Monday, February 3, 2020

Timer-Defining the Undefined



Some tasks can take as long as we give them. Take grading student papers, for example. We could literally spend hours on each paper--there is always more to comment on (although, the more feedback we give, the more likely students are to pay attention to none of it, from my experience).

However, taking hours on each paper is not possible regardless—we have too much to do. Yet, how do we insure that we don’t spend too much time on grading (and other such tasks, like writing letters of recommendation or service-related writing)?

Use the timer. Decide on an amount of time that you are willing to spend and set the timer for one minute less than that number, and go. Feel the pressure of time. Just a bit. When the timer goes off, it is time to start writing it up.

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