world literature

How to Be Organized

Robert Lunday

The main reason students fail to do their best in my courses – and sometimes fail outright – is a lack of organizational skills. In this lecture, I will describe what I believe are the more important of these skills, providing tips and suggestions for tools along the way. If you can make being highly organized into a habit, you should do well in this course, in your later college courses, and also in professional life.

Consider aspects of time management. I recommend that you review your responsibilities at the start of each week – Sunday night, let’s say. Even if you mainly use electronic time-management tools, put your thoughts down on paper; let your writing arm get involved in the effort, so that your body-memory will kick in, and your hand will “touch” the goals of the week ahead of you. Consider the daily, weekly, and longer-term deadlines; also, remind yourself now and then of how these efforts are connected to your life goals.

Think of time as something you can, to a certain extent, customize. Do you work best as a multi-tasker? Or, is that a lie you tell yourself? Are you detail-oriented, or a big- picture thinker – or can you switch between the two paradigms? Do you work best at night, or are you a morning person? How does location affect your ability to concentrate? Do you work in marathon sessions, or do you prefer to take breaks, or switch back and forth between one project and the next? Do you work well alone?

Can you cooperate with others in a group – as a leader or follower? (Team work is increasingly important in professional life, but being a self-starter is also highly valued; find your balance between these two skills). How good are you at delegating, at following through, at starting things, and at polishing your efforts? You might do

a self-assessment regarding your work habits and time management; get the opinions of those who know you as well, and look for points where you can change or improve your methods.

Learn how to prioritize; what things need to be done sooner rather than later? What tasks are easier? (I find that if I get simple tasks out of the way, the harder ones come into focus better; but you might be different).

Now, let’s look at that monster known as the deadline.

What is a deadline? It’s a fixed point in time; it’s a wall you expect to run into, and often do. Try, however, to think of deadlines dynamically: not as burdens, but as opportunities.

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A deadline is really a threshold toward greater things, after all. Also, although many deadlines are put on us by others, it is best to take control of the deadline yourself – by, for example, setting your own end point at some point prior to the official deadline. Aim to be early in order to ensure, as best you can, the reality of being on time. Think of it as “insurance time.” When you budget money for expenses, doesn’t it seem that you always need to over-estimate in order to more or less break even? Do the same with time, and you will develop a reputation for being punctual and dependable – valuable professional attributes.

Some tasks can be met through a single work session: one errand, one sit-down at the desk, one push. Others – and often, the projects that matter most – cannot be accomplished in one action. Instead, we need to plan a work schedule, and work progressively. In some efforts, the later stages cannot even be properly defined until we have accomplished the earlier ones. When we are doing something we’ve done before, we might have a clear overview, a mental map, of the process and its rhythms – how much of ourselves it will take, what level of energy, with what degree of confidence in successful completion. But especially for new tasks, or those that are complex and variable, that mental map is hard or impossible to create.

As best you can, when confronted with a complex task – writing a research essay, for example – try to plan backwards from the deadline. What stages of what types of work will be needed? What resources will you need? How much assistance of what kinds might you need (conferencing with the professor, help from a librarian, or sessions with a tutor, for example)?

Create a checklist and a schedule, approximating the amount of time needed; remember, again, to over-estimate slightly, since other things will no doubt eat into your schedule. If you actually attend to each individual stage, or force yourself to double-time and get caught up when you’ve gotten behind, then you are

being proactive – another valuable professional attribute. Being proactive means doing things now instead of later; not burying your head in the sand, not procrastinating, not letting things snowball, but gritting your teeth, rolling up your sleeves (or whatever cliché you prefer) and getting the job done. Many problems get worse the longer we delay; if you can learn to be proactive while you’re young, believe me – you’ll save yourself a lot of grief (and as a blue-ribbon procrastinator and head-in-the-sand burier, I speak from rich experience).

We all have different personalities; some people under-prepare, while others overdo it

– and end up, sometimes, losing out because they undo the good work they did, or lack confidence in their abilities. Try to look inside yourself and see which type you are, and seek the right balance. Practice; get advice and feedback on the things you do; do your homework and get information – stay ahead of everyone else, or try to.

Leave time for rehearsal, for proofreading and revising, for feedback, and for sitting back and relaxing after you’ve finished.

This course, like most commitments, has several deadlines. How do you keep track of your deadlines? It’s fine to maintain a simple, paper or memo-book list, but if you have regular access to a computer, laptop, tablet, or cell phone, then consider using an electronic calendar, and perhaps some sort of online to-do-list program.

Your student email account through HCCS, Microsoft Exchange ( Webmail ), has a built-in calendar; you can add your own information to be privately kept, and it will be available from an Internet-ready device when you are logged on.

Google makes a wide range of (mostly) free tools, and one of their most common is their Calendar . You can set up several different calendars (for school, family matters, paying bills, exercise routines, etc.), and show them together or hide the ones you don’t want to see on the same screen. Adding items is easy, and you can set up email, desktop, and SMS reminders, determining the advance time yourself. You can add links, notes, or other information to each entry, and can share entries or entire calendars with other people. If you use Gmail as you regular email service, you can link your Calendar and Gmail (as well as other Google services).

There are other online services of this type – most have more or less the same functions describe above. Look at Yahoo Calendar, Windows Live (or Hotmail) Calendar, or check through your ISP (Internet Service Provider) – they usually offer such tools with your service.

Whichever one you use, it’s a good idea to enter all deadlines for your courses into a calendar at the start of the semester. Go through the syllabus, and as necessary, confirm with the professor what is required when, what the possibility of extensions might be, and make sure you know what resources are necessary. Estimate the amount of work-hours you will need to invest in each project. If you enter all deadlines for all courses (and perhaps other commitments you have), you can see a good, visual time- map of your work responsibilities for the near future. Then, you can rearrange as needed, and prepare yourself logistically as well as mentally. It’s incredible, really, how much more work you can get done – and how much more efficiently – when you have a clear plan based on an accurate schedule.

If a simple, print-based datebook or memo book, or a large-scale wall or desk calendar, suits you better – then go in that direction. But most of us cannot simply go from memory if we want to meet all our commitments with excellence.

In addition to a calendar of some sort, you might keep various “to do” lists. The calendar tool can function suitably as both a schedule and a to-do list, of course, but some people find it useful to practice both methods of errand-maintenance.

Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc., again provide various online tools. With Gmail, you can activate something call “Google Tasks” that you can then show and hide within Gmail; you can quickly convert emails into lists (or Calendar entries), you can add deadlines and links, and can both sync (across your devices) or share, as with Calendar. Also, look at Remember the Milk and Wunderlist . By the way – how does one find out about such online tools? I use Feedly to stay current with several blogs and web sites that report on tips and tools: some of the best are Lifehacker , Makeuseof , Mashable , Gizmodo , Techcrunch , and ReadWriteWeb . An rss reader can help you keep up-to-date with any topic you’re interested in.)

Additionally, your computer’s operating system (Windows or Macintosh, probably) most likely has an electronic “sticky note” program; sometimes, they are also sync- capable. Do a Google search for “to do list apps” to find others that might work for

you. Or, again, practice the old-school memo-book (or Post –It Notes) method, if you prefer.

Simply keeping lists of shopping items, task to perform, and so forth, is fine with the above-mentioned programs. However, for school or work, you often need something more specialized. For example, you will keep notes from your classes, and will need to find research; you will need to keep and maintain precise information, particularly for bibliographic materials. Again, the old-school methods include notebooks, note cards, manila folders, accordion files, etc. But if you prefer to work with electronic options, consider the following:

For gathering, organizing, searching, syncing, and sharing Web links, clippings, articles, and so forth, as well as creating lists (including bibliographic data), check out Evernote . This free program (for the basic version, anyway) can be used as a Web-based program, a desktop program, or a smart-phone app; also, you can add toolbar add-ons or extensions in Chrome or Firefox to facilitate bookmarking, clipping, and searching. (For simple bookmarking, but with a more effective set of options -- including syncing across devices or cloud storage – look into Delicious or Diigo .)

Another tool that is more specifically for scholarly bibliographic information

is Zotero ; it works best as a Firefox add-on, but you can download an extension for Chrome or a stand-alone version for your desktop. Basically, Zotero allows you to download bibliographic detail in one click from Amazon, library catalogues, article databases, regular Web pages, etc.; this data is stored automatically in the cloud and

on your computer, and can be gathered, tagged, linked, put in folders, linked to urls or full-text articles, combined with notes, and can be used to generate MLA or APA- style bibliographies. There are other, similar services (CiteULike, Mendeley,

Refworks, and Endnote, for example, although the last two cost money), and they change over time, so it’s best to compare the latest versions and decide which is best for you.

I provide a great deal of materials for the assignments in my courses. It’s a lot to go through – the syllabus, supplemental handouts, written lectures, demonstrations, follow-up group emails, Web resources, etc. – you can’t remember it all, I know.

What to do? First, allow time for re-reading; second, create your own “cheat sheets” and checklists from my materials. Some of the things I’m telling you, you already know; some things matter now, some later; some things matter more, some less. Read through everything, perhaps printing out to highlight by hand (or use online tools to highlight); but also, consider copying and pasting to emphasize the passages you need to remember, or that you need to study more carefully. Make your own calendar and checklists.

The checklist is one of the most important tools of technology, and of modern life generally. Did you watch Felix Baumgartner’s Jump from Space a few years ago? His coach on the ground ran through a forty-point checklist before Baumgartner performed his daring feat. Jet pilots, surgeons, and other “geniuses” quite typically use checklists to make sure they perform all necessary steps. Every complicated action is really a series of linear, one-by-one choices, even though some of those choices are determined by varying conditions – in which case, a flow chart can help (a flow chart is simply a checklist with variable paths at varying points). For most things that we do in life, there are protocols (already-designed steps, or rules, or patterns) to help us do the task right. When you are doing something new, one of the first things you need to do is find out (by asking or looking it up) what protocols, or acceptable methods or styles, are applicable or required in that environment.

The protocols are for process; for product – where the process is supposed to lead – you need to know what parameters define the assignment (what length, format, problems to solve, etc.), and what criteria are being used to assess or judge the quality or success of your work. I provide such information for each assignment on the syllabus; whenever you aren’t sure of a professor’s criteria, or if you need elaboration, be sure to ask questions – but try to ask focused questions that show you have read what information was already provided.

Generally, you want to communicate in a timely, polite, informed, and coherent manner. When you send emails, use proper salutations and titles; make sure the

context of your query is clear (what class you’re in, if it’s an email outside the class

site; what issue or assignment you’re talking about; and of course, who you are!) Use proper register and diction; don’t talk to your professors, supervisors, or clients as you would your buddies. Spell the addressee’s name correctly; and use a proper closing.

Respond promptly to emails, and send thank-you’s for assistance given.

Returning to criteria: don’t aim merely for the minimal level of success. Aim for excellence! That might sound obvious, but in the flow of things, when work piles up, you can forget why you’re engaged in something to begin with. Also, if you aim too low to start with, you might fall short; better to fall short of “excellent” and hit “good” than to aim for “ok” and hit “not passing.”

The assignments you are given usually are designed to meet the goals of a course, and of the larger educational standards your courses work toward. Try to find for yourself how each course, and each assignment, can suit your own goals and purposes at the same time. That is a good way to help you reach the level of excellence – because your heart will be in it.

We use specific tools to get our work done; as media and equipment have become more sophisticated, more complex, it has taken the average student or the average worker longer to learn mastery of those tools. If you focus explicitly on that goal, your work overall will improve, as well as your enjoyment of it.

You probably use MS Word or Works as your word processor; there are many free versions of office programs (LibreOffice, Zoho, Lotus Symphony, etc.) that can be downloaded, but there are also cloudservices – programs that you access through the Internet, but for which little or no software installation is needed. Even Microsoft offers an online version of Office, through Windows Live. You can also use Google Docs, which is evolving into Google Drive ; it is a series of apps (for word processing, slide-creation, spreadsheet, etc.), allowing you to store documents online, sync, and selectively share. Microsoft also offers such functions, and you can find other, similar services: ZoHo is a popular one, for example. Besides these, for online file storage and transfer, look into Dropbox, Amazon Cloud, and Box.

Be sure, however you do it, to back up your work; although our Forum assignments can be typed directly into the forum message box, and should save with no difficulty, I recommend typing and saving your work (anything over a few lines) using one of the above methods, and then copying and pasting your work into the forums.

Remember that computers, their hard drives, and Internet connections can break down; so, save your work, and plan contingencies. Overall, it’s a true sign of professional integrity to have contingency plans for important matters. What excuses do I generally hear from students, do you think? “I lost my file,” “I got a virus,” “my

Internet went out,” “my laptop died” – sure, those things happen. Are they understandable? Yes, I suppose. Are they acceptable? No – not for me, and certainly not in professional life. Your boss or your clients will not care about such things; they just want the work done, they want it NOW, and they want it good. If you want to stand head and shoulders above others, and be known for the quality of your work, then plan ahead: since you already know that machines break, that things get lost, that cars break down, that people get sick, etc., prepare for those eventualities. If you’re using a computer and the Internet to do your school work, then have back-up

arrangements. I won’t accept the excuses related to computer viruses, Internet connectivity problems, or broken laptops, because I know you can go to campus to do your work, or to a café, or to the library, or to a friend’s house. If you’re following the advice above – setting your own deadlines to allow for “insurance time” – then that will give you the additional room for unplanned problems.

Well, this is a long lecture – and far from complete on the topic of being organized. What are your own tips and tricks? Post some on the Introductions forum to share with the rest of us; if I incorporate them into a later edition of this Skills Lecture, I will put you down as a source.