New Year, New Goals: Productivity

Here at The Novice Professor (and everywhere else) academics are heading into a new school year. As "this" year comes to a close we are reflecting on the past year and setting goals for the upcoming year. To inspire you, and help hold ourselves accountable, we are sharing our goals with you in this week's posts, spanning several topics of academic life. 

We at The Novice Professor are still working on developing habits that will increase our Productivity and tweaking our work-life balance. Three of us share our goals in this area.

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Brian

​This one may sound a bit silly, but I want to wake up earlier and get to campus earlier! Last spring semester I arrived on campus around 8 am and was able to be quite productive in the mornings. This fall semester I hope to arrive around 7:30 am to give myself an extra half hour, which I hope to dedicate to research related tasks (see first goal) and to writing (...and because faculty parking has been condensed and I still want to get a good spot each day). I am not a morning person by any stretch, but starting my days earlier led me to be more productive, and allowed for me to leave campus a little earlier in the evenings as well (which helped with my mental health and stamina).

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Jen

​With the two lofty goals in mind that I described above on top of my other responsibilities, my time management is going to need to be on point and my productivity at it’s peak game if I’m going to graduate with any of my sanity left. I may need to re-read Jenel’s post from May to remind myself of her tips for maximizing productivity. In May 2019, hopefully I’ll be Dr. Blush and looking forward to my future employment.  

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Karly

​One of my productivity downfalls is putting too much on my plate. This year, I hope to prioritize my time and create realistic boundaries for what I can and cannot do. To help accomplish this, I plan to use the first 15 minutes of my mornings to reflect on what I need to accomplish, rather than diving straight into my email like I usually do. This will help me focus my energy on what needs to be done, and avoid unnecessary distractions. It will also serve to remind me of the status of my current projects, allowing me to see the progress I am making on each.  

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