Choosing a color helps save time? Really?

Read time is less than two minutes.
Although, this tip may require a few new purchases, the purchases can be as simple or elaborate as you choose.

Purchase office or school supplies (folders, markers, highlighters, post-it notes, and flags or labels) in as many different colors as there are members in your household.

Have each member choose a color—it could be the same color as the washcloth s/he chose in the suggestion in my last post.

You can see where today’s blog post is headed:

• Put all papers of each household member into her/his folder. Papers that need to be signed and returned, assignments to turn in, RSVP’s, and anything else that needs action.
• Use a flag or a label of each person’s chosen color to mark appointments, games, and practices on the calendar. In a glance, each household member can see if s/he has anything coming up.
• Use corresponding colored post-it notes to post messages on the refrigerator or other central location for each household member. The messages may include to-do items, lists of chores, reminders, and “attaboy” notes. “Attaboy” notes are crucial to encouraging household members to read the messages.

If your school supply budget has already been spent, use supplies that you already have.

• Instead of using a colored folder, simply color the tab on a manila folder with a different colored marker for each person. Each person still has her/his own folder. 
• Instead of putting labels on the calendar, write the appointment with the colored marker for each person or write with pen and highlight the reminders with different colors. 
• Instead of writing the messages on post-it notes to personalize the list, write the messages on one piece of white paper in the central location, using different colors for each member or highlighting the messages for each person.

A tip to save time AND money—my kind of tip.  Next time tune in for study strategies to help during this the-newness-of-school-has-worn-off time.

Not purple people eaters, but purple people washers

Read time is around one minute.

After a long hiatus, I am happy to be back with another simple time saver I learned from my sister Barb.  Barb has a busy, three generation household at times and the young mothers of her family are often washing the sticky hands and faces of little ones at the handy kitchen sink.

To save herself laundry time, Barb bought a stack of purple washcloths and stores several in the kitchen. Now the parents of the little ones need not take a new cloth out of the linen drawer each time a child needs a minor clean-up. They do not wonder for what a particular cloth was last used. They know the purple washcloths are used only for cleaning hands and faces and not for dishes or other household wipe-ups.

This is a simple time saver that can easily be extended. Let each member in your household choose a particular color of washcloth. Now the laundry time of washing, drying, folding, putting away will be cut way down when each member uses one cloth several times rather than reaching for a new one each time.

We will talk more about saving time when family members choose a color in the next post. 

Thirty second rule is not just for food

I often write about Return on Investment ideas and today’s tip is high on ROI. We all know the thirty second rule about dropped food, but here is another thirty second rule to help you stay organized.

Today’s post takes around one minute to read and can save anyone who spends time with others up to ten times that amount of time in a single incident.

An organized person should be able to find whatever s/he is looking for in thirty seconds or less—yes, WHATEVER—that favorite blue sweater, the flyswatter, any document saved on your hard drive—WHATEVER. If you cannot find what you are looking ofr in thirty seconds, make a plan to get more organized. Organization will be continue to be addressed in the next several blog posts.

In the meantime here is the thirty second organizational tip that may surprise you: Offer a finder’s fee. Yes, a finder’s fee. It’s simple, just shout out, “Whoever finds the flyswatter gets twenty-five cents.” Your lost item will be found in less than thirty seconds. Depending on your situation, you may need to offer more than twenty-five cents, but you get the idea. The “fee” could be an extra dessert, a pass on helping clean the kitchen, or an extra ten minutes of time in the bathroom. 

Try it—it will help you find what you need quickly and add some humor in this stressful time of year.

In the next post, I will offer another time saver that I learned from the same sister who uses the finders fee—purple people washers.

Testing compares with …

High stakes testing season is right around the corner. Both students and teachers are starting to feel the pressure. In recent posts, we have been highlighting Return on Investment ideas for learning and teaching. Today’s blog emphasizes the learning strategy that has the highest ROI. The strategy also takes little time.

According to Robert Marzano’s meta-analysis, the instructional strategy that has the highest effect on achievement is Identifying Similarities and Differences.* Comparison is one of the processes of this effective strategy and comparison takes little time.

When we learn anything, we compare. Most of the time, we compare naturally: we compare shapes of leaves to identify plants; we compare new vocabulary words to words we already know; we compare characters in movies to people we know.  Try consciously using comparison when learning difficult new material.  Ask yourself how the new math process compares (or contrasts) with a process you already know. Ask yourself how the complex science theory compares with a simpler theory that you already understand. Ask yourself how the main idea of paragraph one compares with the main idea of paragraph two. At this time of year we might ask ourselves how testing compares to learning. You get the idea:

Just fill in the blanks: How is ________________  similar to _____________ ? How is ______________ different than _______________?

When we teach anything, we can help learners explicitly compare. Provide a Venn diagram or T-chart or other graphic organizer to help learners get into the mindset of comparing and contrasting.  One online free source for graphic organizers is http://freeology.com/graphicorgs/

Using a strategy with high ROI is important in this testing season. Next time we will talk more about finding time with organization tips. You might be surprised at the thirty second organizational rule.

*Reference: Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock. Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2001. Print

Utility, Curiosity and Specificity

In the October 27, 2014 post I discussed Return On Investment strategies for learners.  Writing a good subject line of an email is an important ROI strategy for not only learners, but also for teachers. Every email you write is both a learning and teaching experience. Two important components are evident in all emails. The most important component is who sent the email. The second most important component is the subject line.

Subject lines can be one of three types—Utility, Curiosity, or Specificity, according to Daniel Pink’s book To Sell is Human. 

A utility subject gives the practical side of the email information. It might be something like, “Here is how to read with more purpose” or “Learn to correctly cite sources.”

A curiosity subject line piques the inquisitiveness of the reader and might be something like, “Simple, specific, small”  or “Critical thinking and vacuum cleaners.” 

Specificity is just what it says and often includes a number such as “7 steps to a debt-free life” or “3 Methods to attain short goals.”

Subject lines have ROI power. Look at the last several emails in your sent box. Do the subject lines invite the recipient to actually read the email?  If we take just a few minutes to make our subject lines enticing, our messages will have more impact. 

Write subject line last

Earlier this month I promised a short post about subject lines. The short version of the post is, develop the habit of writing the subject line of any email LAST. Writing the subject line last is a good learning strategy and a good time management strategy.

In the Dec. 3 post I wrote, “[Three Little Words] does force the reader to pay attention to what is most important. It is a bit like writing the subject line of a message in an online discussion thread or in an email--the short subject line forces the writer to think about what is most important.”

By writing the subject line last, you can always be sure your subject line reflects the most important information in your email, which is a good learning, thinking, and communication strategy. A good subject line can even entice the reader to actually READ your email.

Writing the subject line last is also a time saver.  If you have ever accidently pushed the send button before you finished writing an email, you know it took you as long--or longer--to write a second email as it took you to write the first partial email message. In the second email you had to explain your error and finish writing the message you intended to write in the first place.  If you accidently push the send message before you have finished the message and you have not written a subject line, your email cannot be sent! How simple is that for a timesaver tip!?

We will talk more about the importance of writing a good subject line and provide some examples next post—next year, 2015. 

Three little words

In the last post we talked about the importance of knowing your own first steps to learning.  Highlighting is one first step for many students.  Summarizing may be a first step for others. Some use summarizing to overcome the challenge of paying attention. Students may use summarizing techniques such as explaining information to a fictitious person that does not know the material or using sticky notes to summarize each paragraph.

Has anyone tried the summarizing technique of "Three Little Words"? "Three Little Words" is a technique that forces the reader to get to the heart of the message. It is a challenge to summarize the material into exactly three words. Consider starting with summarizing each paragraph, but moving on to a larger chuck of material such as a section or page.

It seems artificial and awkward at first, but it does force the reader to pay attention to what is most important. It is a bit like writing the subject line of a message in an online discussion thread or in an email--the short subject line forces the writer to think about what is most important.

Tell us how “Three Little Words” works for you. 

Next post will be a short one on subject lines. Stay tuned.