I discovered the value of clearing my inbox a few years ago after a bereavement. I returned to work and sat at my desk feeling totally overwhelmed by all of the email. I put my head in my hands and cried. A colleague came along at that moment*. She kindly offered to have a look at what was important or not. Later she apologised and said she’d only been able to delete obvious junk, left what she recognised as important in the inbox, and put the rest in a folder for ‘later’. Ye

Continuing this series about planning, I’m trying decide if I need to explain what mind-maps are, or just need to convince you about their use; or you simply want some ideas on software and tools. Well let’s make this simple for this holiday time of year (well, in the UK at any rate) – you can search other sites if you want to find out what they are and I advise you to ditch the software. So let’s get on to convincing you: Decide upon your time-frame (this week, this month, t

As I said back in January, this one is simple. The more complicated the matter the easier it will be to deal with by talking rather than writing. I think many of us instinctively understand this, but talking to people, isn’t that a bit ‘close’ or even presumptuous of me? I have rarely (if ever) regretted choosing to telephone about a complex request rather than email. But mostly I email. My cue to pick up the phone is when I’m finding the email difficult to write or if I need

Here’s another piece of advice that I received as a novice researcher, from Dr Karen Carpenter: Plan on a Friday, not a Monday. My immediate response was What?! But planning on a Monday is my nice relaxing introduction to the week ahead, and how am I going to relax at the weekend if I’ve started the mental cogs whirring on Friday? No way! However I knew that Karen was an experienced and very sensible person, so why shouldn’t I trust her and give it an honest go, despite my sc

Some years ago I was joined in my department by a colleague who was setting up a new programme. It was quite a large job and she had lots of competing priorities. As is common in academia she had the additional pressure of the post being temporary. So much to do and so little time to do it! In our meetings it was obvious that she was becoming stressed. She wanted to plan but was afraid that a. she had no time and b. our boss would think that she was wasting time on planning.

Have you broken your New Year’s Resolution about being more organised? Don’t beat yourself up. Becoming more organised takes a bit of practice. Even if you are quite an organised person, as you progress through your career you will inevitably take on more administrative responsibilities and this means more organising. Different tools suit different people but the basic list of tools are all similar, regardless of whether you use digital and virtual tools, or paper-based metho

Are you thinking of getting more organised in the year ahead? The good news is that you're not alone. Becoming more organised is the second most common New Year's resolution in Britain (behind losing weight).* But the bad news is that most of us are going to fail to keep our resolutions. That's where we come in. We're going to start the New Year by giving you our top tips for planning and organising. And to help you keep your resolution, we're going to give each tip a focuse