The environment in which I work is essential to me; the arrangement of my workplace must be intuitive to the maximum so that I can work efficiently and pleasantly.
From the beginning of my master’s project, I understood that I would have to juggle different tasks, documents, protocols, articles to read, etc..… So imagine when you are doing a Ph.D.! That is why I quickly started to organize my work environment better.
Workspace management:
- Personal working environment
- Professional working environment
- Common server
- Teaching platform
- Shared online
1) I prioritize my emails to avoid “missing something”… For example, I generally answer quickly to someone who asks for my availability for an appointment or deadline. It prevents me from adding an item on my TO DO LIST that says “call back Mr. X about the appointment…“. In the long run, this saves me time, and I avoid forgetting to remind Mr. X about the meeting.
2) I began to use a personal server more wisely. I created different folders (I have many of them, but this way, I can find everything relatively quickly, even several years later). As a result, I permanently saved several times (we all experienced the OUPSI moment when the computer crashed…).
2) Many software can make our life easier. So I tried to get the “classical” editing software on my computers. I also looked for vocabulary, translation, and grammar correction software to speed up the proofreading process of my different manuscripts (I’m not an English speaker).
3) I quickly started to familiarize myself with the teaching platform before teaching the course. This way, I would be comfortable when the time came for me to teach (this helped me a lot during the lockdown when we had to spend all the classes ONLINE).
4) I created a shared file for the master students working with me to facilitate sharing documents (literature, protocols, datasheet, etc.) and not send a thousand emails…
Hope this may help you!
Best
Sarah
Sarah Semeraro 