This edition is in celebration of our new colleagues. I’ve collected several responses to the same question — one that’s been really helpful to me: What is the best productivity or time management trick you’ve learned?
From The Dean’s List #2
Turning off my e-mail notifications on my phone. That was huge. I think the other thing is that I have to do something active four or five times a week. I have to get out of my head. We never get to think deeply, unless we make room for it. For me, the places that I can think deeply are when I'm walking, when I'm running, or doing yoga. Getting out of my head, right? It's like all of a sudden, an answer will come to me in the middle of a run. I have to just stop thinking about this stuff and then it will come.
From The Dean’s List #3
I feel like the best thing that I've come up with is just try and knock out the little stuff as fast as you can. I find that when I get a quick, short email that I can answer, my brain is like, “That's resolved.” I already know the answer, so it's not going to take up my mental space. The problem is, if it doesn't take up your mental space, that's what falls through the cracks. If I already know the answer, I need to communicate it, because otherwise, it's just going to fly away. I'm not going to be sitting there thinking, “Oh, I need to tell this person this thing I already know.” That's not the kind of thing that rolls around in my brain. The thing that rolls around in my brain is the thing I can't figure out an answer to. So if it’s short, shoot off an answer and then it’s not in your court anymore. You usually get an, “Oh, wow, thanks for the quick response!” People love that, and they go on about their day, and you're not going to get a follow up email.
From The Dean’s List #5
Honestly, I think it's not to expect so many things to get done in a day or week. I think productivity for me is more like I made a good stab at that particular thing, because hardly anything gets finished. It was one of the hardest things when I was very first a dean. At the end of the summer, everybody was like, “OK, I'm turning in my grades and leaving.” And I realized that didn’t happen in the dean's job. It just kind of goes on and on because so much of it is about people needing to talk about their problems and planning for the day. You just don't have that starting and ending and starting over kind of thing. It's just there all the time. That's the relentless part of it.
From The Dean’s List #6 I think learning how to use Outlook as an organizational tool. I keep my inbox empty. For me, there's something therapeutic about an empty inbox, because I have either taken care of the task or have assigned the task to a time and day. I do think that learning about how to put the task list on the calendar and being able to organize my tasks by day, for each week has been huge for helping me space out and time my day. Slowly, I've integrated it more and more. It's how I function. It's how I organize. It's how I communicate. Everything is in the calendar and the task list. I think that's probably my biggest trick, but sometimes I'm so done with email, and I see an email there and I will pick up the phone and call to have a conversation with somebody, and it's just great. It's revitalizing.
From The Dean’s List #9
Hire the best people you can. No matter how long it takes, and grow them, because if you don't have good people, that's going to suck all of your time and energy.
From The Dean’s List #12
I haven’t learned one yet. Work at night? I don't know. I don't feel overworked. I don't feel like, “Oh my gosh, life's out of control.” There are days when I feel tired or like there's too much happening, but I really don't feel overworked. My time management trick is, when my brain is tired, I stop because then I won't be going in circles, and I just function differently. So, if at three o'clock, I feel like I'm not being productive and I'm sitting here at home in front of my laptop, I’ll go cook dinner then. Then, I'll come back and I'll work till six or seven. So I do my thing, and I make sure that I give it 100%. If I can't, I shouldn't touch it yet. Night time is a very good time for me. I actually have found that to be a very good time for me to respond to people, to process information. The only thing is, I have to stop at eight for sure. Just so I can read or do something so my head has something different in it. There are some people whose emails I don’t read at night. They're dangerous for my mental health.
From The Dean’s List #14 VPI Edition with Frank Kobayashi
I think it's my system of focusing on two to three big picture goals each semester. Because if I don't move the college on those items, then I'm just part of the churn, right? I've just built this stuff in my head and it works for me. It has just taken time to continue working at it.
------------------------------------------
These are from The Dean’s List #10, and seemed good reminders for the rest of us in welcoming new folks to the crew:
Something to think about:
“Typically beginners have a ton of information being thrown at them. Helping them eliminate so they can focus is more helpful than giving them more.”
------------------------------------------
The Rabbit Hole (resources, content, etc. that are relevant to the job):
The ultimate cure for overwhelm (a very short essay/long tweet)
------------------------------------------
Comments