I’ve been Google Calendar-ed

A few weeks ago, Adrian had asked us to do a timeline of our work; part of a task management exercise, I believe. Honestly speaking, I have been skiving on that because I’m not used to planning that far ahead (we were supposed to create a timeline for the entire Labsome duration – that is till October 2010), and usually only work with week-to-week to-do lists. I’ve finally tried to work out a timeline on Google Calendar to help me see the big picture.

I must admit that I’m glad we had this exercise to force me to have a look at my timeline and work out deadline clashes etc. I realise now that I’ve been spending way too much time focusing on my Research Project and neglecting Transient Spaces and CommRev quite a bit. I like to read up on social media on my own free time, so my Research Project doesn’t really feel like work (most of the time). But I am in a constant struggle about Transient Spaces and CommRev and tend to set it aside with the “I’ll get to it soon” excuse. Terrible. I should be strung by the feet with my hair set on fire, I know.

Based on that, I’ve worked things out a little and set a schedule for myself that I hope I’ll follow in the next couple of weeks (at least until both Transient Spaces and CommRev submissions are over). Here is a short abstract for May and June.

My work timeline on Google Calendar

I still have a lot to go in terms of planning my work load after this semester is over. I am not someone who plans a week ahead to sit down and write 400 words in one hour. I hate the idea of breaking my research down by word count. I think it is very limiting and puts me in a weird space – like I’m thinking of the end before I’ve really started. That’s not a very good space for me to be in personally, because I’m lazy and I digress a lot, so I always need to be motivated. That said, I do believe this method will work for other ‘technical’ writers, I suppose?

As I’ve always done for academic essay, I am breaking up my research into various sections.  I will write a full report for each section. I will not hit the word count button. At the end, I will go over all the separate reports and do a massive edit. I expect more than half of the work I’ve done by this point to be chucked aside. I will link all sections and do a final rewrite. I am still in the middle of working out what sections I should include in my report (note to self: need to discuss this with Adrian), so I will try to design a schedule around that once I’m done.

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