Forgive us our procrastination...

I like to joke with my students that I am just like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way, but I think we all know better. My biggest struggle/character flaw/lovable imperfection as a student, instructor, and scholar is a tendency to procrastinate. It's often productive procrastination (my house gets so clean when I'm avoiding a looming deadline!), and I know how to manage it much better now than I did as an undergraduate, but it still trips me up sometimes.

I know some people thrive on to-do lists, of varying levels of tech-enhancement, getting great pleasure out of checking items off the list, but I tend to feel overwhelmed by them and shut down. My motto is "one flaming hoop at a time!" I don't look 15 steps ahead of where I am but instead stay focused on the task at hand, maybe the one immediately following. It's how I've survived two rounds of grad school while remaining the most well-adjusted, least-medicated grad student I know, but it has its drawbacks (Not having any publications when I graduated is one of the most impactful results of my focus. Still, sanity is so nice!).

I loved the above comic so much I started making
a cross-stitch sampler of it to hang in my office.
Naturally, it's not finished yet. I keep needing to do
other things first...

I tell you all of this to say that what I'm looking for in the way of productivity tools for teaching are those that will help me do things quickly (in case I've waited until the last minute), will keep me on task when I'm rushing to get things done (see last parenthesis), and will help me to get a whole lot of planning and prep done all at once during my highly motivated, peak activity periods (like the two weeks before a semester begins and the first few weeks of the semester before my students turn in their first major assignment, when grading takes over my life).

So far, what I have implemented along those lines are the use of doodle to schedule grade conferences (I can easily update my schedule, students can check when they are supposed to meet me without needing to ask me, and I can't procrastinate grading when I have an appointment to sit and do it with the student present), the use of LMS to plan out due dates and share assignments, and the use of Google docs and forms for some work with students. After learning about so many other tools this semester, however, I think I will endeavor to expand my use of my current favorites and try to add some new ones.

I wish that I had access to Google Classroom, as it seems like the perfect one stop shop for everything I want, but I will make due with a combination of Google Drive and whatever LMS I do have access to next semester. And as I said in my last blog post, I'm going to try to pace myself, only adding a couple of new elements each semester rather than trying for a total hostile takeover.

I'm not yet ready to try one of the apps like Rescue Time, suggested by Mary Ellen Ellis, however, to limit my access to websites like Facebook while I am working. There have to be some rewards to maintain sanity! But I did delete Candy Crush and AlphaBetty off of my phone over a year ago and have felt so much more productive ever since.

I'd also like to try Screenr and Fotobabble, as mentioned by Sandra Miller, to create how-tos or answers to FAQs for my students to post on LMS (then I'll need a t-shirt that says "It's on Springboard!" as well as one that says "It's on the Syllabus!"). It's just exciting to know that there are so many tools out there and that they are becoming more user friendly all the time. It's going to be fun trying new things on my little guinea pigs!

Photo by Dakiny