The Greatest of Ideas

So today I am at a meeting of the Provost's Assessment Taskforce when I heard the coolest thing. This is a cross campus thing, so there are professors there from all over the school and one of the people from Engineering was explaining how its pretty much time for her to make her summer to do list.

I don't think I have ever done such a thing. I am usually so happy to be to the end of the year that by the time I realize I am done we're into Precollege and then someone is inviting me to a top of the academic year cocktail party. She did say that she often had the same experience, that the list pretty much only serves to be a thing to look at come the end of the summer and discover an inventory of all the things she'd meant to do but hadn't.

Now, once again, I can't remember building such a list. Probably I will spend most of the summer clearing the email folder with "Follow Up" on it. Add to that reading the items in my Google Reader "Starred Items Feed" and I think I could stay busy for quite some time.

It's going to be busy. I'm not sure I'll need a list.

But this is why it's the greatest of ideas, see it's a ritual, not a tool. After she writes the "Summer To Do" list, she tears it up and goes home.

Wow.