Research & Instruction
( A Year In the Life - Susan)
URGENT DEMANDS
Faculty at my door
Students at my door
Requests for information literacy sessions
Calls from the RIS desk for help with a science research question
Last-minute desk shifts to cover
Emails asking for immediate help
Problems with databases
SHORT-TERM PRIORITIES
ACRL subject review
Revamp LibGuides before teaching a repeat class
Revamp lesson plans for repeat classes
Create lesson plans for new classes
Create/revamp handouts for a class
Create new LibGuides for a new class
Enhancement grant work
Choice book reviews
Social media posts
Search Committees – Business Librarian and Social Sciences Librarian
Library Committees
Campus committees
Book chapter proposal / Acceptance / Draft / Final version
Library events – Finals Fairy / Banned Books Week / A Novel Idea / Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon
LONG-TERM PRIORITIES
Departmental goals
Personal goals
Journal articles to co-author
SWOT analysis for the RIS Department
RIS strategic plan revamp
Collection Development policies re-write
Weeding for 6 departments
Buying books for 6 liaison departments
Scanning for conference proposals
Library events – Finals Fairy / Banned Books Week / A Novel Idea / Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon
Time Management Techniques Used
In the past, I have tried multiple apps to manage my "to-do" lists, but did so with little success. Ultimately I found going exceedingly low-tech was the way for me to go, even more so when things are truly at their peak of insane busyness.
At first I tried to simply make weekly lists of all my tasks - both personal and professional - and tried to pick and choose which day to do each thing. When this proved too messy and not as functional as I had hoped, I changed my technique to an even simpler one - a list of things to do at work titled "Here" and one that related to my personal life titled "There", and simply wrote a new list every day, transferring un-finished items from the previous day as needed.
Weekly Schedule Example:
Daily List Examples:
Collection Management
( A Year In the Life - Jennifer)
URGENT DEMANDS
Troubleshooting discovery layer issues
Fixing catalog errors
Responding to broken link reports
SHORT-TERM PRIORITIES
Special cataloging requests
OCLC support tickets
Search committees - Exhibits Curator and University Archivst
Library Events Committee
Library task groups
Campus committees
Consortial task group (chair)
Faculty Senate (secretary and parliamentarian)
Promotions review
Writing and submitting articles
Preparing presentations
Emergency plan updates
Collections Management SWOT analysis
LONG-TERM PRIORITIES
Cataloging donations
Improving metadata in our institutional repository
Creating collection development workshops and plans
Finishing cleanup of our microform government documents records
Improving our discovery layer - knowledge base update and maintenance, enhancement requests, etc.
Learning Robert's Rules
Scanning for opportunities to present and publish
OCLC update webinars
Ongoing professional development - conferences, webinars, readings, etc.
Institutional repository outreach
Catalog cleanup projects
User studies on our discovery layer settings
Time Management Techniques Used
I have used and am using Outlook's calendar and to-do functionality, in concert with a paper list of ongoing responsibilities and open projects, to help manage my time. Initially, I used Outlook only to mark down appointments and tasks with a deadline. As my responsibilities grew, though, I needed something a little more complex to ensure that I didn't lose anything in the shuffle.
I tried designating days to work on my primary responsibilities, one day per responsibility. However, I found that I struggled to maintain focus on certain types of rote tasks for longer than a few hours, so I started designating two tasks per day (one rote and one more mentally engaging). But this method was making it difficult to fit in tasks that did not fall into my primary responsibilities, as my general categories did not include room for such "irregular" (but common!) work. I had also reached a point where I had more responsibilities than could easily be divided into 10 equal chunks.
I therefore pivoted to pre-planning my weeks, designating blocks of time for each task I needed to get done. (I also tracking how I actually spent my time.) This worked well enough for a while, but it lacked flexibility, making it mentally difficult to fit in urgent work and causing problems if something took longer than I'd estimated it would. Mounting frustration with that lack of flexibility as well as an increasing disconnect between how I'd schedule my time and how I'd actually spend that time led me to scrap "time block" methods entirely and switch to a priority- and task-based system.
In the priority tasks system, I plot out everything as tasks (for instance, "catalog 25 books") and then arrange the tasks on my week in priority order. I do still try to estimate the amount of time each task will take and arrange the tasks by day, in order to ensure that my expectations of what I will get done are realistic. So far, this systems seems to be working well. It lets me keep track of and make sure I'm making progress on my many different responsibilities, but I can also easily add new, urgent tasks and freely change tasks from one day to another. It also requires less planning time than the old system did, which was an unexpected bonus.
Daily Assignments Example:
Pre-planned Time Blocks Example (blue is planned, aqua is actual):
Priority Tasks Example:
