In March 2023, I changed jobs and joined the Academic Writing Centre at Glasgow Calendonian University (GCU). Being new in a role and at an institution comes with some navigating, challenges, but also opportunities.

Boundaries: I decided straight away that I would stick with my email signature stating my calm inbox approach and working hours. This helps to manage expectation and it received some positive comments, and even an invitation to write a blog post about my boundary setting.

Who is who: After listening to the On the reg podcast episode Starting new things – what are the pain points I decided the start a people map in Scrintal to keep track of people, how they connected and where they fit into the GCU structure and my role. This has been so helpful for some decision making and how my work fits into different areas. I have since moved fully to Obsidian and copied my people map over.

A clean slate & new systems: I’ve been meaning to implement a better email management system, get my head around a Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) System, and overhaul my note taking and planning processes. In my previous role, I never implemented these properly because I didn’t really know how and by the time I knew and needed them, it was too overwhelming. But with a clean email inbox, (somewhat) clean To do list and new projects to plan, this would be the time to start implementing some new systems and review my practices.

Email: I adopted a triage system, ideally I would do this during a scheduled time slot but it’s a bit ad-hoc at the moment. With things getting busier I need to plan this time more carefully.
I bulk sort emails into:

  • Deal with now: quick reply or accepting a meeting invite (then move to archive)
  • Deal with this later: flag and move into my Deal with this folder, this is for emails where I have to do something before I can reply. Flagging the email adds it to my ToDo app and I schedule time from there. Once dealt with they move into the archive folder
  • Archive: emails that contain information only and don’t require an action go straight into the archive
  • Delete: emails I don’t need (anymore)

At the moment this system makes it quick to deal with my emails and minimises the time I open and read emails before actually doing anything with them. This also allows me to keep emails and related tasks in mind. My working memory is a bit fuzzy, this minimises forgetting things.

To do list: Mainly due to its integration with Outlook, I decided the ditch To Doist for work and start using Microsoft ToDo. As mentioned above, flagged emails are automatically added and I can drag tasks into my calendar to protect focus time to deal with them. I have a few reccuring tasks related to key deliverables, the rest are either tasks from emails or actions from meetings. I’m sure there are more integrations but these would require others in my team to use M365 apps as well. ToDo can be added to Teams and has a viewing pane in Outlook, so I can see my tasks within other apps.

Calendar: I used to time block a lot and work towards an ideal week schedule, however I ended up irgnoring the time blocks and it all became a meaningless mess. So, I’m trying to be more mindful with my calendar. I have a few recurring tasks scheduled to keep the time free. I still time block, but it’s now a week or so ahead, and part of my weekly review and planning time. This allows me to add specific tasks to the time block, rather than holding a generic time block. Making this time more efficient and focused.

Scrintal & Obsidian: I downloaded Scrintal some time in 2022 and never really got round to working out how to use it. Mostly, due to the amount of things I wanted to add. With a clean slate and starting from scratch, this was the time to figure out how to use it. Something about the structure and layout don’t quite work for me. There are also a few things missing for me from Scrintal, a key one is easy integration of references and notes from Zotero. So, I revisited Obsidian, and started by listening to On the Reg podcast episode Where Jason and Inger go WAY too deep into Obsidian This episode is over 2 hours but it’s worth it. Again, having the headspace and time to properly investigate how I can use this and make it work for me, was invaluable. The Zotero integration is great, and I can see this working for my reading notes. I also had time to better understand Obsidian Canvas. For now I’m ok with the folder structure. With new features being added to Obsidian and the clean look, as well as it being openly shared, I decided to go with Obsidian. Maybe I’ll do a blog post about how that’s going later this year.

Bullet Journal: I’m back using a paper journal, after 18 months or so with a digital version. There is just something about having actual paper over screen, and there is something quite nice about setting a week up from scratch, now that my weeks are more varied again. I love my BuJo, and have re-started with numbering so I can reference pages more easily within Obsidian and ToDo. This saves having to copy notes from my BuJo, but ensures I know how to find them.

Headspace for creativity: I totally forgot how having a little bit of headspace benefits creative thinking and allows you to plan, dream and play around with some ideas. I definitely need to make sure I retain some of this in my day job as it get busier. Not entirely sure how I will be able to do that. But I can see the Power Hour of Writing working well, or I just have to put on some creative workshops.