the strange librarian

While I might not be *as* lost as Pete, I definitely have trouble w/ most of what Facebook has to offer. Poke? Growing Gifts? …

Organization, for me, seems to be one of those things that morphs, changes, and never really settles in to a nice Zen state that crackles and hums with calmness and wonder. But i want it to…

My Organizational History

In high school the school-printed an “agenda” book w/ school policies, handy conversions, school closing information, and at 8″ x 11″ it had a week per page and plenty of room to write all my assignments and after school activities. I remember having a lot to do in high school, but it was all related so it was easy to remember. Life was simple back then. ;-)

In college and for a few yrs after, I had a paper calendar, 2 pgs/week, were my ToDos and appts lived. The book was small enough to fit in a small bag, or hook it into a binder, or whatnot but had enough space for most of what i needed to do. I used post-its to supplement (if it was a task or appt that might move) and at that period in time, i had no devices to sync to or anything digital. This was my guide that made sure i did what i needed to and it worked so well i used it for 4+ years. (I may have had a Yahoo! calendar somewhere during this time, but it was mostly for birthdays and holidays.)

Grad school was where i really started using paper + digital to keep myself organized. I started using G-cal while keeping my paper book (the same type i had in college) for both tasks and appts. I manually synced both but inevitably the digital calendar was missing information.

April 2007 i bought a wirebound, page a day, Franklin Covey and started using that- i had found that my previous datebook didn’t have enough space. It worked mostly, but was hugemungously thick and annoying.

Jun 2007 i bought myself a Palm Treo to be able to access my work email remotely and started using the task lists, note area, and calendar exclusively.

When my work migrated to an MS Exchange Server it was easy to sync my phone and Outlook, but the problem was my phone had a problem and wouldn’t do it right. Plus, it like deleting data randomly. Plus, I was finding it hard to figure out how to keep seperate my personal and work contacts and calendar items in work outlook. So before i got a new Treo, i manually backed up my calendar to my long-ignored gcal and started using that exclusively.

Now i’m really having trouble. Currently I have a ToDoist.com acct (which i’ve been ignoring for my paper list the last few weeks), i have 4 calendars on Gcal- the primary of which is my personal, so i can’t use their Outlook sync bc i don’t need my personal items on my work calendar… (why don’t they let you change which cal is primary? seems simple enough to me)… and i’m looking into going totally paper again (which i dont really want to do) I always have my phone w/ me but instead of using it’s calendar feature, i use the internet to access gcal mobile- which only ever gives you 4 days at a time and doesn’t let you choose which calendars you can look at (whichever was the last you had “turned on” on your comp seems to be the ones that will show on mobile).

How do i keep my work outlook (which i currently ignore), gcals, lists, and ubiquitous device synced? No idea.

Things i like:

• I like having things with me- its easier to run into someone and answer a question or plan a meeting right there on the spot rather than saying, “i’ll email you dates” which just adds another thing i have to do. And the smaller things are, the more i keep them with me.
• Pink highlighters. My first job as an artist in a kids personalization store taught me this trick. Every time a job got done, it got highlighted. That way, we knew it was done, but could always read the details later if there was a discrepancy. There might be nothing more satisfying to me than seeing an entirely highlighted list (okay, maybe the highlighting itself). I might be holding tight to paper-tracking because highlighting is more satisfying to me than clicking a check box on the computer.

How do you guys stay organized and on track?

Please share- I really would like to know how you keep track of things. comment on this post or email me directly at julie dot strange at gmail dot com. Thanks!!

I’m pleased to announce that registration for the Reference Renaissance, to be held in Denver, Colorado August 4-5, 2008, is NOW OPEN!

Head on over to http://www.bcr.org/referencerenaissance to register and for updates on programs and speakers. Early Bird Registration is $150 by May 31st. Regular registration is $175.

We’re expecting 300-400 attendees from all over the US and from all types of libraries!

About the Conference:
A Reference Renaissance:
Current and Future Trends August 4-5, 2008, Denver, CO
Sponsored by BCR (Bibliographical Center for Research) and RUSA (Reference and User Services Association), an ALA Division

Rumors of the “death of reference” have been greatly exaggerated! Reference and information services now encompass not just traditional forms such as in-person point-of-service, telephone, and e-mail, but also Instant Messaging, Text Messaging (SMS), blogs, wikis, library pages on MySpace and Facebook, and virtual reference desks in Second Life.

A Reference Renaissance: Current and Future Trends conference will explore all aspects of reference service in a broad range of contexts, including libraries and information centers, in academic, public, school, corporate, and other special library environments. This two-day conference will incorporate the multitude of established, emerging, and merging types of reference service including both traditional and virtual reference. It presents an opportunity for all reference practitioners and scholars to explore the rapid growth and changing nature of reference, as an escalating array of information technologies blend with traditional reference service to create vibrant hybrids.

Our theme of a “Reference Renaissance” was taken from an editorial by Diane Zabel, in a recent issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly (winter 2007). Zabel wrote of a “resurgence of interest in reference” and that “reference is experiencing a regeneration, a reference renaissance.”

Every Wednesday for the last 3 months I’ve been participating in an online class learning how to “develop and deliver online synchronous training.” Classes ended mid March and we all had at least a month to work on our final projects which were to be 20 minute teach-backs on a topic of our choice. We were broken into groups of 3 so that we could split up the work of facilitating and producing our teachbacks. My group was assigned to go this morning; giving us exactly 50 days to develop, design, practice, and tweak our individual presentations before we had to give them for our “grade.”

50 days. That’s 7 weeks… or 1200 hours… or 72,000 minutes… or 4,320,000 seconds.

When do you think i started THINKING about my project?

If you guessed “yesterday” you’d be right. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say “started thinking” because i’d been trying to come up with a topic for at least a week and a half before yesterday rolled around. Given the topic of “ANYTHING” i, of course, went into Choice Apnea. (really, the word i want in place of Apnea is escaping me so that will have to do for now).

I seem to have always had this problem- when given the world, i want to choose ALL, not SOME. I blame/thank my parents for this issue but it’s been a challenge to just “pick one and run with it.” It’s very energizing to have all those choices, and to think of all the possibilities, but it can be like my feet are in concrete until i can pick one and be calm that i’m not totally “not picking” the others.

So how did I finally end up picking a topic? It went a little something like this:

Office Manager Jim to me yesterday: How are you doing on your presentation?
Me: Haven’t figured out my topic yet.
OMJ: How about you do Twitter?
Me: Okay!

And so it began early afternoon yesterday.

The finish line lived in the 2.30am space in time where all the world is quiet except for my thoughts. I finished the powerpoint, my speaking outline, the participants guide and headed to bed, only to get out of bed 3 minutes later, reboot the computer, add an exercise in the speaking outline, shutdown and fall asleep.

Choice Paralysis? yes. Procrastination? Perhaps. Apathy towards the assignment? A little.

See, i think what happened here is a classic case of Deadline Thrill. Since college- and especially those years i spent as a newspaper girl, thriving on deadlines- it was reinforced to me over and over that I got the same (if not better) results and feedback on projects I did under a time crunch than those i did with plenty of time to spare.

Even those projects I did with plenty of time to spare (the final draft of my undergrad thesis not included), the project, and how to improve it, still consumed my mind until the time it was no longer in my hands after it had been turned in and nothing more could be tweaked on it. This is one of the reasons I always hated when teachers wouldn’t let you turn your work in before the due date. Is it my fault they might lose things if given to them early? No. If i actually have the will and foresight to get something done early, i should be able to give it to the appropriate person/go forth with it early.

This particular project (which can be found on my presentations page) took just over 17 hours from idea conception to final product birth (granted, not of hard core working time) and if i do say so myself, it went really well! I got a lot of good feedback and had a lot of fun doing it! Again proving to myself that periodic lack of sleep is good for the creative soul.