How to Take Control of Your Email in a Few Simple Steps

Do you spend too much time on email? Are you looking for a system that academics can use to manage email? In this blog post, I describe a system that will allow you to take control of your email.

Email is an amazing way to communicate with people around the world. But, it also can be a time-sink. Academics usually have to spend a lot of time on email. This amount of time tends to increase over the course of your career as you accumulate more students, colleagues, publications, and service.

A couple of years ago, I searched around for a system that would allow me to manage my email more effectively. I had thousands of emails in my inbox, and felt that my email was getting out of control. I found this post by Leo Babauta immensely helpful. The steps I describe below are based on this approach, but tailored for academics.

First, I describe what you can do right now to relieve an overflowing inbox. Then, I explain how to develop a system that keeps your inbox under control.

If your email inbox is overflowing, here are three steps you can take to gain control of it.

Three Steps to an Empty Inbox

1. Create three folders: 1) Temporary; 2) Archive; and 3) Action.
2. Take all of the emails that are more than 30 days old and place them in the “Temporary” folder. You will deal with these later, at your leisure.
3. Start at the top of your inbox and make a decision about each email in your inbox. If you need to do something in response to the email, place it in the “Action” folder. If not, it goes into “Archive.”

If you ever find yourself with spare time, you can return to the “Temporary” folder and attend to any important emails in there. However, if a month has already passed, you probably do not need to respond to them. And, if you do need to respond, you likely will get a reminder about whatever it is you need to do.

If you are using your university’s email system and are running out of space, one idea is to create a gmail account and have a copy of every email sent to you sent to your gmail account. That way, you have a record of every email you receive in an easily-searchable database. If you do this, you can delete emails from your university account instead of archiving them, as they can be automatically archived at your gmail address.

Only place items in your “Action” folder that actually require you to do something. Let’s say you receive an email reminding you about an event. If that event is not yet on your calendar, you can put it in “Action” until it’s on your calendar. Once you have it on your calendar, it is no longer an “Action” item. Now, it is on your calendar – which is a much better reminder system than your “Action” folder.

Once you have a nice, clean, empty, zen inbox, it’s time for you to implement a system to deal with email on a daily basis.

How to Manage Your Email on a Daily Basis

1. Don’t check email first thing in the morning. One of the best ways to avoid email turning into a time sink is to do other important things first.
2. When you first check email for the day, process each item in your inbox. Emails should fall into one of these categories:
1. Respond immediately: Emails that require a quick response “Yes, I can review that article.” Or “No, I can’t make that committee meeting.” If it takes less than a minute to respond, answer the email. Then, archive the email.
2. Action items: These are items that require a bit more effort. Perhaps you have to check your schedule to see when you can deliver a talk next semester. That might take a bit of planning and though. Place these emails into your action folder.
3. Archive: These are emails with information that may or may not be important. If it’s interesting or relevant, read the email. If not, archive it.
4. Other folders: Ideally, I would have just those three categories. However, I also have two other folders that are more or less useful. I am the chair of a major committee, and find it easier to place all emails related to that committee into one folder named “Committee.” I also frequently receive news articles and updates related to immigration that I want to read. I place these in a folder called “To read.” I have yet to actually read any of them, but it makes me feel better to have that folder.
3. Quit your email. Once you have processed all the emails that came in over the night, and responded to the most pressing ones, quit your email program and focus on something else you need to do, like prep class or write that grant proposal. It is not a good idea to have your email on all the time as it is distracting.
4. Check your email periodically during the day (fewer times is better). Set aside at least one of those times as the time you attend to your Action items. You see, the action folder will work a lot better if you know for sure that you are going to do your action items at some point during the day.
5. At the end of the week, make sure that your inbox and action box are empty. Your inbox definitely should be empty. Ideally, your action box will be empty too. However, I often let emails sit in their for a while because I am making a decision about something or have yet to write that letter of recommendation.

I recognize this system is not perfect, but it is better than no system! What about you? How do you organize your email?

How a professional editor can help your writing

When I was in graduate school, I met with one of my mentors – a new Assistant Professor – and asked her if she planned to submit an article based on a recent talk she had given. She told me that the paper was too long and she was considering hiring a professional editor to get it from 10,000 to 8,000 words. I was astonished.

I had no idea that academics used professional editors, and something about it did not seem right. The idea that an intellectual would pay someone to do their intellectual labor did not sit well with me.

It was not until many years later after I finished graduate school and had a job of my own, that I came to see the benefits of using a professional editor. I realized that editors do not do intellectual labor for you. Instead, they polish your prose and allow your intellectual contributions to become clearer. Moreover, I began to use an editor myself. I realized that, whereas I may have great (even publishable) ideas, I had not learned how to present them in the best possible form, and a professional editor could help me with that.

In this post, I will discuss three of the benefits to using a professional editor. 1) Many academics do not have the skills to edit their own work. Using a professional editor is one way to teach you those skills. 2) Professional editors are just that, professionals. This means that they can edit your work quickly and professionally and save you time. 3) Using a professional editor can help you get more work under review, and, ultimately, published.



Using a professional editor will improve your writing.
Most graduate programs do not include any writing training. As a consequence, many academics are not very good writers. We split verbs, dangle modifiers, use too many adjectives, use long and convoluted sentences, misuse words, and misplace punctuation marks. Using a professional editor will help you to see which errors you most frequently commit, and to correct them. The first time I used an editor, I learned grammar and style rules I never had known before and realized that I repeated the same errors over and over again. The best way to find out which errors you commit most frequently is to have a professional edit your text and tell you.

Using a professional editor will save you time
For those of you on the tenure clock, time is of the essence. The less time you spend poring over every detail of your article, the quicker you can get it under review and accepted. Paying a professional editor  to turn your almost-finished article into a well-polished piece of work can be a fantastic investment. It is no secret that many academics are perfectionists. Paying someone to do the final editing can take off some of that pressure to be perfect and save you a lot of time.

Using a professional editor will help you get more articles accepted
A well-written paper gives you an edge in the peer review process. When reviewers receive papers that have grammatical errors, it turns them off. Many think that your grammatical carelessness could be indicative of carelessness in other areas. If you write “loose” instead of “lose,” or if you code a variable incorrectly or did not transcribe your interview quotes or archival documents with precision, reviewers may look down on this. On the other hand, having an article free of grammatical and stylistic errors allows reviewers to focus exclusively on the quality of your work, and not on your minor errors. Even if your article is not accepted, the feedback you receive will be more useful as the reviewers’ critiques will not be influenced by their negative opinions of your writing.

Have a nearly finished article on your desk that you are nervous about sending out? Consider sending it to a professional editor to help you get to that last hurdle of finishing and submitting it.

How to find a professional editor
I often receive emails requesting recommendations for professional editors. There are five editors that I can recommend, and I have listed their information below.

There are at least three levels of editing: (1) developmental editing; (2) editing for style and content; and (3) proofreading. Developmental editing is the most time-consuming and costly and requires the highest level of expertise. Proofreading involves fixing errors and editing is somewhere int he middle.

Like writers, editors have different styles, and it can be hard to find one whose style matches your own.

Each of these professional editors are people that scholars have recommended to me. Here's a brief description of their services, as well as their contact information:

KATE EPSTEIN
Kate Epstein has helped many writers bring their books into the world. She'll point out the weaknesses in your arguments, show you how to use structure to make your writing easier to read, and all the while cheerlead for your work. Assistant Professor of Sociology Joan Maya Mazelis at Rutgers University wrote, "Whether early or late in your writing process, whether you need help hashing out ideas and figuring out what you want to say or you need line-by-line editing services to make your arguments clearer and stronger, Kate is an excellent developmental editor!" You can find her at www.epsteinwords.com or email her at kate@epsteinwords.com.

KRISTY JOHNSON
I've really enjoyed working with Kristy Johnson: she's fast, knows her stuff, has an eagle eye, and brings what I have found to be very useful insights to my writing (in other words, she's not afraid to tell me when I make no sense). So the next time you find yourself in the final stages of writing a manuscript you've read one too many times, let Kristy give it a fresh look, clean up your mess, and get you one step closer to publication! I no longer send out an article without passing it by Kristy first, and my nerves are the better for it. You can email her at poet300@msn.com.

Kristy S. Johnson –MFA in creative writing, Freelance Editor for 12 years.
Focuses: Dissertations/Thesis, Academic Articles/Book Chapters, Book Proposals, Job Applications, CVs/Resumes, Fiction and Non-Fiction Books, etc. Field focuses: Humanities, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology and other Social Sciences, Linguistics, and Education. Services & Fees (non-book length): Proofreading/Copy Editing, $4/page, Content Editing, $5/page, Content/Copy Editing, $7/p; Book length quotes negotiable. Dissertation Flat Rate (150-250 pages): $800, 1st pass only, 2nd pass review $100 chapter.

SCRIBBR.COM

SCRIBBR is a proofreading service designed for theses and dissertations that can also be used for articles. SCRIBBR is a great service especially if you are on a tight timeline, as they work with a pool of editors and can turn your work around very quickly. The service is high quality and very professional. 

I sent SCRIBBR a 6,000-word article I have been working on for some time.  The editor, Elaine, found many errors that I had overlooked and suggested several places where I should insert citations. I am much more confident about sending the piece out for review. The proofreading price was also very reasonable at 114 euros for a 72-hour turnaround.

MORELIA RIVAS
Morelia is an English-to-Spanish and Spanish-to-English translator who specializes in producing thorough, high-quality media and academic translations. She also offers editing and proofreading services and takes great care to provide quality work for your media and academic needs.

Contact info:
mprtranslation@gmail.com
miprivas@gmail.com
mprtranslation.com

--------------------------------- If a professional editor is not within your budget, I can recommend Grammarly - a Chrome extension and tool that automatically checks your grammar. You can get either the free or premium version. Grammarly finds most typographical and even stylistic mistakes. I have been using the premium version as a Chrome extension and it has found mistakes in my blog posts, email, and social media posts. It is kind of like the Word grammar checker, but a much better version of that.

How Ending your Work Day Right Can Boost Your Productivity: Take Stock and Stop Working

I have been known to go on and on about starting my day right – with two hours of writing. And, I still believe that two hours of daily writing is one of the “open secrets” to my success.

It is also important for productivity to end your day in the right way, and to be sure that you do end your work day.

The first step is to decide when to stop your day

We are not machines, and we cannot work 24 hours a day. At some point, we have to end our days. It is much less exhausting to consciously end your day and decide ahead of time to stop working than to try to keep working, but find your mind, eyes, and fingers diverting you to other tasks.

Personally, I end my day in steps. I stop writing before lunch. I stop answering work emails and doing administrative tasks after 6pm. I stop all Internet activity at 8pm. And, I stop reading when I get sleepy.

It might sound counterintuitive, but deciding when to stop working (and to actually stop working) can make you more productive.

Stop working so you can be more productive?

Yes! I stop writing before lunch because my ability to write clearly and quickly after lunch is extremely reduced. If I try and write after lunch, I am only half (or perhaps even less) productive than I am in the morning. Since I have lots of other tasks I need to attend to, it is much more productive for me to do those tasks and get back to my writing the next morning.

I stop answering work emails and doing administrative work after 6pm for two reasons. The first reason is that, by that time, I am tired. This means I am prone to making mistakes. Making a mistake over email usually means I have to either rewrite the email later or, even worse, spend two or three times the amount of time cleaning up the mess I made. So, it is not productive for me to respond to work-related emails in the evening. The second reason is that I need to consciously end my day so that I can take stock of what’s done and what is not done so that I can plan and prepare for the next day.

Each day, at (or around) 6pm, I look over my to-do list for the day. I cross off what I have done. Then, I make a new list for the next day that includes the items from my weekly plan for the following day as well as anything that either didn’t get completed that day or that came up during the day. That way, even if I didn’t complete all I intended to complete in a day, I don’t have to let my unfinished tasks take up mental space. Instead, my tasks are written down on a piece of paper and I know I will attend to them the next day.

David Allen writes about the importance of getting things out of your head and onto paper to clear up mental space, and I find this to be true. Once I write down what I need to do the next day, I don’t need to worry about forgetting to do it or making a plan for when I will do it. I know I will attend to the task the following day. And, if not, it will just get bumped to the next day. And, so, life goes on.

I also try to enforce an “all screens off” policy in my house at 8pm. Since I start writing early in the morning, most days, I am on the computer nearly all day, and I need plenty of time to recuperate. Thus, even though I might think I find it entertaining to read the news or the blogosphere, shop on Amazon, or mess around on Facebook or Twitter, the truth is that these activities are not actually relaxing. Instead, turning off all of the screens is beneficial both for me and for my kids.

After the screens are off, my kids and I can talk, finish up homework, make art, or read. The only work I will do in the evenings is reading – there is always more to be read. I try to treat myself to a novel when I can, but academic work is so much better at putting me to sleep!

A step-by-step guide to being an organized person in academia

How can you be an academic with an organized life? How can time management be applied to academics? I have been practicing time management for about five years, and can share with you what works for me.

This post summarizes how I keep myself organized during the semester. I have learned a variety of organizational tools from participating in Kerry Ann Rockquemore’s workshops, reading David Allen and Julie Morgenstern’s books, and following blogs such as the Professor Is In, Gina Hiatt, and Meggin McIntosh. In sum, there is a lot of information out there about time management, but I thought I’d summarize what I find works for me.

Annual Goals

Each January, I take stock of what I have done the previous year, and make a list of what I would like to accomplish in the coming year. Then, I separate that list out into months.

In January 2012, I wrote out a list that began like this:

2012 Goals
- Finish Deported book
    o DRAFT: INTRO Ch 1. Ch 2. Ch 3. Ch 4. Ch 5. Ch 6. Ch 7. Ch 8.
    o Citizenship notes
    o Incorporate discussion of TRAC data
    o Revise chapters

Then, I broke that (longer) list down into months:

January Goals
- OUP Chapter 3
- Guate interviews
- Guate draft
- Submit Human Rights piece to Sociology
- Submit jokes article to ERS
- Summit speech
- Publish op-ed
- Finalize SOC 780 syllabus
- Finalize SOC 332 syllabus
- AJS review
- Paper to ASA


I took all of my 2012 goals and mapped them onto the 12 months in the year 2012. I printed out my 2012 goals and posted them on the wall in my office. I also saved the file in my Dropbox folder that I call “PLANS” so that I could access it from anywhere. Then, I took a little break, and made up my semester plan.

Semester Plan

My semester plan is a bit more detailed than my Annual Plan, as it breaks down each month into weeks. Here is the first week of January:
January Week 1 (January 2-6)
- Human Rights piece to Sociology: Read through. Send to CM.
- 6 Guate interviews
- Talk for UH
- Summit Speech
- Outline/Plan OUP Chapter 3
- Set up mentoring for SREM

Weekly Plan

Each week, at the beginning of the week, I take my weekly plan and break it down even farther – into days.

Monday: 1 Guate interview. Read through HR.
Tuesday: 1 Guate interview. Finalize HR – send to CM. Summit speech.
Wednesday: 2 Guate interviews. Summit speech. UH Talk.
Thursday: 1 Guate interview. UH Talk. SREM Mentoring.
Friday: 1 Guate interview. UH Talk. Outline/Plan OUP Ch 3

I then map each of those tasks onto my calendar, like this:
Monday: 9am-11am: revise HR. 11am-1pm: Guate interview, etc.

At the end of the week, I do a weekly review, where I cross off my list those tasks I completed, and move to the next week those tasks I did not complete. The tasks I didn’t complete get moved to the following week. I always keep my semester plan and my weekly plan in my Dropbox folder so that I can access them from anywhere to make sure I am working on the right project.

Daily Execution

Each morning, I get up and look at my weekly plan so that I know exactly where to start. I try really hard to not check email, Facebook, or Twitter before writing. Then, I try to stick to my schedule and get what I need to get done. Things never go exactly according to schedule, but it seems things go better when I plan.

The Scholar’s Dilemma: Is there a tradeoff between productivity and the measured cultivation of ideas?

Every so often, I read an online article about writing and academia that resonates with me. This article by Imani Perry struck a chord with me. She writes:

I really enjoy writing. … However, I also am aware that the pressure of writing “early and often” has led me, at certain points, to take an instrumentalist approach to projects. At times I have given up the kind of measured cultivation of ideas I highly value, in exchange for the designation “productive.” I know I am not alone in this, and even now, with tenure, I still carry a nervous buzz about “getting things out.

There are two I like about this statement.

First of all, it is remarkably rare to hear anyone say “I enjoy writing.” It is great for me to hear that, as it is a reminder that it is okay to like writing. I have the impression that most academics hate writing. This makes it difficult to have an open discussion about seeking out the joy in writing. I wouldn’t say I love writing all the time, but there certainly are times when I find it to be pleasurable, invigorating, inspiring…. I love this reminder to seek out more of those times.

Secondly, I have to admit to “guilty as charged” when it comes to exchanging productivity for the cultivation of ideas. I have published a lot over the past few years, and there can be a trade-off between productivity and letting ideas simmer.



Before I type any more, I want to point out that there is also a balance between cultivating ideas and avoiding procrastination. For me, letting ideas simmer longer would mean continuing to revise drafts, getting feedback from more people, and reading more broadly in the field. It does not mean avoiding writing or delaying sending off drafts and polished pieces.

I am currently struggling with this dilemma as I work on what will be my fifth book. Several people have told me to take my time with it. I have three years before I would even qualify for promotion to Full Professor – thus I do not have any institutional pressure to finish the book immediately. The ideas I am working on in the book are big and complex, so I have a lot of thinking and grappling to do. The conceptual field – neoliberalism – is large and fairly new to me, so I have a lot of reading to do.

The pressure I feel to get the book out soon mostly comes from myself. The topic - mass deportation - is important to me; it is in the news all of the time; and, I want to contribute to the national debate.

On the other hand, I have already written two books that cover many of the policy issues. My third book “Due Process Denied” is an expose of the injustices incurred by US immigration policies, and my second book - Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions, and Deportations in Post-9/11 America - has “deportation” in the title. So, in some ways, I have already met the goal of getting my voice into the debate. But, I have so much more to say!

I currently am working, slowly, on my book on deportees. I have been toying with the idea of getting a developmental editor to work with me to ensure it moves forward more quickly. I also need to form a new writing group in my new town so I can have conversations with local academics about the book.

In sum, as I work on my next book, I will continue to use the strategies that have worked for me in the past – daily writing, soliciting feedback, finding support, and enjoying the process. As a new thing, I will cherish more deeply the slow-moving nature of the process and work to ensure that my ideas are fully-cooked and cultivated before appearing in print.

How to Create a Power Point Presentation from a Finished Paper

Academic presentations are often based on research in progress or unfinished work. However, sometimes we may find ourselves creating presentations based on full drafts of papers.

What happens when you have completed your 8 or 10,000 word article and now you have to create a 15-minute presentation on the basis of your paper? Luckily, there is a fairly straightforward system you can use to create a presentation from a full paper.



I once heard someone say that a presentation should be viewed as an advertisement for a paper, rather than an attempt to present all of the information in the paper. Keeping this in mind will help you to focus on what’s important and avoid the temptation to attempt to convey all of the rich information in your paper in a brief presentation. Unfortunately, trying to cover too much often means you fail to highlight what’s important.

In my field – Sociology – there is a straightforward formula for giving presentations. I am sure that there is one in your field as well, and it may be very similar to the formula in Sociology. In Sociology, presenters often use Power Point, and presentations often look like this:

• Introduction (1 slide)
• Research Questions/Hypotheses (1 slide)
• Literature Review/Theory (1 slide)
• Methods & Data Collection (1 slide)
• Data Presentation/Findings (3-5 slides)
• Conclusion (1 slide)

Admittedly, many people use many more slides than this, but I advocate for sticking to the rule of no more than one slide per minute. I also think it is important to focus most of your attention on your findings, and as little as possible on other people’s theories and findings. And, you will bore people tremendously if you spend too much time on your methods and data collection. There are many exceptions of course – if your paper is all theory or primarily methodological, then it will look quite different.

To create a presentation from a full-length paper or article, you can pull out the most important parts of the article, based on the above list – or based on the subheadings in your own article.

For the introduction, you can use the same compelling introduction you use in your paper. If you are using Power Point, try and find a provocative image that conveys the point of your paper.

Your next slide should contain your research questions – which your introduction should point to.

Then, spend no more than a minute contextualizing your research questions and project within the literature. Don’t make the mistake of spending too much time reviewing what others have written about your topic. Spend just enough time on the existing literature to make it clear that your work contributes to existing research in the field. People don’t come to conferences to hear literature reviews – they come to hear about new research like yours. The purpose of the literature review is to establish the importance of your work, not to show you have read every relevant article.

Once you have established the importance of your project, explain just enough of your methods and data collection to establish your ability to speak on the topic. Think about the questions people might have – what data set did you use? How many interviews did you carry out? How many months of participant observation did you complete? How many newspaper articles did you code? What is the timeframe for the data? Give just enough information to validate your findings.

Try to get through all of the above in the first five minutes so that you can spend as much of your time as possible sharing the rich detail of your own data and analyses. If you have ethnographic data, you can tell one story from the field for each point you want to make. For statistical data, you can present a table with findings for each finding you wish to highlight. For interview data, you can use one interview quote for each theme you plan to highlight.

Once you have chosen the parts of your findings you wish to highlight, you can leave a minute or two for your conclusion.

As you make each slide, remember to put as few words as possible on each slide, and place an image on each slide to convey your points visually.

Get Your Goals and Projects out of Your Head and onto Paper

Like many academics, I often have several ongoing projects and it can be overwhelming to figure out when I will have the time to make progress on each of my projects, tasks, and goals.

Sometimes, just thinking about all I have to do is overwhelming, and it seems I may never finish my books and articles. I find writing everything I have to do down onto paper to be very helpful when I begin to feel overwhelmed.

At important milestones during the year – the beginning or end of the summer, fall, spring, or annual year – I like to sit down and map out where I am on all of my projects and when I expect to finish them. This is a great exercise to complete because it is a reminder that each of my projects is, in fact, terminable.

Today is August 5, which means that the beginning of the Fall semester looms ahead. For me, it is helpful to separate out what must be done before the semester begins and which projects can wait until I am back from my extended research trip in Peru. Unlike when I was doing my dissertation research, I now have to keep up with my other ongoing research projects and professional responsibilities even when I am collecting new data in remote locations.

Just thinking about all I have to do can be overwhelming. That’s why putting my goals and projects down on paper can be comforting. Even though it can also be scary to see all that I have to do, writing the tasks, goals, and projects down is the first step towards making a workable plan to complete them.

So, what do I actually need to do before the semester starts?

My discipline is Sociology. We sociologists have our annual meeting each year just before the beginning of the semester. This means that each year, in addition to planning classes and meeting other deadlines, I have to prepare for the annual meeting. This year, I have agreed to present three papers and serve as a discussant on one panel. Here are my four meeting-related tasks that must be completed before I leave Peru on August 15:

• Prepare race and humor presentation
• Prepare due process denied presentation
• Prepare human rights and international migration presentation
• Read and prepare comments on four paper for my role as discussant

Like most other academics on a semester system, I also have to prepare for my classes, which begin on August 24. This Fall, I am teaching just one class, and it is a class I have taught before. However, I have changed the syllabus considerably, and am teaching at a new university. I need to finalize the syllabus before the semester begins. Thus, we can add to the list:

• Finalize syllabus for race class

As the semester starts fairly late in August, and I am dedicated to writing every day, in addition to these responsibilities, I also hope to finish up two other writing projects in August. These two projects are:

• Complete tasks for R&R for LS project.
• Complete Chapter 5 of DEP book.

Now, I have a complete list of what I will focus on until August 31. There are quite a few things on this list, but having this list permits me to stay focused, and ensures I will not work on any other projects during the month of August.

I do have several other things that I could work on, but I have moved all of these other projects off of my current priority list and onto my “Fall Semester Goals” list.

My Fall Semester Goals include:

• OUP Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15
• DEP Chapters Intro, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, Conclusion
• ERS R&R
• Intro to SI for ERS
• Papers with YI and SD
• SWB Paper

Now that I have a list of all of the projects I hope to complete during the Fall Semester, I can work on a semester plan. It is clear that when I do that, I will again have to prioritize and decide what can actually be completed in the Fall and what will have to be moved to the Spring. But, having everything I have to do in front of me permits me to make a realistic assessment of what can and cannot get done. Thus, when my editor emails me to ask when I will be finished with Chapter Six or my co-author wants to know if I can finish the R&R by October 15, I can give them a reasonably accurate answer.

What about you? What do you need to finish today? this week? this month? this semester? this year? Does writing it all down help you?