Monday, May 27, 2013

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. 

Monday, May 20, 2013

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 ...