Captains of our Mental Ships
I’m rounding the corner on my third year of full-time teaching, as well as my third quarter of doctoral studies. One of the most surprising things to me about both pursuits is the copious amount of information I’m consistently exposed to. There’s a constant stream of information about advances in my given field(s) of study, andragogy, higher ed landscape shifts, and in developments in the lives of peers and students. What’s more, I’m also supposed to engage with the information in meaningful ways – synthesizing it, teaching it, and integrating it into my life. That’s a lot. That’s not even counting my primary obligations to my faith and loved ones!
Sinking
Even though I’m an attorney and am therefore conditioned to navigate rivers of information and adapt to where it leads, I often feel like I’m falling behind. I’m sure if you’re reading this you feel the same way!
I’ll even go as far as to say that if you’re an achiever or a go-getter, you probably sometimes feel like an imposter or fraud. You feel like you’re in a position that’s either beyond what you can do, or that if show your full potential you’ll be stuck with even more responsibility and jobs. In The Now Habit, military veteran and psychologist Neil Fiore names those tendencies and more. He explains that we can become mentally paralyzed and will procrastinate not because we’re lazy, but because we want to do well and we’re not sure what to do next. Procrastination is temporary relief from those burdens and an assertion or our own free will and power. It’s not a fun cycle, though. We all know that.
Plotting a Course
Fortunately, professional tinkerers have designed mental frameworks and productivity tools to help people like us not only stay with the current of information, tasks, meetings, etc. but to navigate it all with panache.
The purpose of this post is to share what I’ve learned about navigating the stream of information and work, but also to solicit from you ideas about other mental frameworks or tools that can be helpful to me and others.
I’ve generated the Panopto session below to explain my personal philosophy of productivity and how it’s guided by my faith, how I manage projects and tasks, and how I keep up with the ever-flowing information stream. Here’s is a PDF list of resources discussed in the video.
Additional Resources
ISTE Standard for Student #3: Knowledge Constructor
Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
- Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their intellectual or creative pursuits.
- Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information, media, data or other resources.
- Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.
- Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems, developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.
Jarret, C. (2020, May 14). Why procrastination is about managing emotions, not time. BBC. Why procrastination is about managing emotions, not time – BBC Worklife
Kane, B. Eat the frog. Todoist. https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eat-the-frog
What do you do?
Please share your resources in the comments and I’ll periodically update my lists of links and resources!
A very refreshing way to share a post. One thing that really stood out after watching your Panopto video is how organized you are! I really enjoyed watching your sharing and found myself taking notes. I found the RSS reader you recommended, Inoreader, to be very useful. I’ve just downloaded it and have started using it. I am using the Microsoft equivalent of Evernote, OneNote, and it’s one the most used tools in my daily life next to the Chrome browser. You’ve also inspired me to check out Zotero. That’ll be next on my to do. Thank you for this very useful post.
I’m glad it was helpful! Are there any particular Chrome plugins you recommend? One thing I mentioned in one of our classes is that I use a different browser for my different areas of life, although I know others prefer to just use different “profiles” and utilize the same browser. Do you keep work and school and life in Chrome, or do you separate them?
This is a very engaging multi-mode presentation! The useful information, the resources, and the experiential context you provide are extremely helpful. I appreciate your reminder to back up files using the 3-2-1 rule.
Thanks! Writing the post reminded me to investigate how Evernote backs up files – the more I rely on any one app the more nervous I get about losing things!
This was such a nice read/watch. I wanted to address your idea that our tools should be powerful enough. . .and not more powerful than that. This is such a great observation and I have found that with some of the graphics tools I use. When adobe moved to a subscription model, I realized that I didn’t need tools as powerful as they offered, and could easily do what I needed to using a less expensive one time purchase tool and the free adobe tools. I try to use the same philosophy with my educational tools and interfaces, and it is easier for me and my students to use tools that don’t take them too far from our home base (google classroom). So I am more likely to use a google slide than a prezi, for example.
Also thank you very much for the thorough explanation of how you use RSS feeds, I had not realized how versatile this tool was. This was a a great resource and I look forward to revisiting it to try to make adjustments to how I access and organize my sources.
That’s a great point about the Google Slide vs Prezi if you’re already in Classroom…I recently attended a seminar in which someone pointed out that the “right” tech is probably the tech the org is already using. If it can do what your people need and they KNOW HOW TO USE IT, that’s really all you need, haha. However, it is nice to get some new toys in the toolbox because needs change and new products are always available.