My Summer Tech To-Do List

Wake me up when it's over

Right now I am in the midst of the I-haven’t-washed-my-hair-in-a-week, merciful-heavens-when-will-it-be-over, end-of-semester rush: a state to which I suspect a few Gradhacker readers can relate. When I’m overwhelmed, I find myself daydreaming of the idyllic summer days when I can spend hours in front of my computer doing Fun Tech Stuff instead of spending hours in front of my computer Writing Bad Papers or Grading Things. Without further ado, here is my Summer Tech To-Do List, brought to you by Almost Finals Week Procrastination:

• Play with CiteLighter: I fully admit to a weakness for tools that promise to make my scholarly life easier. CiteLighter came across my twitter feed a few weeks ago and I am chomping on the bit to give it a go. The features highlighted in the informational video were what did it for me: browser extension, virtual clippings, and automatic bibliography that works with Microsoft Word. I’d love to hear if anyone’s tried it in the comments.

• Do a Social Network Spring Cleaning: Between Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, I have a lot of folks I interact with in a lot of different online spaces. I also have a lot of noise in those feeds, including businesses I’ve followed or media organizations that are just adding to the onslaught of information. On my Summer Tech To-Do list is to organize my circles on Google+, Lists on Facebook and Twitter, and update my information on LinkedIn. Lifehacker also reminded me to double-check permissions on my social networks: check out this recent article, “Clean Out Your Facebook App Permissions as Part of Your Spring Cleaning Regimen.“

• Improve my Evernote Workflow: I think I may be using the internet as a trashcan. Right now I have an unholy way of tracking articles and websites: sometimes I bookmark, sometimes I send links to Instapaper, sometimes I favorite a tweet with an interesting link, and very rarely do I utilize Evernote and ifttt in the way they were intended– to remember and organize articles and websites for me.

Once I complete this to-do list, I have complete confidence that, come Fall, I will be more than prepared to take on whatever comes my way with grace and style. I will march through the semester with nary a complaint and sail through the end of semester, hair washed and gleaming. Or maybe that’s the lack of sleep talking. Hmmm.

What’s on your Summer Tech To-Do List? Let us know in the comments!

[Image by Flickr user em2me and used under the Creative Commons license.]