Prof. Kristin Stephens-Martinez

If you follow this blog at all, you know how much I love thinking about productivity ( to-do list tracking , calendar time management , time tracking , etc.). So, hopefully, it should come as no surprise that I believe a person’s system that helps them be productive needs to evolve. As time passes, things change, and so must the productivity system! There are so many changes that could trigger a need to reflect and evolve: a change in service responsibilities, a change in a course, the arrival of a child, a change in how your kids need you, etc. [ Also posted on medium. ] So, this blog post is about how I deliberately and conscientiously evolve my productivity system. I’ll focus on what I generally do and provide some concrete case studies in hopes that they will help you think about your own situation. General Process My process has two main parts: a mindset and a monthly reflection . There are a few pieces to the mindset. First is just accepting that the productivity system has to c...

A common tactic for better managing your workload is tracking how you spend your time. But what does that even mean? Most of what I’ve read explains it in a few brief sentences, which I find dissatisfying. There are so many ways to track your time, after all! [ Also posted on medium. ] So, here is how I track my time. And I’ll frame this blog post as a case study to help you think about what would work for you. I do not recommend starting by doing what I do because my process is the evolution of 10+ years of tracking. Moreover, I’m a data geek who loves to play with data. A simple piece of paper where you jot down start and end times can be good enough. This blog post is more for those who want something a bit more technical, like a spreadsheet that you can use to do some math for you and more easily analyze the results. Why do I track my time? Knowing why you are tracking your time is valuable framing to help you decide how you will do it. I track my time for three reasons: accoun...

So, first, I wrote about my general philosophy and mechanics of using my calendar for time management . Then, I introduced the idea of adding a one-hour, daily buffer event to allow some slack in my schedule . In the third post of this series, I discussed the usefulness of color to help visually see what kind of time commitments I have in a given week . For my final post of this series, I will give you my potentially oddest tactic: updating the calendar as time passes to reflect what actually happened. You can actually see it in the screenshot I shared in the last post about color . Updating my calendar as I go helps me mindfully notice where I spend my time so I can proactively alter course as needed while also serving as a quasi-log to better understand how I’m spending my time when I pause for a deeper historical reflection. [ Also posted on medium. ] To show more what I mean, here is a recent week before it actually happened. Note I have my calendars start on Mondays since the wee...

For my third post on how I use my calendar as a tool to manage my time, I thought I’d write about something more fun: color! I color-code my calendar events to help me see what events are meetings and when I’m working on which project. Yes, that’s right even though my first post focused on how calendar events are all time commitments, that doesn’t mean I threw out the ability to quickly see my meetings! [ Also posted on medium .] Since a picture can help regardless of how many words I use, here is a blurred-out version of my calendar from a few weeks ago: Meetings events are bold colors To make it easy to see which of my events are meetings, I use dark or vibrant colors. Using this color coding, I can quickly scan my calendar to know what events are meetings that cannot move unless I coordinate with someone first. Versus what events are work sessions that I could potentially move around as needed. I do all of this using Google Calendar. If you have access to the enterprise version...

This is the second post of a series on how I use my calendar as a tool to manage my time. My first post focused on the basics where, to me, a calendar event means a time commitment, as opposed to just meetings, and by doing this, it visually shows how much of my time is already committed to things, and I don’t have much time to squeeze other things in. So, if you’ve ever felt like there just aren’t enough hours in the day, stick around. This post focuses on getting your hands on what is actually going on. I find my personal feelings of stress drastically reduce when I can actually see what is going on rather than just a feeling of impeding too much work and not enough time. [Also posted on medium .] This post focuses on a current experiment of a recurring one-hour daily weekday event for built-in buffer/slack in my schedule . As I mentioned in my prior post , I have a habit of seeing a gap in my calendar and filling it whenever possible. My brain assumes my estimates are perfect (they...