In today's post I'm sharing 5 weekly planning strategies that I've benefitted from during my time as a tenure track faculty member. In general, holding a weekly planning session has helped me achieve my goals and kept the feelings of overwhelm to a minimum. In addition to the general process of planning out my week, there are 5 strategies that I've used throughout my time as a faculty member (and grad student) that have greatly enhanced my weekly planning sessions.
Read MoreOne key aspect of my weekly planning process involves identifying what I plan to accomplish for the week, aka my weekly goals. Yes, these goals may change as things come up during the week, but I always set them and they help guide my weekly flow. This week’s post walks through a few strategies that make weekly goal setting easier, as well as outlines the current steps I use to set goals each week.
Read MoreI’m picking back up with my weekly planning series posts that I started in the summer of 2020 (the last post in the series focused on organizing your to-do list if you’re interested in checking it out). Today’s post focuses on some of the things that I think are important to include in your calendar as an academic.
Read MoreToday’s post focuses on the general process I follow for organizing my tasks across all the academic areas of my life (e.g., research, teaching, service), as well as my personal life. Below you’ll find 6 steps you can take if your to do list is feeling a little (or a lot) chaotic.
Read MoreA conversation about weekly planning wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of the tech/tools used to do said planning. As someone who thoroughly enjoys talking all things planning, I've definitely heard a lot about the different tools that faculty and graduate students are using. In this post, I’ll highlight a few popular tools that can help you get your weekly planning done.
Read MoreThis post delves into some of the key activities that faculty and grad students might engage in during their weekly planning sessions. Before I go into my list, remember that all the things that are written below won't necessarily work for you and your needs. You've got to find processes that work for you. Like I've mentioned before, experimentation is a really important part of the planning process. Try things out, see what works, leave behind what doesn't.
Read MoreThis post delves into some common misconceptions I often hear floating around in the academic community about planning for the week (or just planning in general).
Read MoreWhether you're in the first year of your PhD program or you're a tenured faculty member, chances are you've come across (and most likely engaged in) weekly planning. For me, my weekly planning process is the glue that holds everything together. In this post I'm highlighting 6 reasons why weekly planning is super important for people in academic spaces, from grad students to tenured faculty and everywhere in between.
Read MoreIf you follow me on Instagram you might have seen that I've been playing around with Notion as an alternative to my current task management system. And if you're a newsletter subscriber you also know that I was exploring ClickUp and Asana as alternatives back in September... what can I say, I love this kind of stuff 😄.
Read MoreIf you're a regular reader of my blog you know that my dad passed away in November, and then we had another family emergency come up in December that was also really difficult.
While my days and weeks are usually very structured, rigidity has not been what I’ve needed these past few months. From November through mid-January my schedule and planning processes shifted dramatically, mainly because I didn't do any planning (at least not the level of planning that I usually do). Once winter term started in early January I did need some sort of structure to help balance all the things, so I slowly started to incorporate more structure planning back into my regular routine.
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