Are educators the only people who make a summer to-do list? Throughout the school year, I will think of things that I want to do, but let's face it, many can wait til summer when we're both off work (hubby is a teacher too). In the past I have found myself reaching the next school year and remembering something that I forgot to accomplish during the summer. So, I started making a special to-do list just for summer. That helped me remember things, but it revealed a new problem--procrastination.
When school gets out and we've just crammed 12 months of work into 9 months, who wants to tackle the to-do list the day after graduation? Not me. June feels like the whole summer lies ahead and there's no sense of urgency. Then July rolls around, and suddenly I feel the crunch. I start working on the list, but then July is even busier for football, traveling to see family, church camps, maybe a workshop, and taxiing Ryan to summer workouts. Before I know it, August has arrived and the summer is over and there are still un-done things on the list. Depressing.
So, this year, I came up with a different solution. I'm possibly addicted to Google Calendars. I have several different ones, but that's for another post. I made a separate Google Calendar for summer projects. You can it below in the red entries.
When school gets out and we've just crammed 12 months of work into 9 months, who wants to tackle the to-do list the day after graduation? Not me. June feels like the whole summer lies ahead and there's no sense of urgency. Then July rolls around, and suddenly I feel the crunch. I start working on the list, but then July is even busier for football, traveling to see family, church camps, maybe a workshop, and taxiing Ryan to summer workouts. Before I know it, August has arrived and the summer is over and there are still un-done things on the list. Depressing.
So, this year, I came up with a different solution. I'm possibly addicted to Google Calendars. I have several different ones, but that's for another post. I made a separate Google Calendar for summer projects. You can it below in the red entries.
So, why put my summer projects on the calendar? Well, it helped me see how much procrastinating I could do, and how much was realistic to get finished this summer. But assigned each project to a day, I couldn't fool myself into thinking I had time when I didn't. The beauty of this is that if I don't finish a project and have to move it to another day, that's easily done with Google's drag and drop interface. I just move it to another day. That forces me to decide if I'm going to give up a free day, discard the project, or discard another one in order to make this one happen. Having my summer project "list" in calendar form has really helped keep me focused this summer by giving me a good visual of my available time.
Some of my projects...
Clean the inside of the car windshields
Enter Ernie's professional development hours into our new online PD tracking website
Clean out gutters (I plan to outsource this to my 6'4" hubby!)
Clean oven
Clean kitchen tile grout
Clean out Ryan's closet and dresser
Paint the frame of a mirror bought cheap at Kirklands and hang in Ryan's room
What about you? Do you make a summer to-do list? Is this just a teacher thing since we have summers "off?"
Some of my projects...
Clean the inside of the car windshields
Enter Ernie's professional development hours into our new online PD tracking website
Clean out gutters (I plan to outsource this to my 6'4" hubby!)
Clean oven
Clean kitchen tile grout
Clean out Ryan's closet and dresser
Paint the frame of a mirror bought cheap at Kirklands and hang in Ryan's room
What about you? Do you make a summer to-do list? Is this just a teacher thing since we have summers "off?"