I mentioned this to my students the other day, but I wasn’t able to find a photo of what I was talking about. Now I have, so I’ll show it to them in class tomorrow.
This is my project board while I was an MA student at the University of Liverpool. My monk’s cell had a felt-covered corkboard that I repurposed as a project scheduler by writing upcoming work and ideas on 3″ x 5″ index cards and pinning them into one of three columnar categories: Course Work, or assignments and readings in my classes; Commitments, or work product deliverables like writing a book review or preparing a conference presentation; and Thinking About, or projects and ideas that I was considering but hadn’t committed myself to yet.
This board was the key to my academic success at that time, because it gave me a way of tracking the work that I had coming up and I could see at a glance from my desk what needed to be prioritized to keep my output going.
Over time, the board became quite full of index cards. It was always satisfying to take a card off the board when that task had been completed.
Using a daily planner or a calendar app can serve a similar purpose. Whatever method and tool that works best for you, make a commitment to stick with it so that it can keep you on track for success.
