When To Dos Scaffold

This weekend I spent both days in bed with a head cold. This meant that as I couldn’t even fathom being in front of a computer or any sort of screen for any length of time, my to do list increased exponentially and my anxiety increased as someone who likes to keep on top of things.

I still was not much better yesterday morning but I am significantly better this morning. I am wondering why the great sea change from yesterday to today and I came up with two reasons. One, my coworker gave me some sort of magic tea combination yesterday so maybe that did the trick. Two, I managed to do some of my to do list last night when I got home from work and I realized that I’m in a unique position in that many of my to do’s scaffold at the moment so that decreased the extent of the to do list.

I love scaffolding as someone who works with curriculum all day, but it’s super great when it works out in your daily life. I have articles I am working on that I can use as examples for another thing I need to send in next week. I facilitated a workshop last week that will help inform the conference paper I am working on. I’m reading a book that will help with 2 of the in progress things on my list. This helps make the to do list seem not as long and is great when you have not been feeling well and your deadlines are now tighter than they were before.

That interconnectivity is also good when thinking of big picture concepts or looking 6 months down the road. It made me realize that I need to try to make this scaffolding concept work more when faced with long lists of to dos. Sometimes disparate things are unavoidable, but it’s nice when that concept map builds. Have you ever had a time when your to do list miraculously scaffolds without planning?