Monday Motivation #76 (10/25/2021)
Happy Monday!
I got banned from my email this week. It was a 24 hour pause, triggered by sending too many emails to prospective graduate students in too short a time period. (Microsoft may have thought I was a spammer, but I promise the 15,000+ students in the name exchange asked for info on graduate studies!)
I could still send emails to myself (which is my favorite trick for remembering to do things in the future), but messages to anyone else bounced back with a warning in big, bold letters that I was NOT ALLOWED to send messages. This isn’t the first time I’ve inadvertently broken the rules and gotten banned from email: when I was a newly-admitted computer science major at MSU, I managed to create an endless forwarding loop between my CSE, EGR and MSU email accounts. I only checked email when I happened to log in from a computer lab, so I had no idea there was a problem and it was hours before I found the message from DECS on my dorm room answering machine.
Almost three decades later, email is where much of my work happens. I try to get to “inbox zero” at least a few times a week (that’s a magical moment when everything from my inbox has been answered, archived, or added to my task list), although it’s easy to get overwhelmed on the days when I get five new messages for every one I manage to answer.
This week, I’m sharing some ideas for managing email and task lists that I hope you will find of help.
Katy
Three Things to Try This Week
Get Philosophical — email has changed academia (and most other modern workplaces), and while there are a lot of benefits to electronic communication there are also significant drawbacks. This discussion of email in the Chronicle of Higher Education is interesting food for thought.
Get a Plan — the reality is that you can’t just ignore email (at least not while you’re in graduate school!), but you can manage it. Consider this engineer’s system of filters, rules, and other tech tools.
Get Unplugged — taking a break from screens and email and other tech distractions is good for us. Here are a few ideas for how to build some “unplugged” time into your schedule.
More Resources
- The DEI Graduate Certificate program at MSU is hosting a guest lecture by Dr. Pamala Morris from Purdue University tomorrow (Tuesday, October 26) from 2:30–4:00pm Eastern. Learn more and register for the zoom session here.
- This is the season for pumpkin carving! If you’ve never tried before, or if you’d like to improve your skills, you might find this article of help.
- Trick or Treat is a fun fall tradition for many, whether you’re handing out candy or supervising a crowd of kids. Here are some of the local Halloween events and trick or treat times.
