That 'quiet' time of year..

Lots of non-librarians ask me if I'm away on holiday for the whole month of August (I wish!) and there are lots of people, librarians included, in my own organisation that say 'now it's June and the students have gone it will be peaceful'. Hmmn now the thing is the students I look after are here until the end of July and back in the first week of September. I can't remember the last time it was 'quiet'. I might get some respite from student tutorials and meetings in August but I'll be busy preparing for the new students arriving in September and answering emails from students keen to start their dissertation.

I thought I'd start making a list of all the summer jobs I need to do between now and the 1st September. I do this every year to keep me on track with all my tasks as there are some that I know won't get a look in during term-time. I think of my 'Summer Jobs 2013' list as a living document. I add things, add more things, add deadlines/names/notes, change deadlines and delete things once I've completed them. By the end of August I expect to see one or two things left on the list (previous experience tells me that there will always be things added at the last minute plus a few boring tasks will hang on in there in the hope that they will be achieved - this year I expect this will be the action to tidy my email folders).

So at this moment in time my list looks like this...

Yes, a simple word document. I don't want it in Evernote, GoogleDocs etc because I don't want to be reminded of it when I'm at home.

I'm a list person and so my Summer Jobs list will spawn lists for almost each action on it - but over the years this tactic has worked for me so I'll be sticking to it for the foreseeable future. So in 12 weeks time I'll let you know what's left on this list!