting things "yesterday" that were extremely diffucult to squeeze into my schedule. But all things considered, teaching my class came first, and those other things frequently had to be done on my time. I used Outlook to organize my time and keep track of my to-do list. It helped me organize the chaos and get everything accomplished. I no longer accept verbal requests from my students for things, they must send me an email so that I can insert it into my task list and keep track of it. It works very well.
Thanks so much for sharing Wesley. Outlook is a wonderful resource that many instructors have access to. However, few know how to leverage the tool and really take advantage from a time management capacity. Sounds like you really have a handle on it and have gained significantly more control over your schedule.
