Routines are Important

In How Do You Manage Your Online Communities? from tweenteacher.com by heather, she asks, “how do you manage your online activities without going insane, and what is your daily routine?”

I am the master of routines! I really believe in routines and think they help my students because they know this is a constant in the classroom. When they feel comfortable with the routines, they can risk trying new things.

I have a folder in my bookmarks that is labeled Daily Check. These are the sites that I need to check every day. Here are my daily checks that I go through.

1. I check my personal email.
2. I check Plurk and Twitter to see if there are any replies or direct messages to me that I need to answer. Then I say hello to all of my friends.
3. I glance over my Yahoo home page to check out the weather and news headlines in case there is anything major I need to know about.
4. I post on my Successful Teaching blog by 6am each Monday – Friday.
5. I check my Digital Scrapbook Place Scrap Blogs page. Each day a prompt is given and I answer it in my Life of Loonyhiker blog.
6. I check my school email.
7. I check Flickr to look for any messages. Then I look at the new photos in the group pool of the 365 day project that I’m doing.
8. I check Ravelry to see if I have any direct messages from anyone there.
9. I check Facebook to see what messages I have on there.
10. Last I go to my Google Reader. I spend a lot of time reading blogs and leaving comments.

Maybe I’m obsessive compulsive but if I get thrown off my routine, it messes up my whole day. I think many of my students feel the same way so I have to be very sensitive to their feelings if we start the day late or if we have a day off for snow or holidays.

Original image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mole-volio/131261219/