This is hard to do if the others in you department keep giving you more of there work to do but a list will help som.
Yes, it makes sense to prioritized your task.I believed this is where we all loose most of our time , by working unorganized and not achieving our goals.
Prioritize by tangible effect. Understand the priorities that achieve tangibel goals. Establish how the achievement is measured. Learn to say "no" to time consuming activities that do not achieve goals.
Tedious non-productive activity is sometimes done because of perceptions (abilene paradox) that something must be done. A "problem" is percieved but not investigated. Hence immediacy of action, the fire drill, takes place and no one knows the goal nor how to measure if it is achieved.
Frantic immediacy leads to most things not being important. One immediate task will some be overshadowed by another. The first task being forgot or not followed up. The net effect no change. Status quo, panicky immediacey.
Goal identificatin and the effect of its achievement is an ability that eliminates the panic of immediacey. Emotional reactivity will then be replaced by strategic thinking.
The wasted time, effort and emotional anxiety over invented tasks that do not yield results is rampant at my work.
It is clear that management is so chronically panicked with immediacy that most effort goes into temporary non-productive activity. The activity itself becomes the goal and any actual outcome is not even measured much less achived. "Good job for doing this!" My question would be , "just what was achived? Was the achievement worht it? What did we learn?"
I teach management. It embarrasses me that we don't practice very well what it is that we teach.
I prioritize my tasks based on my departments present and future needs.
Most tasks that I do first are the ones I am familiar with and know that I can do them sucsessfully. Tasks that I am not farmiliar with I will put off until I have done more research and found more information about them. This helps me complete unfamiliar tasks in a timely maner.
Changing the order and time that certain tasks are compleated will allow the tasks to be broken up as to allow phases of each task to be done in a timely and more effective manner. By alowing more time to perform the tasks one at a time as opossed to craming them in 2 or three at a time. Yes it will help.
Yes, it's important to update our lists as time passes. Some people have a daily list and others write lists weekly or even monthly. It really depends on how many tasks you've got coming in and how quickly.
Yes, that's a tough one Ronald. Sometimes we can deal with that by delegating tasks to others. Other times we've got to carefully set expectations and let others know what we can and cannot do.
i make a list and cross it off, and after hereing all of you i have make changes . such as a list for to day and a list for the week.
I actually try to mix it up on purpose. I will force myself to procrastinate, then I will make myself rush to finish. I think it keeps things fresh and me on my toes.
My lists are usually longer than my day. So I've tried to be more realistic. i have found that restructing my lists as the day or time frame of the list progresses helps things stay on task and organized.
Sounds like a difficult challenge Syed. In future semesters, you might find a way to schedule and administer the midterm a bit earlier.
I complete the urgent tasks and prioritize the remaining tasks
My task at hand is to be able to post midterm grade by Monday November 15th noon. By the way midterm took place on Thursday November 11th. Do I dare to put it off? No! We meet twice a week T and Th, this is a required Math course, suggested use of on-line, technology is not much value. In this course, my expectation for students is to sit down and stare at the problem, strategies, and start to put steps of solutions on a piece of paper and reason it out if the strategies is going to work or not. NOT ON-LINE CLICKING MULTIPLE CHOICES.
A mid-term test cannot be shared among the students for grading; I am in a career school without office hours, and TA.
Sounds like you are developing a great system Caroline. You can start small and refine it over time. Doesn't have to be perfect on the first pass.
I wish I would be more proactive and accomplish tasks within a reasonable time frame but I am one to procrastinate unfortunately. I will try, after taking this training module, and learning how to effectively complete a "to do list", to accomplish tasks more proactively then reactively. Joelle Sando
I make a list of task that have to be done, and then I look at what is most important and try to get that done first. Not so important task I do when I have more time but I make sure to take care of it. I'm getting better at it.
Wow, what a great recommendation about the to do list app Nikki. I'd love it if you could share what it's called with this group. Sounds like a very helpful tool.
Yes, urgent tasks come first. If there is time to work ahead and you anticipate getting busy in the future, you might chip away at some lower priority tasks too.
Yes, it's important to allow ourselves a good margin for error Steve. Being too ambitious with what we put on our schedules can put us in a tough spot.
