Backward steps

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This will be a month of taking backward steps just so I can go forward again. Not every step needs to be forward. Sometimes taking a pause, working on stuff you haven’t finished, or hoped to do but didn’t have time, can be a productive organizational strategy. For the remainder of May I will step back to build up my research BINS with the articles I’ve read, reviewed and filed while doing course work. This includes the two courses I’ve just completed, along with other work I’ve done for my own teaching. Here’s my short list to hold myself accountable:

  • update my blog for the missing weeks – I have a collection of writing done from things I’ve researched, but these did not get onto my blog as fully written posts. Taking blog posts out of ‘draft mode’ can build my ‘daily write’ calendar since it appears to be a little sketchy since January.
  • build my Zotero collection – again from all the references, resources, readings and writing I’ve been doing the past 8 months. I have a goal to complete 10 Zotero references each day over the next two weeks which will build my reference library by about 150 new sources. At the same time, I’m updating some of the references I’ve already included to add the 4 sentence summaries I’ve written about those articles.
  • develop skills and design work for my comprehensive portfolio with an eye on digital production. Part of my domain includes access to Scalar which is one tool I’d like to explore for the digital dissertation format I plan to use.
  • READ – since there are a few books I’ve had in my collection – but I’ll focus specifically on The Truthful Art by Alberto Cairo and The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers by Johnny Saldaña.
  • finish sketch-notes for the chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 of The Functional Art by Alberto Cairo and post here in this blog

That’s enough for now. I’ll report back at the end of the month on my progress. My way of keeping my days productive and my work focused.