**31 December 2015 updated 15 December 2024
As I have been moving blog posts written years ago to this site, I have been struck the words of French writer, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” — the more things change, the more they stay the same. No matter how much time has passed or changes occur, certain patterns remain unchanged over time.
This is definitely true of certain aspects of higher education. As faculty, we are still faced with the same tasks before terms: thinking through courses, making changes to the activities, readings, or assignments of those courses; for research faculty, thinking about where we are with those activities; considering what service has to be done. For me, as a department chair, I also have to add in what things we need to try to do as a department. The timing of academic terms means means this work falls at specific times of the year.
What struck me about the original blog post below was the fact that I still do these same tasks. Apparently, I have managed to consistently plan, a defined habit around the planning process, that continues to serve me well.
So many of us have submitted our grades for the Fall term, we turn our attention to the “break” where we need to rest and rejuvenate, but where we also think ahead to our Spring terms or Winter/Spring terms for our quarter school colleagues.
Planning and thinking about how to make our terms successful and less stressful is one of those things that do indeed remain the same.
<orignal blog post>
I’ve always thought of the winter break as my “do over” time because not only does it bring with it the new year, it also brings it with the chance to just re-focus and re-prioritize what I need and want to do.
So here’s some of the things I do during the “break” to set myself up for successful spring term and yes, even a successful summer.
Make to-do lists 
For me that means making 5 different lists.
- Teaching
- Service local (all the committees I sit on that are active and will be meeting; 2024 edit, now this means considering things from a chair perspective, which is a much longer list with sub-lists 🙂
- Service national
- Research commitments (these are the things with due dates, submitted, or committed collaborations)
- Research (these are my own self styled projects with no firm, as of yet, deadlines)
In the spirit of getting things done philosophy, I write down every task associated with each thing on the different lists. Once I have everything written down, I start to figure out what can actually be accomplished and what can’t so I can start to make peace with that AND to let others know.
Log everything into a planner or schedule or electronic something or other than you will use (the last part is key)
Some of you have heard my sob story of when I tried to join the 21st century and go electronic, which turned into the most unproductive time of my life. So in the middle of the year, I finally went back to the old fashioned, book like planner, and my life has just now started to gain more stability and focus. I use the Passion Planner (updated 2024: I use action day now) and I like it a lot cause of the way you can log lists and reflect on the past month. Just as important, I can still use my sticky notes ( #postitnoteposse FTW)
I log into my planner all the confirmed meetings from teaching to service so I can start to see my spring schedule unfold. I plug in conferences and then immediately back date to put in time where I will work on the conference presentations and papers. Then I log in teaching times, office hours, and course prep times.
I then prioritize the research projects with deadlines and lay out days to work on specific tasks that I have identified. I’m doing several projects that involve interviews and observations so I know when some of those things are scheduled so I add those. (2024 update: ha, still doing research that involve those things!)
I, also, mark out time to exercise just as if it were a meeting. I’m doing that right now! I’ve also marked down a weekly get together with some friends that we’re all trying to commit to.
Then I put in the priority service items that have set meeting times, and I also know that I need to block out some time to do work associated with some of those commitments. For example, Mondays are basically set aside for service. I do nothing other have meetings or do actual tasks associated with different service commitments. And in 2024, I have time blocked out to do the deep thinking and task work associated with being chair. If you’re meetings for most of the day, you have to have time to do the work that comes out of those meetings. That’s why I also have one day of the week that is meeting free. That day is Friday.
Update 2024: I do still use a planner that I carry around. It works for me. Has long worked for me. The one thing that I have finally updated to being totally electronic is my calendar. It syncs across devices, which means I can see what I meetings and such I have to do the next day without having to open my email. Cause I still don’t do email at all times of the day.
Being Realistic
Now that I have many things logged in, I can start to eliminate things that I know I will have no chance of getting accomplished during the term or even in the summer.
So how do I know this?
Well, partly out of experience, and partly out of a growing understanding of the true amount of time things take. I have four conferences and a couple of invited talks. There’s no way in hell anything extra is happening so nothing on the Research list that isn’t committed is going to get done. I also know that I can’t say yes to any new service commitments until I get rid of one. That’s my deal with myself.
Much of my research now is pretty labor intensive since I’m in the collecting data phase (on certain projects) and analyzing and writing it up (on others). Both sides are hard and messy and time consuming. Throw in dealing with people (research subjects, collaborators, other stakeholders), and it takes more time. I’m not complaining because that’s just how research goes. You just have to account for these things. A good rule of thumb is to add 1/3 to every task. So if you think it will take a 3 days, add a day, and that’s a conservative estimate. We tend to always underestimate the time it takes for all sorts of reasons. Experience helps you begin to get better at these things, but no amount of experience can offset those days where you truly can’t say no to things and you have to set aside your time to take care of other things.
I also know looking at the big picture that I need to have a conversations with a series of people (my Dean, whom I work for in a partial administrative role, my Head, some collaborators) because there’s no way some things are going to get done if I’m going to get other things done. So I’ve already sent messages requesting those meetings. The point is in laying it all out and then being painfully realistic about it I know that I have to make some changes and make some decisions for the spring and summer.
</original blog post>
The end of this original blog post was a list of what I called resolutions, which in some ways make sense because of the date it was originally written. However, it’s odd that I did that because I’ve never been a resolutions person.
But, there was a list of things that I think are helpful for us to remember all the time. Meme chose. Same things. Good reminders no matter when.
- take care of myself
There’s nothing specific about exercise or eating or anything. Just the overall need to remember and to remind that we all need to focus on self-care. - focus on the things I can control
It’s hard to re-wire ourselves not to worry (if you’re the worrying kind) so it may be easier to try and focus on those things that you can control. You cannot control reviewers, but you can control what you send them. You cannot control the toxic colleague, but you can find ways to limit your interaction with them so that their toxicity doesn’t wear off so much. - be thankful
my passion planner has a spot on each weekly spread to write down “good things that happened.” In a job in which we have to deal with so much rejection, it’s good to have this reminder that lots of good things happen too. Writing down the things we’re thankful for and being certain we thank those people who have been kind and generous to us really goes a long way to better mental health and happiness. - be mindful
A dear and wise friend of mine told me once that every morning she asks herself, “what can I do to make myself happy today?” This sort of mindfulness can be useful to help us focus on what we need and want to do. - pay it forward
there is much to be said for finding a way to give back. Be it in a professional capacity or for a personal cause. Making time to pay it forward does bring with it so many rewards. - be kind
Kindness costs nothing and goes a long way to building goodwill and building good relationships. (Or to follow the old rule our parents told us: if you can’t say something nice….)
Wishing health, peace, and joy!
**The date of this post is when it was orginally posed on WomeninTechComm, which was a national mentoring network for women in the academy who worked in or identified as scholars of technical and professional communication. That organization and its website are no more so I am slowly porting over to here all the blog posts that I wrote, thus the reason I have kept the original date at the top of the post. I have made some minor changes to the original text so that’s why it will also note the current date of publication.