Strategies for Organizing Academics While at Home
Reducing Distractions
- Start with a clean workspace
- Create a To-Do List
- Check e-mail infrequently (e.g. 3 times/day)
- Turn on "Out of Office" notification (also helpful if balancing a job)
- Turn off app notifications (may identify on calendar when to check notifications from school)
- Silence cell-phone during work times or hide phone
- Set up "free times" where you are able to freely "roam" Youtube/apps/news
- Close out the 20 tabs
Physical Organization
- Create a workspace (clean surface that does not face something distracting)
- A table may be helpful
- Do you need background noise? Try https://coffitivity.com/
- Navigating and managing the new learning management systems
Mental Organization
Time Management
- How much time do I have? How much time will it take?
- Enter all new assignments into the calendar for each class (if it's not on the calendar, it does not exist)
- Enter class times; you may be in a different time zone than your professor
Task Management
- What do I have to do? When do I have to get it done?
- Create daily and weekly To-Do Lists
- What do I have to get done today? When do I have to do it?
- What do I have to get done by Friday? When do I have to do it?
- Maybe these tasks are on your calendar or in a separate notebook
- Identify what is negotiable, and what is not
- Which tasks can be done on a different day, and which need to be done today?
Electronic Organization
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How have you set up your files on your computer for your online learning?
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Do you download the docs right away? Does everything get saved to the desktop?
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Do you have a "tree" system (e.g. folder for course; within the course have 2 folders for the lab and class; within the lab folder have folders for papers, handouts, lab assignments?)
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How are the files by course going to be organized?
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- Create automatic places where files are stored
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Create a standard way of naming files (e.g. last revised date at end of file name)
App Resource for Class Organization
- Notability
- There is a cost for the app
- Can record classes and sync with written notes
- Developing cues so a student does not have to listen to the whole class again
- Such as: stepped away, rewind here, I have no idea what they are talking about, or simply "?"
- Notability syncs writing with the audio that is being played at that moment
- Allows for import of PowerPoint, pdfs, word docs...you can add pages and take notes while listening to the lecture...amazing (in my opinion).
- Audio, ppt, and notes are then sync’d
- Can develop folders per subject to maintain course organization
*Developed based on information from Michelle Mullen , MS, CRC, CPRP, PhD Candidate Webinar March 25, 2020