Time management

When I met the new MJs last week, managing the insane demands on their time seemed to be their biggest concern. It’s possible that it became their biggest concern because everyone kept telling them about how insanely busy they were going to be until they got freaked out. But nevertheless, I hope this will be a useful topic. Here’s a list of tips.

Break tasks up into small chunks. Concordia’s Centre for Teaching and Learning Services recommends that you take a big goal, like marking a stack of research papers, and break it into smaller tasks, like marking five before dinner. They also recommend that you remind yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing: “I am marking this giant pile of research papers because I need this job to pay rent next month and I’d like to use this professor as a reference,” for example.

Do high priority work before you have a chance to get distracted. I never have enough self discipline to actually do this, but Penelope Trunk recommends working on a high-priority project for an hour before you look at your email or open anything else that might distract you.

Only touch things once. For example, if you get an email suggesting a meeting time, write the time down right away, then file or delete the email. If you have to go searching for the information later, you’ve just taken twice as much time dealing with that email. But Penelope Trunk also reminds you that:

Good time management doesn’t mean dealing with everything right away. The classic example for TAs is the student who emails you in a panic the night before he has to present or hand in a paper asking you for help. That’s his time management problem, not yours.

Schedule when and where you’re going to do things. Peter Bregman has a very good if slightly insane list of time management tips at HarvardBusiness.com. He cites a study that found 100 per cent of women who said when and where they would do a breast exam actually followed through, whereas only 53 per cent of women who had a more vague plan did. Think about when you have gaps of available time in your day, then plan what you’re going to get done during them and where.

Congratulate yourself on your excellent time management skills. Make the first item on every to do list “make list.” When you’ve finished the list, you already have one thing to check off. You are so efficient. Buy yourself a cookie. And while you’re waiting for your cookie:

Read the newspaper while you’re standing in lines. And waiting for the bus, and waiting for class to start, and waiting to meet friends. Also, listen to the radio while you wash dishes and get ready in the morning. Send emails while you watch The National. Keeping up with the news is much less daunting if you multitask.

Remember to schedule your daytime hours. It’s Thursday morning. You have a news story due Tuesday. Think you have plenty of time because you have five days to do it? Wrong – you’ll be in class all day Friday (if you’re an MJ1) and you won’t be able to reach anyone on the weekend. If you don’t start today you’ll be in a mad scramble to get interviews on Monday.

Ban instant messaging. I made this fabulous discovery in fourth year – if I don’t log in to MSN, I finish whatever I’m doing twice as fast. Instant messaging is the biggest time vampire in the universe, because it’s constant random interruptions that people expect you to reply to immediately. I also discovered that I read and write twice as fast if I’m not listening to music with words (music with no lyrics is fine).

Schedule happy time. Everyone deserves an hour with some ice cream, wine and streaming TV on a regular basis.

It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Matt Pearson, who graduated last year, came up with this metaphor for the program. It’s a good one. Don’t burn yourself out early.

Interviews and discussion groups: strangely similar.

As I got ready to run some workshops on effective discussion groups, I realized something. A discussion group is just like an interview.

Usually you don't interview 30 people at once, of course. And in a real interview, you're trying to learn something instead of trying to teach something. But other than that, the basic idea is the same: you're trying to get them to say something interesting and intelligent by asking questions.

Here are the basic concepts that apply to both running a discussion group and conducting an interview:

Ask open-ended questions. Don't ask yes or no questions (ex: Do you think the NDP will continue to prop up the government?). Don't ask leading questions (ex: Do you think the NDP is propping up the government because they struck a deal with the Conservatives?). Don't ask long-winded questions (ex: Given Layton's past strategy of using his party's record of consistently voting against the government to demonstrate the NDP's strength, what kind of strategy change does this signal for the NDP and why are they changing tactics now?). Don't ask double-barreled questions (see previous: the person answering will pick whichever part of the question is easier to answer and ignore the other part). Ask simple, direct, open questions that start with words like how and why (ex: Why would the NDP choose to prop up the government?). You'll get the most direct, interesting and honest answers in return, and they'll generate further discussion.

Research your subjects. It drives students crazy when profs and TAs assume they know nothing when they actually know a lot. It's just as bad when they assume students understand difficult foundational theories that are actually going over their heads. And it drives sources crazy when you don't know basic things you could have found out on the internet.

Be focused. I have been in so many classes where I've spent the entire time wondering where the prof or TA is going with this line of questioning or activity and how it's supposed to help me write a better paper or exam. Same thing in an interview. If it's clear what you're trying to find out and why, you'll get better answers.

Think fast. Sometimes you'll have a page full of interesting, open-ended questions prepared, and no one will have done the readings. Likewise, sometimes you'll book an interview and your subject will be a dud. This web resource from Concordia has some good ideas for things to do when you realize your original plan isn't going to work out. Keep a few of them in mind.

Listen. Ask follow up questions based on what's been said instead of sticking to a script. But...

Don't be afraid to cut people off. If you have limited time and it's obvious the discussion is going astray, guide it back to your focus. Because you should always:

Remember that you're in charge. It doesn't matter how important the person you're interviewing is - it's your interview. Don't let them turn it around and start asking you questions, or try to bluster their way through tough questions by making you feel stupid for asking them. In a discussion group, remember that THEY have a stake in impressing YOU - not the other way around.

Also, remember that both of them get a lot easier with practice.

Oops.

I accidentally published a post here that I meant to publish in my personal blog. Coincidentally, it had to do with teaching, but I didn't mean to put it here. I deleted it, but it might still show up in your feed reader, so I thought I'd explain to avoid confusion.

Whoops! You can read it here, if you're interested.

Make J-School TA come to you.

Hello and welcome!

This blog is designed to help you. Hopefully after today's training sessions you'll feel more confident about your new job. But in case there are specific areas you'd like to learn more about before marking your first paper or leading your first tutorial, I've curated a ton of links for you with some more in depth information. They're on the right hand side of the page if you scroll down a bit.

Nervous about speaking in front of a group? Have a look at the tips from Toastmasters International. Never marked a paper? Learn how to make a grading rubric that will save you time and help you be consistent. Not sure how you're going to balance your school work with your TA duties? Peter Bregman of HarvardBusiness.com has some tips for the extremely busy. I even found an application that will block you from sites like Facebook while you're trying to write news stories on deadline.

I'm also planning to write about a post a week on relevant topics, and give you a little more information on what I think are the most useful parts of the resources I've linked to.

But none of my hard work will be of any use to anyone if no one reads it. It's hard to remember to read blogs, and it's annoying to check them only to find that there haven't been any updates since the last time you checked. So I'm going to give you a quick tutorial on how to use iGoogle and Google Reader so that you're notified every time there's a new post. If you don't already use iGoogle, it will change your life. I swear.

1) Go to google.ca/ig
2) Click on "Don't have an iGoogle page?" Or try signing in with your Gmail address. There might be a page set up already with some Google stuff you use. Google is creepy that way.
3) Click "Add stuff"
4) Search for "google reader" in the search box and add it
5) Click on your new Google Reader gadget
5) Sign in with your Gmail address. At this point I think you need to have a Gmail account for it to work. If you don't have one, you can click on "Create an account" and make one. You don't have to actually use it for email.
6) Click "Add a subscription"
7) Type in "jschoolta.blogspot.com"
8) Make iGoogle your homepage

After you've done that, you'll probably want to add a whole bunch of other stuff to iGoogle. I have my Gmail, Facebook, Google Reader, the weather, and headlines from The Globe and Mail, CBC, and the BBC. That means as soon as I go online, I know if I have any email, whether I should bring an umbrella with me to school, if there's a new post in any of the blogs I follow, and what the major news of the day is. I recommend adding some of the blogs I have listed under "journalism blogs" as well - not just because they're interesting, but because I've been asked in internship interviews if I read any journalism blogs and if so, which ones.

You're welcome.