Archive for August, 2008
How and Why to keep that ‘Back to School enthusiasm’
Well, it’s about 2 weeks until I go back to school after the long summer break and so I thought I’d share my thoughts and ideas on this brand new, exciting and very often terrifying time.
I always looked forward to the start of a new school year as a younger kid. I’m not sure exactly what it is but there is something oh-so-irresistible about the blank canvas before you. It’s a chance to re-invent yourself to a certain extent and to make a positive impression on your teachers and peers. Inevitably, it all starts a week or so prior to the start of term when you go out and buy the best stationary, coat, shoes and lunchbox possible in an effort to make the best impression you can (dare I say it, on the opposite sex).
The new-found enthusiasm contiues when you get into class. You write as neatly as possible (with your new pencil, I might add), lay out tables with all the care and attention of a master craftsman, and colour in diagrams like a young van Goch.
Everything would go so well for about a fortnight and then you’d have a late night, feel a bit tired in the morning and standards would begin to drop; it was inevitable.
via flickr
A lot of things have changed since those days of primary school but for whatever reason I still haven’t been able to shake this terrible habit of mine.
To make sure I don’t fall back into the old ways I have devised the following routine to keep me in tip-top form for class.
- Get into bed by 9:30 on most school nights. A very difficult decision for me as I have always been an evening person (writing this post at 8:45p.m.), but I think it’s possible to reverse this and I’m sure I will reap the rewards in the long term. This is doubly difficuilt as it may mean compromising my social interactions a little, which is why I am aiming only for most and not all nights.
- Shower in the morning. This is another new thing to me as I have always showered in the evenings. Although it means getting up a bit earlier it will help to wake me up further (plus I think my hair looks better after a shower, which is a bonus).
- Keep well nourished. A mistake I’ve been making for pretty much the past 5 years is not eating during the day. I did have lunch. But through the whole morning I was working on a near-empty stomach which distracted me and caused me to lack energy in classes. Breakfast is equally important and though I never skipped it, I normally only had time for a small bowl of cereal. With my new found love of strawberry jam and toast though I hope to get the day off to a much better and nutritious start.
Why bother with all this? If you’re feeling tired you can just catch up after the lesson.
This point of view is a common and foolish one. There’s always someone in class who is falling asleep or just doesn’t want to concentrate; they don’t think they need to because they have a textbook at home. This is such a waste of everybody time and resources. Firstly the student themself, who is wasting their own time, secondly the teacher, whose knowledge and expertise is being squandered, and thirdly the time and attention of participating students which is being wasted by unnecessary interruptions and breaks in teaching.
This goes to show, if just one student is not on form the entire lesson can be less productive for everyone concerned.
Imagine you failed to concentrate in one lesson every day for an hour. That’s five hours a week and more than 100 hours a year. Wouldn’t you like that time back before an exam?
So, I’ll give that a try and report back soon. What do you think, will it work?
Making your to do list AWESOME!
[N.B. A lot of my inspiration for this post is taken from Merlin Mann's Building a Smarter To-Do List parts 1 and 2 so read them if you like]
Students are being given new assignments every day and they need somewhere to record them for future reference. Believe it or not there is a science to this and Mr Mann has made a career from writing and exploring this branch of the broader science known as GTD. But I don’t intend to delve into GTD now, what I’m going to talk about today is how you can create the perfect to-do list for you.
What is a to-do list for?
A to-do list can be as useful or as useless as you make it. At it’s best it can guide you through your saturday night of work with ease and save you half an hour of work, at it’s worst it can help you squeeze out that final piece just in time. However you use your to-do list it always helps you out as long as you remember one thing: keep it simple.
Is this the ideal to-do list?
The to-do list above is indeed ideal for it’s purpose. As you can see it’s a checklist of all the things someone needs to remember for a holiday and it works well for a number of reasons.
- Simple labels
- Not too long
- Easy check boxes
The best to-do lists are simple (making them easy to read), short (making them easy to refer to and easier to work through) and easy to mark off.
How is this acheived?
I’ll give a ‘real-world’ example. Let’s say that you work in a store and you are responsible for stocking the shelves of a particular section, you’ll need to make a list of exactly what you need, how much of it you need and how urgently you need it. Sounds like a simple task but there is a way of doing this which’ll earn you an A+ from your boss.
Work from left to right, making a simple list (like the one above) and write a straight list of each item you need which looks something like this:
- Carrots
- Onions
- Bananas
- Green Grapes
- Large Oranges
That’s pretty simple but it won’t tell you how much and how urgently you need those things. So for that you need to add some metadata. This is simply data about data and will give you an extra bit of detail which will enable you to get exactly what you need.
So the first metadata we can add can be quantity:
- Carrots (1 box)
- Onions (1 sack)
- Bananas (2 boxes)
- Green Grapes (5 bunches)
- Large Oranges (1 box)
And the second can be urgency:
- Carrots (1 box)
- Onions (1 sack)
- Bananas (2 boxes)
- \\\ Green Grapes (5 bunches) ///
- \\\ Large Oranges (1 box) ///
How necessary is that really?
Well it can make quite a difference. If you use the first list you’re going to get carrots, onions, bananas and green grapes (who knows in what quantities) and then you’ll run out of room on the trolley by the time you get to large oranges which are an urgent item. If you use list three however you’ll go straight to green grapes and large oranges because they are marked as urgent and so the most important products will be stacked up well. Furthermore, because you only got 5 bunches of green grapes and not a whole box you now have enough room on the trolley for all the items on your list.
In this way of doing things the boss is happy, you’re happy and the customer is happy. What could be better?
This is just one example of how to do things but there are many ways to customise your to-do list to get the most out of it. Here’s an example of one which could be used at Christmas:
- Jake - iPod nano @ amazon
- Sophie - DVD player @ play.com /**
- Dad - Slippers + Chocolates @ ? ****
Here we can see three different levels of importance represented by stars and also destinations shown by the @. Perhaps it was a bit confusing before I explained that but it highlights the fact that your to-do list if for you only.
it’s something for which you are the most appropriate person for the job
If you’re still uncertain, here’s how a student can use a to-do list:
First of all your to-do list will probably be ongoing. You should be checking off and adding new items to it constantly and so perhaps a Moleskine or an iPhone app such as Dobot Todos is a better and more practical solution for your to-do list. So you add an item when you’re given an assignement or when you remember anything else you need to do such as ask for an extension and you tick off an item when it’s completed. It’s a good idea to keep it on your person when you’re in school/college and at your desk when at home so you can alter it immediately (iPhone is handy for this).
So get out there and customise your to-do list to the max! But make sure you keep it simple, short and relavent to you.