Back in Work

Today is my first day back in work after the Christmas/New Year break. I am allowing myself the luxury of a ‘slow’ day to ease back into things – dealing with emails that have come in over the last week and a half (thankfully not too many and nothing particularly complicated), processing a few bits and pieces that I carried over from December and getting my head around the more significant tasks that I have to do over the next two or three weeks. These include marking some reflective reviews by Final Year students (approximately 55 to do which will take the best part of two days), finalizing the set-up of my first year examination which, this year, is being delivered online, producing and circulating the final version of the School’s Workload Data Collection Form and writing six lectures to be given in the last week of January/first week of February. Put together, this is quite a substantial amount of work but, fortunately, I have a relatively clear schedule so I ought to be able to carve out some good chunks of time to tackle this work efficiently.

I was thinking this morning about how my default ‘position’ at work is to sit at my desk in front of my computer monitor and how this tends to automatically push me towards working on and thinking about email. But I have come back after the break determined to try to only look at email and also only to think about task planning at specific times. I have realized that I need to shift my default position and break the physical link between where I am at work and the tools that I have in front of me. I should try to set things up so that the space in front of me has a notebook for thinking/planning/creating, papers to read etc. and then I should move to my computer only when I need to use it. As long as it is there directly in front of me then I will look at email, shuffle tasks around and do certain types of ‘small stuff’ work as my default activity, which is not what I want. I have taken the first step and collected a new A4 hardback notebook (because above anything else I just love a new notebook) and when I have finished typing this I am going to shove a few things around on my desk space, reducing the space taken up by my computer/tech and increasing the open/free space for other types of work. Then, I suppose, I had better knuckle down to some work…