Literacy Builders

For the Love of Learning

Problems

From To-Do to To-Done: How to Manage the Tasks On Your List

by

From To-Do to To-Done: How to Manage the Tasks On Your List

No time to read? Listen instead!

Do you have a to-do list that you’re working from today? If not, for the purpose of this blog, you may want to make one. Once you’ve got your list in front of you, continue reading.

When you look at your list, how does it make you feel? If you find that your list helps you to prioritize the things vying for your attention which in turn makes you feel calm and confident, stop reading this blog and proceed with your day! Ultimately, that’s the purpose of a to-do list!

I, however, find that to-do lists can sometimes have the exact opposite effect. When I make the list and look it over, I find myself suddenly caught in the web of all that I “have to” do.

  • I have to write a welcome back letter to my new students!
  • I have to run out to Target to buy stationery so that I can hand write those letters!
  • I have to draft a syllabus for each of the two different sections of English that I am teaching this year!
  • I have to pick the books that I want to read aloud on the first day of school!
    I have to figure out how to use Google classroom!

If looking at your list finds you, too, caught in the same web of “have to,” the first thing I want you to do is stop…and breathe.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Do this for as many times as you need. Remember: nothing at all gets done when we are absolutely paralyzed by everything we “have to” do.

The next thing I want you to do is revise the title of your list. It is no longer your “To Do” list but rather, your “Get To Do” list.

Now, pick something from your list and insert it into the following sentence stem:
I get to (insert item from your list).
Example: I get to draft a welcome back to school letter.

As a point of comparison, insert that same item into this sentence stem:
I have to (insert the item from your list).
Example: I have to draft a welcome back to school letter.

Do you feel the difference? The words “have to” make me feel tense. The words “get to” make me feel playful, excited, and might I say, even a bit giddy. The energy of “get to” is light whereas the energy of “have to” heavy. Shifting our language can have a profound effect on how we feel about what needs doing.

Now, let’s talk about how to prioritize what’s on your list. If you knew the me that was me a year ago, I’d tell you to look at the list and circle the thing that feels most pressing and start there. Truth be told, I still sometimes do this. But more times than not, I don’t find it to be the best approach. What I often find is better is to begin by looking at the list and asking, “What here am I most excited about?” When I give my attention to the thing that I am most excited about, it gives me energy. With more energy, I build my capacity for productivity.

Another strategy that can work well when you are prioritizing the tasks that need doing is looking at the list and asking which will take the least amount of time to complete. If everything on your list feels big and overwhelming, then be intentional about peppering your list with tasks that you know will be quick. For example, I added “Throw away markers that no longer work” and “Put books underneath desk back on bookshelf” to my list because I knew that it would take little to no time to do these things. I fit these little tasks between more taxing tasks which gives my brain the break it needs AND allows me to cross something off my list which I LOVE doing. Watching the tasks on my list disappear makes me feel accomplished and the more I do, the more I want to do!

As you think about your “Get To Do” list, the last piece of advice that I would offer is to be sure to add what I like to call a “non-task” task to your list. A “non-task” task is something that takes zero effort and can serve to center you if you become overwhelmed. For example, sometimes I add a bullet point with the words, “ “Be happy” or “Look around you and notice something you are grateful for.” Not only are these things quick and easy to do, they are important reminders of the real reason our lists exist in the first place– to experience this great journey of living. In the end, is there really anything greater than this that we “get” to do?

Good luck with making your way through the things you need to do to begin the school year and if you have other hacks that help you, please share!

Overcoming Overwhelm

by

Overcoming Overwhelm

No time to read? Listen instead!

If you’re an educator, getting ready for the beginning of the school year is on your mind. With so much up in the air due to Coronavirus, this year’s opening is complicated by contingency plans. Will we greet our students in-person or will our opening salvos be conducted via Zoom?

As of this moment, my school is planning a brick and mortar opening on August 11 which means that readying the physical space where students will gather to think and learn is foremost on my mind.

When I began to think about how to tackle this challenge, my first instinct was…to take a nap. Seriously. I haven’t set up my own classroom in twenty-one years and I couldn’t even fathom where to begin.

But, I resisted my urge to go to bed and instead, decided to start with books. First, I raided my sons’ bookshelves for their old middle school favorites. I found the Percy Jackson series, all seven of the Harry Potter books, The Hunger Games, Divergent, Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

A very nice beginning, I thought to myself.

Then, I went to my garage and began to open the bins I had stored there. I cracked open the spines of brand new books that publishers have sent over the years. I got lost reading the blurbs on the backs. I felt inspired. Mentally, I began to organize my collection. I imagined bins labeled Environment, Civil Rights, World War II, Graphic Novels, Classics.

Though I didn’t count how many books I culled from different corners of my home, there were roughly 500 books in my foyer waiting to find a space in the library of my new classroom.

Great, I thought. Next stop–the classroom. In my head, moving the books from my foyer to the classroom and putting them on shelves felt like a manageable task.

So, the next day, I loaded up my car and headed to my school. When I arrived, I cheerfully opened up the door and saw…books. Lots and lots and lots of books. Now, normally, a sight such as this would make me positively giddy but upon seeing the no less than ten boxes of books that had been delivered to my room, I felt that tight, tense, choked up feeling in the back of my throat…and again, the sudden urge for a nap. What felt manageable prior to my arrival, now felt…absolutely paralyzing.

As is often the case with teaching–and life–the tasks demanding our attention have a way of adding up to feel insurmountable. When this happens, like me, you might feel your flight instinct kick in. While it can be helpful to take that nap from time to time when you feel overwhelmed, avoiding the things on our to do list for too long can amplify our stress and anxiety. In those moments of overwhelm when we have to face what stands before us, I find the following three steps to be helpful:

  1. Stop. Recognize how you’re feeling. If you feel the urge to judge yourself for feeling this, resist that urge. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay! You’re human. Humans feel stuff. 
  2. Take a deep breath. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Do this again. Do this again and again and again until you feel refocused on the moment in front of you.
  3. Decide what you can do in this moment. If you’re overwhelmed by the new curriculum resource you’re expected to use, read the first page of the teacher manual. If you are trying to plan the lesson you’re going to do for your observation, sit at the computer, and type the objective. Don’t think about being done. Just think about one thing that you can do right here, right now.  

In my moment of overwhelm, the one thing that I could do after I had breathed my way through my anxiety, was open a box. And that’s what I did. Then, I took out one book. Then another. And slowly but surely, I made my way through all of the books in that one box. I didn’t finish going through all the books in all of the boxes, but I did finish sorting those books in that box. And that gave me a sense of accomplishment and the courage to continue.

Overwhelm comes from trying to process the enormity of the big picture. In these moments, we cannot see the pathway to the end we seek. However, completing one small task or taking one small action can illuminate the path forward. And you will get there. And so will I. Book by book by book.

A Smoothie at the Zoo

by

In Steven Johnson’s book Where Good Ideas Come From The Natural History of Innovation, (Amazon affiliate link) he tells the story of a nineteenth century French obstetrician, Stephane Tarnier, who noticed a chicken incubator on a visit to the Paris Zoo.  As he watched the chickens toddle around in the warmth of the device, he thought about the number of babies he delivered that had died.  Those babies had been born too soon and as he watched, he wondered if an incubator was the answer to this problem.  With the help of the local zookeeper, Tarnier set to work creating the first incubator for babies and as a result of this collaborative mindstorm, Tarnier succeeded at cutting the infant mortality rate at his hospital in half.  Incubators revolutionized maternity wards and are so successful at nurturing the life of premature babies that they are used to this day in hospital NICUs the world over.
Why am I telling you this story?  Well, this morning I happened upon a blog by Dr. Todd Kashdan at Psychology Today titled “Ways to Be Insanely Creative Dissecting the Worlds’ Greatest Maverick Scientist.”  With a title like that, who could resist? I was fascinated to learn about John Lilly but what really stuck with me was Kashdan’s commentary about what we can learn from Lilly’s life.   He wrote, “The quickest route to creativity is the blending of ideas from multiple topics and disciplines,” and it dawned on me: that’s exactly what happened when Dr. Tarnier went to the zoo. And it’s exactly what happened when Donald Graves started to think about how we teach children to become better writers.  Once upon a time, we “assigned” writing. It was a task that was completed in a minimal amount of time and handed in for a grade.  We lamented the poor spelling, lack of grammar, and overall quality of the writing, gave it a C, and handed it back.  Like Tarnier who was at odds with an uncomfortable reality, Graves walked into the proverbial zoo with this problem on his mind.  If kids are to be better writers, he reasoned, we need to look closer at the people who publish books. How do they do it? How can our classrooms mimic the process that authors use to produce successful writing? 
Kashdan calls this blending of ideas “intellectual smoothies.” I love smoothies and I can think of no better time for a “smoothie” than the summer.  Education is ripe with paradoxes and problems in need of creative solutions.  My question is this: what will you be mulling over on your trips to the zoo?