So throughout this internship, I’ve been keeping track of my tasks and projects in “weekly reports,” short Word documents that basically describe each week’s work and some things I learned.\u00a0 Today I was looking back at my very first report, in which one of the things I learned was to “write EVERYTHING down, even things you don’t think you’ll need to remember.”\u00a0 It struck me how relevant – albeit obvious! – this little piece of advice to myself has been even as I settled in here at PON.\u00a0 These last couple weeks will be filled with both large substantive projects and administrative tasks, and I continually have to keep reminding myself to actually take five minutes each morning\u00a0to organize all my tasks on paper.\u00a0 And it really has to go beyond the basic “to-do” list (although that’s crucial, too), and actually become a schedule for myself so that I remember to cover everything during the day.\u00a0 I think my brain is probably suited to multitasking, but only if there’s some kind of visual aid that will help me keep track of everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s interesting (okay, amusing) how long it’s taken me to not just arrive at this rather basic conclusion, but also to make it a habit.\u00a0 My\u00a0planner has always been the essential tool for me in school, but over the past couple years in college, I’ve foolishly tried to rely on my memory to complete assignments.\u00a0 And I’ve managed, so far – just.\u00a0 Certainly, organizing your tasks each morning doesn’t increase the number of hours in the day, or lighten the load of responsibilities that you might have.\u00a0 But it just feels<\/em> better to take those five minutes, even if the only tangible result is a crossed-off task or a check mark.\u00a0<\/p>\n Maybe it just took a few months of having a job for me to realize this – after 20 years of my life!\u00a0 (This is what I mean about all this being amusing.)\u00a0 But I guess it’s comforting to hope that when I get back to school, I might\u00a0be a more organized person – thanks to PON!\u00a0 I think I mentioned in a previous entry that I thrive on the feeling of almost being overwhelmed – and I still think that’s true.\u00a0 But feeling in control of one’s life is always a good thing, and\u00a0I’m sure it’s best in the long\u00a0run if I adopt the same attitude\u00a0in\u00a0my life in college as I have here.\u00a0 Plus,\u00a0it would be fun to have little reminders\u00a0of PON for a few minutes every morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So throughout this internship, I’ve been keeping track of my tasks and projects in “weekly reports,” short Word documents that basically describe each week’s work and some things I learned.\u00a0 Today I was looking back at my very first report, in which one of the things I learned was to “write EVERYTHING down, even things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":920,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1287],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pon-intern"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pon1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pon1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pon1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pon1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pon1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pon1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pon1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pon1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pon1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}