Using what others have learned

In my last post, I promised to share a resource that takes the write-everything-down method to the next level—and makes it even more useful. Writing everything down that is needed to complete a project is indeed helpful for planning our time for any given project, but it can be much more than that. In this post, let’s take that method one more level to see if we spend our time doing what we want to do, or what is most important to us.

Dr. Nancy Zingrone posted an article called “Five Useful Tips for Good Time Management for the Online Teacher” at WizIQ. I contacted her to gain permission to repost it here. http://blog.wiziq.com/5-useful-tips-for-good-time-management-for-online-teachers/#disqus_thread

The article pertains to any learner or teacher, not just online teachers. Dr. Zingrone advocates not only writing down everything we do during the day, but then to categorize our activities, analyze how we spend our time, and make changes based on the data.

I thought at first that the method was tedious, but it takes little time to track our time—a bit like keeping an old-fashioned checkbook.  After the second day, I was eager to write down what I was spending my time doing so that at the end of five days I could see if any patterns emerged.  Did patterns emerge? Yes, indeed. I was surprised that I spend about two hours at the computer each day drafting emails. Then I go back to those high-stakes emails and re-read or revise before sending.  By high-stakes emails I mean emails to my bosses or my clients. I want to strike the right tone and by drafting and revising, I think I do a better job of that.

Is that too much time spent on drafting and revising? I guess it depends. If I am responding to a request to share work, I do not think so. Do I wish I were faster at writing appropriate emails? Absolutely!  Will I get faster by tracking my time? I will get back to you on that. J