Today I had the idea to create a work journal, and to publish it on my blog.  One thing I’ve struggled with as it relates to my public work blog is what to write on here.  Today I was having another struggle, which is trying to determine how best to use my time today, so I figured I might write about that.

Over the course of the semester, each day is like drinking from a firehose, and yet, each day is different.  Most of the time I feel like there is too much to do.  Then, suddenly, I find myself on day 4 of finals with two more to go, and I’m playing the waiting game because I can’t finish grades until that is finished.  How should I use my time? Since I’m always busy, should I just relax? Should I start preparing for my classes that start a month from now? Should I level up my skills in a dozen different interest areas even if they don’t perfectly align with the classes I teach next semester? Should I work on a research project that is currently in process that requires many months of data collection? Just thinking about it gives me analysis paralysis—but that is exactly what a day in a professor’s life is like, too many options, too much to do, and yet nothing specific to do on a day like today.

This week I actually have the opportunity to be in several different conferences simultaneously.  I am signed up for AWS reinvent, I am signed up for our #1 IS academic conference called ICIS, I see that our local Silicon Slopes community has some events going on this week, and I just attended a CIO summit for an organization called SIM (Society for Information Management).  Today I did a little shopping while virtually attending the CIO summit via Zoom.

Here is a list of the key take aways and quotes that I pulled from that meeting:

-Some leaders will attend up to 70 meetings in a short time period during a time of crisis

-Networking is incredibly important for your career in leadership

-Learning about leadership is also incredibly important for your career in leadership

-You should be good at telling a story

-Have a buddy on the board of directors before you make it to the C-suite

-Never let a crisis/disaster go to waste

-The travel industry notes that there is an incredible amount of pent up demand to travel right now