Category Archives: Tips Tricks and Productivity

Teacher and Academia Productivity Tips and Tricks

Being Productive while Teaching is a Challenge. If you’re a university professor, there’s service and research too! And you’re supposed to keep a work-life balance? Sheesh!

Below, you’ll learn how to rev up your output, both inside and outside of university life, all while keeping your sanity.

Tips Tricks and Productivity

The Ultimate Guide to Starting an Academic Blog Today

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How to Start an Academic Blog Today

Are you a researcher, faculty member, or PhD student considering starting a blog? Good, because the best professor websites are blogs. And this is the post is for you!

There are many reasons why academics should blog. But getting started can be tough. You’ve got a lot on your plate and are probably wondering if blogging is worth the time investment. You may be wondering what to even blog about.

Have no fear! In the below post, I’ve put together my ultimate guide to starting an academic blog, whether you’re a PhD student, a university professor, a post-doc, or other scholar. This guide contains everything you need to start a blog today.

It includes:

  • Reasons why academics should blog.
  • Examples of successful academic blogs – both from PhDs and PhD students.
  • A step-by-step guide for planning a successful academic blog.
  • Resources for finding a web host and setting up your blog.
  • WordPress plugins that make blogging easier.

Continue reading The Ultimate Guide to Starting an Academic Blog Today →

Teaching Social Media, Tips Tricks and Productivity

Essential Classroom Technology Tools for Teaching Social Media in 2020

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This page may contain affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you, if you click a link and make a purchase, I will make a commission. Please read my disclosure for details.

Classroom Technology Tools

Recently, I started sharing about a few of the smartphone accessories I’ve been playing with to create video for social media. The goal is to get more classroom technology tools in my students’ hands to help prepare them for working in a professional social media environment.

I’ve received a few questions about the tools I’ve been using to make videos recently. And so an idea for a blog post was born!

Continue reading Essential Classroom Technology Tools for Teaching Social Media in 2020 →

Tips Tricks and Productivity

Are Your Classes Suffering from “Assignment Creep?”

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Are my classes suffering from ‘assignment creep?”

I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot lately as I’ve been teaching some of the same courses for the past few years.

You’ve probably heard of “feature creep.” A quick search of Google reveals this definition from Wikipedia:

“The ongoing expansion or addition of new features in a product, such as in computer software. These extra features go beyond the basic function of the product and can result in software bloat and over-complication rather than simple design.“

Continue reading Are Your Classes Suffering from “Assignment Creep?” →

Tips Tricks and Productivity

An Easy System for Keeping Your Daily Lessons Organized (Case #2 of Putting Systems Thinking to Practice)

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In a recent post, I discussed creating simple systems to help you work more effectively and reduce unnecessary cognitive load. It isn’t necessary to read that post to benefit from this post. But, I encourage you to save it to read some time. It is a bit long.

In the previous post in this 3-part series, I discussed how to save time by removing bottlenecks when setting up meetings with students.

Continue reading An Easy System for Keeping Your Daily Lessons Organized (Case #2 of Putting Systems Thinking to Practice) →

Tips Tricks and Productivity

Why I No Longer Schedule Meetings with Students Over Email (Case #1 of Putting Systems Thinking to Practice)

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In a previous post, I talked about the power of systems to simplify recurring tasks in our jobs as professors.

In that post I mentioned that we can work to remove bottlenecks that unnecessarily slow down the completion of tasks. Here’s one such task that faces major bottlenecks: scheduling appointments.

Continue reading Why I No Longer Schedule Meetings with Students Over Email (Case #1 of Putting Systems Thinking to Practice) →

Tips Tricks and Productivity

Use Simplicity and Systems To Have More Time and Energy to Do What You Love

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This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for details.

I had an amazing time at the PRSA Educator’s Academy Super Saturday on October 22 presenting on tools educators can use to break down the classroom walls.

After our presentation, Ai Zhang, Karen Freberg, and I were asked how we manage to engage with all of these different tools, keep our classes updated, and more.

Honestly, it is a lot of work but also a lot of fun.

Yet, in my answer, I mentioned two things that have helped me tremendously: 1) Simplicity in life and 2) systems.  And I’d like to explain a little more about them.

Continue reading Use Simplicity and Systems To Have More Time and Energy to Do What You Love →

Tips Tricks and Productivity

What I’m Reading And How You Can Read It Too

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“Always Be Reading” is my motto.

As professionals, we are constantly seeking to stay up to date with news, trends and developments.

So I’m excited to write this quick off-week post between our regularly scheduled program to announce that you can now follow the articles I read and share on Pocket using their “recommendations” feature.

Continue reading What I’m Reading And How You Can Read It Too →