Picture this: the halls are closed, your end-of-year report is done, and students have departed for summer. This feeling is right around the corner! Even if you’re heavily involved in orientation, camps and conferences, or preparing for training, the beginning of summer has a way of getting residence life professionals to reflect, rest, and dream big.
While it’s easy to romanticize the summertime at work, it’s important to get real as you begin to plan. By the time you wrap-up hall closing, take vacation, attend a conference, and prepare for training, summer at work winds up being about six weeks. Don’t get me wrong: it can be nice to take a day or more on big projects, and if you are able to dedicate that kind of time, great! However, it may be more realistic to consider packing in some low time-commitment, high-impact tasks to improve your work life.
Here are 11 transformational ways to spend 1 hour at work in the summer:
- Clean Your Digital Workspace. Yes, it’s finally time to purge the dozens of duplicate files named “final FINAL 2 THIS ONE.” Create folders, rename files to be more searchable, and if you’re feeling extra inspired, update your desktop background and app color schemes. You might even consider uploading files and flyers you’ve created to a personal drive as backup to spare yourself a future panic-download as you’re transitioning to a new job.
- Level Up One Skill. From technical areas like Microsoft and Google suites to more big-picture topics like management and accountability, there are great resources available to help you sharpen your skill set. Start with LinkedIn Learning or a YouTube video. I recently completed a Canva graphic design certification through their website– it was free, it took less than an hour, and I’ve already been able to apply what I learned.
- Connect With Someone. Follow through with that, “We should grab coffee when things slow down,” sentiment. Summer is a great time to strengthen a campus partnership, connect with a colleague you don’t see often, or set up an informational interview with an experienced professional. What is stopping you from finally sending that 2-3 sentence email, message, or calendar invite?
- Take A Tour. Many ResLife professionals I know have a space that they don’t frequent but might be expected to know about. Summer can be a great time to learn where everything is stored behind the front desk, figure out the layout of a building on campus, or visit the academic building students are always talking about.
- Upgrade Your Physical Workspace. Shred old papers, store precious mementos and notes, and donate clutter that’s built up over the years. Pare down any post-it notes by typing, printing, and laminating information you reference regularly (like staff room numbers, account codes, and checklists) for your top desk drawer. You might even print new pictures for walls, rearrange furniture, and create a more ergonomic setup.
- Refresh Your Inbox. You likely set up your email folders and filing system in your first week of work and never looked back. Taking a short time to reevaluate what is working in your email account and what you can change for the better can make a huge difference in your day-to-day functioning. Zero-out your inbox, delete and create new folders, revisit your email signature, and unsubscribe from corporate mailing lists.
- Beef Up Your Work Calendar. This can include annual tasks, personal appointments, and daily/weekly tasks. Check your university calendar and add in break periods and holidays. This is an opportune time to get your dentist, haircut, and other personal appointments out of your notes app. For the cherry on top, I suggest creating repeat events to your work calendar for your daily or weekly tasks. You might add your lunch/break time, timecard approvals, checking form responses, purchasing, printing, or even a 10-minute wrap-up at the end of your day to help you wind down on time and improve your work-life balance.
- Create Reply Templates. Whether it’s nights away, requests to use common spaces, conduct hearing availability, or roommate conflict inquiries, there are probably email types that frequent your inbox. Take some time to formulate ideal responses for these and put them in a document or draft for you to copy from later. Some email apps even have a reply template feature! The minutes you’ll save come September and October will feel life-changing.
- Write. Whether it’s for ACUHO-I’s Talking Stick, one of the many of the regional ACUHO organization periodicals, or even a year-in-review LinkedIn post, summer is a fantastic opportunity to get your creative juices flowing and share your wisdom.
- Get Ahead on Preparation and Printing. Will your directional move-in posters change between now and August? Are your first staff meeting agenda items going to be wildly different from last year’s? Probably not. So what are you waiting for? Your end-of-August brain will thank you by getting ahead on some of the mundane tasks that come as the beginning of the academic year is near.
- Keep Up with Higher Ed Trends. If you’re anything like me, you finished grad school with a promise to yourself that you would keep up with Higher Ed News. While I still try to do this, it’s often the first thing I neglect when there’s a lot on my plate. Can you schedule short increments to browse The Chronicle, InsideHigherEd, or another Higher Ed news outlet?
If you haven’t caught on already, I truly believe ditching your all-or-nothing mentality and scheduling out bite-sized tasks can help you avoid a summer of overwhelm and mid-August panic. As you begin to plan, I want to caution you to quiet your extremist, idealistic thoughts. After all, planning for a full-on office renovation that will never happen, for example, is a waste of time at best, while truly sticking to a small office refresh will yield a real impact.
Now, it’s time to prepare reasonable plans. Your future self will thank you!
