Success At School

Disclaimer: This was written after 15 hours on a plane. Please ignore any and all spelling and grammar errors. And all run-on sentences!

I’m sitting in JFK airport in New York and I’m bemused by the sheer volume of people who are sitting around me with their laptops out and their Blackberries cranking.

And, to be honest, I can’t help but think “what on earth are these people doing?” (Granted I am one of them and people are probably asking the same question of me.)

I think air travel today really brings into context just how addicted we are to “getting a connection.” From the eager employee in seat 34A who has to keep firing out emails from his Blackberry right until the plane takes off. To the countless number of people who switch on their cell phone as soon as they land. Just to tell someone “We’ve just landed!”

It makes you wonder what happened before cell phones were invented. Did we have scores of colleagues and family members sitting at home and in the office asking each other “Do you think they’ve landed yet?” “But what if they HAVE landed? How will we ever know?” I think not!

And worse still, the one solace we took from air travel, those few hours spent in the air when no one could get a connection, are looking more likely to be taken from us as well. Can you imagine how infuriating it will be when the person beside you can ‘yak’ on their cell phone the whole way through a flight?

I can’t help but think that our addiction to being connected hinders our productivity, rather than helps it.

Going away from the airport analogy, just think about how many times a day you check your “vitals.” That is, your email, your myspace/facebook/bebo/blogger/twitter and your favorite RSS feeds. Plus whatever other sites you check on a regular basis. And, on top of that, begin to think about how much of that time spent is actually productive and how much of it is just a desire to know what is happening, right at this minute.

The fact that we have so much information at our fingertips causes us to think that if we don’t know what is happening in the world around us every minute of every day then somehow we might be missing out on something.

Maybe I’m talking to myself more than I am talking to anyone else but what would happen if we only checked our emails once or twice a day? If we only checked our favorite sites once a week, and we only checked in with our RSS feeds when we actually ‘wanted’ to read, rather than being addicted to getting the smallest updates on the world?

Who knows? Maybe that assignment that’s been looming over our shoulders would get done. Or perhaps the chapters that we need to study for class may somehow end up being read.

Either way, as the wonderful wireless web becomes more ubiquitous, I think it’s important that we really begin to assess the best way to spend our time when we’ve “got a connection.”

What do you think? Are we all addicts seeking for the next wi-fi connection, or do you think we make use of the time we spend on-line? Leave a comment and let us know.

I like to think of myself as an organized person. If you walk into my dorm room you will notice that everything is in it’s proper place. Not to the point of being OCD, but just generally tidy! A couple of days ago I was talking to a friend of mine who said:

“You know you’re not as organized as you like to think you are! I’ve seen what’s inside the drawers in your desk. And it’s a mess!”

I felt guilty, almost dirty. As if someone had just uncovered a secret collection of sweets and snacks, or worse!

They were right, of course. And apart from making me laugh, it made me realize that I had just been collecting stuff over the course of the year and rather than dealing with it I was just shoving it into my desk drawers.

The drawers were now overflowing with paper, catalogs, power plugs, receipts, stationary, batteries. Everything that I thought I may need at some point in the future so I didn’t want to throw away.

What’s the big deal you may ask? Everyone has a bit of clutter.

Well there is a school of thought that says that unnecessary clutter has a negative affect on your psyche. In his interview with mediabistro, Oprah’s clutter man, Peter Walsh man puts it simply:

“I don’t think you can make healthy choices in a disorganized home.”

And, in the bible of personal productivity, Getting Things Done, David Allen tells us that the first step to achieving stress free productivity is to sort through all the ’stuff’ that you have in your house, office, garage, attic etc!

I have to say that I’m inclined to agree. I have never been much of a hoarder and have a couple of processes I use to make sure I don’t gather too much useless ’stuff’. But when it does happen, it really annoys me.

When you have a lot of unprocessed junk, there is always a thought at the back of your mind that you must sort through the boxes, drawers, closet or wherever you’re currently stockpiling. This leaves an open loop in your brain that won’t get closed until you attend to it!

I think I have some drawers to sort through

What do you think? Does having too much ’stuff’ in our lives really make that big of an impact? How do you deal with you clutter? Leave a comment and let us know.

If you’re like me you wake up every morning, roll out of bed with your eyes half shut and attempt to sort through the plethora of emails you happened to receive during the night from various professors, group mates, clubs and societies. Most of which you either ignore or take note that you must remember to “handle that later” (which you inevitably forget to do!)

It’s no wonder we miss classes, forget our due assignments and flake out on lunch with our friends.

Here are 5 things you can do to remove the clutter and make sure you receive (and act on) those important emails.

1. Filter all your email into one box

Many universities and colleges have their own internal email system. Whilst these are useful for disseminating information amongst students, they do have a downfall.

These systems often involve logging in to the institutions website with a username and password. It’s difficult to get into the habit of checking this on a regular basis and as a result many useful emails lay unread for weeks in our inbox.

I have a number of different email addresses:, one from my home institution in Glasgow, one from Hong Kong University where I am currently on exchange, one for this blog and then my personal email account. Rather than checking them individually, I filter them all to my gmail account. Every morning when I wake up I only have to check my email once.

This saves the time and energy I would spend checking each individual email and guarantees that I receive all the emails I am supposed to. Not only this but having all your emails in the one place is the first step to better and organization and productivity.

Most university web based email programs will allow you to re-direct your emails to one specific location and I recommend you do this if you have not already done so.

2. Create a folder for each subject, club or society.

Storing emails in your inbox is the least effective way to manage them. Not only is it hard to locate old emails when you need them but having a full inbox creates a series of negative “loose ends” on your psyche.

It’s good to have a built in archiving system. How you archive your emails is up to you but I would recommend that you create a different folder or label for each class you are taking and for each club or society that you are involved with. I would also recommend a folder for “family and friends” and a general “admin” folder.

3. What is it?

Before you archive or delete any email it is important that you make a decision on what it is. This will help you take the appropriate action.

When you receive an email be sure to ask yourself the question “What is this?”

There are a number of things an email can be.

Trash
An event
Information you may need later
A specific action that you need to take.

Often the information contained in an email will be more than one of these things. That’s ok, the important thing is that you classify it as such in your mind.

4. Take the necessary action

Once you have decided on what the email it is, next you need to take the appropriate action.

Trash - delete it, obviously!

An event - put it into your scheduler or calender along with any accompanying information that may be helpful.

Information that you may need later - archive in the appropriate folder and schedule a reminder to look at it on a later date

A specific action that you need to take - add this to your to-do list. If you don’t have a to-do list, start one!

Note: Don’t use your inbox as your to-do list, it gets too confusing and your to-do’s get lost amongst all the other emails

5. Get your inbox to zero

Once you have taken the necessary action and extracted all the information from the email that you need at that stage, archive it or delete it. Don’t leave it in your inbox.

You should aim to archive or delete all of your emails at least once a day. Getting your inbox to zero at least once a day is one of the most effective productivity tools you can use.

If you begin to put these five steps into practice you will begin to notice that you miss fewer meetings, turn up to class on time and begin to get more out of your day.

What other tips do you have for handling your email effectively? Leave a comment and let us know.