Family support and family motivators

In the last segment, we explored the idea of letting family members help with chores and letting go of some chores all together.

Family members can be a great help in another, very different vein. When I talk to my non-traditional students about working toward academic goals, they often mention that their children are their motivators.

The students often say not only do they want their children to see them working toward a goal, but they also want their children to see that a college degree as a real possibility for themselves.

How does goal setting connect with time management? Setting an example for children means working on homework together. Non-traditional students work on their studies while their school age children work on their studies. They spur each other on. Time is saved because non-traditional college students do not need to wait until children are in bed to do their studies, they can work on their studies while school age children work on their homework. The example of studying helps keep both elementary and college students on track AND makes good use of all of the students’ time. 

Family support

As the busy holiday season approaches,  we need to balance school and family goals. Most family members are supportive if we are willing to let go of some of the responsibilities such as putting a little one to bed so you can have some focused time to work on your classes. 

Several years ago I let go of most of my Christmas baking. I had prided myself on being the cookie queen and thought it was important to make several varieties of special holiday cookies. One year, things were just too hectic and I asked each of the kids which cookie was their favorite and I only made those three varieties. Not only did the kids not care that we did not have a multitude of varieties of cookies—I am not sure they even noticed we had fewer. They felt just as honored that I had asked each of them which was their favorite.
What advice might you give others who need to nurture the support from other members of their family?
What advice might you give others about letting go of some responsibilities?

What advice do others have?

Some things bear repeating

I recently blogged about setting small goals and gaining confidence. Some things really do bear repeating. Most of us know how important it is to set goals and we likely even know most of the information in this post, but we need to be constantly reminded. 

Time management and goal setting go hand in hand.  If you have trouble keeping the goals you have set for yourself, try using the time-honored formula of SMART goals.

For goals to be effective, they must include action words that explicitly describe the desired outcome. Effective goals also include the following SMART elements:

·         Specific: Specify, in detail, exactly what is to be accomplished. Vague goals do not provide enough structure for achievement. In addition, it is difficult to determine when an overgeneralized goal has been accomplished.

·         Measurable: Measurable goals indicate how much progress has been made toward achievement. If a goal is difficult to measure, it may be difficult to achieve.

·         Attainable: Goals must be attainable. Not everyone can play for the National Football League, but there are many related, achievable goals. Set goals that challenge, because challenging goals are motivating. However, goals should not exceed the resources available to the goal setter.

·         Realistic: Similar to attainability, goals must be realistic. Realistic goals do not rely on unlikely events, such as winning the lottery. Although related to other people, realistic goals do not rely on others’ behavior; rather, realistic goals put the responsibility of achievement on the goal setter. Realistic goals also have realistic time frames for achievement.

·         Timely: Every goal requires a deadline for completion. Time limits reinforce the urgency of taking action now rather than later. If a goal is not accomplished by the stated deadline, create a new, more realistic deadline, if possible. Missing a deadline is not an excuse to abandon important goals.

What comments would anyone offer about using the SMART formula for goal setting? Watch for more on goal setting in the next couple of posts. 

Responsibility, confidence, and gaining control over time

Confidence in any endeavor is gained in small steps. These small steps begin an upward spiral. When a person takes on the responsibility in either personal or professional settings, confidence grows and you become more willing to take on the next opportunity for using time responsibly.

This can even begin at home. If just by setting the goal for yourself that you will pick up the dinner dishes right after you eat, you gain control over one aspect of your daily routine and feel more confident. This can then spill over to making the bed every morning, and then to logging on to your course website every day. Soon you are in control of more areas and gain confidence of more areas.

What examples of using time responsibly and confidence can others share?

Packing to save time

I know many learners and teachers spend time traveling, so time management tips about packing seem appropriate. Really, the tips shared in this entry are my favorite kind—completing the tip might take a bit more time on the front end of the task, but it saves time in the long run.

 I have just returned from a road trip. In seven nights I slept in five different beds. This seems like a good time to share three time-saving packing tips.

1.       To avoid spending time re-ironing clothes in a hotel, use this method to pack before you leave home.  You will need tissue paper and re-sealable gallon-sized kitchen storage bags for this method.

A. Fold the shirts, pants, skirts, or dresses using the standard method. Two sources for correct folding are http://www.wikihow.com/Fold-a-Shirt and http://www.wikihow.com/Fold-a-Shirt Dresses can be folded similar to shirts and skirts can be folded similar to pants.

The additional “must do” when folding the clothes is to spread a thin sheet of tissue paper over the garment before you make the first fold. Tissue paper reduces humidity and humidity is what causes garments to wrinkle when folded.

B. Stack the folded clothes by outfit on a large flat surface such as a bed or table. For instance, make one stack with the pants, shirt, and undergarments that go together. I even put the accessories such as ties, or scarves or belts in the stack. Keep making the small stacks until you have all of the outfits you need for the length of the trip. Layer tissue paper between each garment and around the stack.

C. Place each tissue-wrapped stack in a gallon-size sealable storage bag. I have used the name brands such as Ziplock or the store brands such as Powerhouse. Lay the bag on the flat surface and squeeze all of the air out of the bag. I seal the bag except for about an inch in the middle of the opening and then gently squeeze out the air using my forearms to smooth the garments and push the air out of the small opening.  When the bag is flat and without air, quickly seal the small opening.

D. Now place each bag in your luggage. When you arrive at your destination(s) you will not have to spend time ironing. Nor will you have to think about what shirt you had planned to wear with what pants—saves time and stress.

E. With each outfit in its own bag, it is also easy to keep the clean laundry separate.

F. When I arrive home and unpack, I simply place the sheets of tissue paper inside the gallon bags and store them together inside my luggage, so they are ready to reuse on the next trip.

2.       Shoes? That’s a different story. I do not put shoes in the gallon-sized bags. J I do, however, pack shoes inside those cloth bags grocery stores provide for six bottles of wine. I can take six pair of shoes in a relatively small bag.

3.       My final tip is how to pack fine-chain necklaces so they do not tangle and you do not have to spend time untangling in the hotel room.

A. Unlatch the clasp and thread one end of the chain through an ordinary drinking straw.

B. Re-latch the clasp so the chain is inside the straw. I have one particularly long chain that I thread through two straws.

C. Place the necklace inside the bag with the appropriate outfit. If I plan to wear a necklace more than once and I know what order I am going to wear the outfits, I simply put the necklace with the outfit I am going to wear first. 

Faster reading is better reading

Many online and traditional students wish to improve their personal reading skills. They 

indicate that they read slowly and often have to re-read. Actually a little-known method to improve reading skills calls for reading faster for better comprehension. At first it seems counter-intuitive, but it does make sense.

Your brain can process approximately 100x the speed slower readers read. So when we read slowly, our minds have time to wander off on tangents and we lose our concentration--and find ourselves re-reading. 
When we read just a bit faster, we have to concentrate more on the information and we have less time to get off track. Does that make sense?

Try reading faster when you read fairly easy material like a newspaper or magazine. Push yourself to read faster and see if you can develop the habit. 

Has anyone tried this? Would you be willing to? Let me know what you think. 

Here is a link for more information. http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/speed1.html

Using what others have learned

In my last post, I promised to share a resource that takes the write-everything-down method to the next level—and makes it even more useful. Writing everything down that is needed to complete a project is indeed helpful for planning our time for any given project, but it can be much more than that. In this post, let’s take that method one more level to see if we spend our time doing what we want to do, or what is most important to us.

Dr. Nancy Zingrone posted an article called “Five Useful Tips for Good Time Management for the Online Teacher” at WizIQ. I contacted her to gain permission to repost it here. http://blog.wiziq.com/5-useful-tips-for-good-time-management-for-online-teachers/#disqus_thread

The article pertains to any learner or teacher, not just online teachers. Dr. Zingrone advocates not only writing down everything we do during the day, but then to categorize our activities, analyze how we spend our time, and make changes based on the data.

I thought at first that the method was tedious, but it takes little time to track our time—a bit like keeping an old-fashioned checkbook.  After the second day, I was eager to write down what I was spending my time doing so that at the end of five days I could see if any patterns emerged.  Did patterns emerge? Yes, indeed. I was surprised that I spend about two hours at the computer each day drafting emails. Then I go back to those high-stakes emails and re-read or revise before sending.  By high-stakes emails I mean emails to my bosses or my clients. I want to strike the right tone and by drafting and revising, I think I do a better job of that.

Is that too much time spent on drafting and revising? I guess it depends. If I am responding to a request to share work, I do not think so. Do I wish I were faster at writing appropriate emails? Absolutely!  Will I get faster by tracking my time? I will get back to you on that. J

Write down everything

Earlier in July I wrote about Jo Hartmann teaching me that time is not elastic. Another colleague, Maggie Austin, showed me that time is not elastic by example.  I call Maggie’s method “write-down-everything.”

I have had the privilege of working with Maggie on a few projects.  In one of our planning meetings, she showed me a list she had created of essential tasks that go into an event. Maggie had listed every detail such as prepare handouts, set up participant tables and chairs, hang posters, set up welcome table, prepare participant folders, order snacks for breaks, and tidy up after first day. She had included an approximate time each task would take.  I was amazed at how much time these sorts of tasks take—I had planned for events and classes before--but in my mind--I had always thought about the time it takes to study the material, plan the activities for participants, and prepare the handout. I had not planned for the phone calls, the set-up, and the gathering of auxiliary materials.

Now I call this time management strategy “write-down-everything.” Whether I am planning a study session for myself, a team meeting with a few colleagues, or a professional development event for an entire school district, I need to remember to write down everything.  I write down everything for three reasons:

1. I realize how much time the work will actually take
2. I am not rushed when I do my studying
3. I can check off the tasks as I finish them to feel a sense of accomplishment.

Maggie and I are not the only ones to use this write-down-everything method. Next time I will share a time management blog that incorporates this method and takes it to the next level.  

Time is NOT elastic

I learn many strategies from watching and listening to my colleagues. Let me highlight one of those today.

Jo Hartman taught me that time is not elastic. She claimed she has the same problem that I do about ignoring a time frame and concentrating on completing a project.  I am not sure I totally believe her. Jo may have time-is-not-elastic-itis, but she hides it well. She rarely seems frazzled and I have not heard a cross or impatient word from her when a deadline is looming. 

I am still learning that indeed, time is NOT elastic. Although it seems admirable to focus on the project rather than the timeframe, that may not be so admirable in this information, multi-tasking age.  Good teachers and students do focus on completion of a project, but it is no longer admirable or even possible to complete one project before starting on another.  I used to pride myself on completing one project before tackling the next one on my to-do list.  Now I try to find commonalities in my work projects so I can see what may work for more than one assignment. I am not advocating using the exact same communication or information for more than one assignment/project, but I do use the same general idea and modify it to fit the situation.

 For instance, I plan to use the same connecting activity with two different groups of educators.  Last week I facilitated a Common Core State Standards training for K-2 grade educators.  The topic was bringing rigor to the classroom. For the opening table talk on the third day we conducted an exercise in which half of the people at each table (the A’s) had an opportunity to explain a rigorous situation they had experienced.  After listening to the A’s, the other half of the people at the same table (the B’s) had an opportunity to explain a difficult situation they had experienced.  Then the table discussion was “What is the difference between rigorous and difficult?” Educators came up with clear differences between rigorous and difficult and they came to a consensus that difficult is more emotional than rigorous. Rigorous is something the person feels proud of when it is accomplished.  One table determined that people need to employ rigor to get through a difficult situation.  The educators then discussed the value of rigor for K-2 students. My goal was to put educators in a position to discuss how primary students could be successful in rigorous situations.

This same activity will work to meet one of the goals of my next professional develop event.  This week  I help facilitate the annual retreat for South Dakota Learning Power online educators. I plan to use the same connecting exercise for these teachers of Advanced Placement high school students.  Even though the group will be only one quarter of the size of the K-2 educators and the AP educators have a very different focus than the K-2 educators, the activity will still be productive.  I will use the same process with the A’s and B’s at each table. This time my goal is to put educators in a position to discuss what processes they can use to focus on student learning rather than content.  Educators will likely discuss the bigger picture of helping students master not only the rigorous content of their particular AP courses, but also strategies to help students master any rigorous learning situation.

Jo explicitly told me that time is not elastic. Another of my colleagues, Maggie Austin, has taught me about time management by example. Stay tuned for more about what Maggie has shown me….

Time for what?

June 13, 2013
Time for what?
These past two weeks have been exceptionally busy for me. I never seemed to have the time to write about saving time---hmmm…imagine that.  I told myself I was too busy traveling, too busy conducting trainings, too busy providing feedback to my online students.  As I was preparing the training for the Shannon County staff, I chose to use Judy Brown’s poem “Fire.”

The message to me from the poem is that the space between the logs is just as important as the logs themselves when building a fire or keeping a fire burning.

I have used that poem many times and it seems to really connect with teachers. This time the poem meant something different to me. The lines, “When we are able to build open spaces in the same way…” provided an ah-ha moment for me. The verb “build” stuck out to me. We build the open spaces, Judy Brown writes. The open spaces do not occur because of the logs we build. We actually have to build the open spaces, as well.

FIRE ~ Judy Brown

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.

A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

So I ask myself, what am I saving time for? If I am saving time doing tasks just so I have time to do more tasks—or lay on more logs, it is no wonder saving time is not so important to me.  If I am saving time doing tasks so I time to build open spaces to talk with family on the phone or play a table game with friends or take a walk with my husband, then the time saving strategies do become important.

I challenge you to ask yourself, “What are you saving time for?” I invite your comments. 

Job jars

The weekend has just passed and I did not get everything done I had intended. I can hardly remember a Monday when that was not the case.

When I was taking graduate classes, teaching full time, and raising three children, sometimes the household chores became overwhelming. I needed help. One morning it came to me—create a Job Jar! It was a simple idea. I cut slips of paper and put one household chore on each slip of paper. Take out the trash. Fold the towels. Empty the dishwasher…you get the idea. I also put in a few slips that said Free Day to make the Job Jar more palatable. I put all of the slips in a red plastic jar, let the kids know that each child needed to draw a job for the day, and also let them know  there were Free Day slips.

I was amazed at the result. No one grumbled as they each drew their slip and the chore itself seemed more like a game than work.  No one drew a free day slip that first day, and I was relieved when Brad drew one the second round—now there was evidence that there really were some free day slips in the jar.

Over time, I learned some important strategies to keep the Job Jar from being contentious.

·        Jobs cannot be traded with siblings—what you draw is what you get.

·         I drew a job, too—we are all in this together.

·         I encouraged the kids to submit jobs to the job jar—it is surprising what kids see that needs to be done.

·         We drew out all the jobs until the jar was empty  before starting over.

·         I posted the job with the child’s name on the refrigerator and then did not mention the job again—I was amazed that this worked. The kids kept each other accountable.

·         As the kids got older and their schedules became heavier, we  drew jobs by the week instead of the day—they each drew five jobs and needed to complete those jobs as their scheduled allowed before the end of the week. 

Never finish your sentence

One of the best time-saving tips I learned when I was writing my dissertation is to never finish a sentence...at the end of a writing session.
Here is how it worked for me. I was working full time while I was earning my doctorate degree. The time I had to write my dissertation was early morning before I went to work. I had to stop writing at 7 a.m. to get ready for work.
Because I had to be so clock-driven rather than project-driven, I was unable to finish a section before I had to quit writing each day. I was frustrated.
Then I remembered a time I got to interview Fredrick Manfred, the author of Lord Grizzly. Manfred told me and the other graduate students that he always purposely quit his writing session each day in the middle of a sentence. The next day, he claimed it was much easier to pick up his train of thought, finish the sentence, finish the paragraph, and move on.
I thought if it could work for a career author, I would give it a try.
I was amazed at how freeing the technique was AND how much time it saved me because I was able to get right back to my writing the next morning.
It really did work! I seemed to be able to remember where I was headed in my paper by finishing the sentence I had started the day before. That sentence led to the next sentence, next paragraph, and ...