His advice was to savor the book and read it over the course of a full school year (or season as he calls it). Baffled, I resisted my binge reading impulse and have been slowly reading a chapter or two per week. There are lots of thought-provoking questions and reflection space,which does hinder the speed reading.
I'm glad I've taken my time. I've had quite the range of emotions this school year, ranging from excitement to disappointment to exhaustion. I've been able to pinpoint why I'm experiencing those emotions and examine my teaching practices through a critical and empathetic lens.
Today's chapter focused on time. The one thing we never seem to have enough of as educators (and well, people in general). It focused on getting rid of the glorification of busy and talked about the negative impacts of multi-tasking.
I pride myself on my ability to multi-task, but maybe that's not such a good thing.
The chapter's call to action was to truly examine how time is being spent. By constantly toggling between various tasks (and social media), we (teachers) spend day in and day out feeling distracted, disappointed, overwhelmed, and juggling a lot of tasks, yet never really completing them.
I found myself agreeing with the author's description of the because I can syndrome.
"Loehr refers to this multitasking tendency as the "because I can" syndrome. Why do I check emails while on vacation? Why do I text during family dinner? Why do I interrupt a conversation to take another call or return a text message? Why do I work every night until after midnight? Why do I answer my cell phone during my daughter's concert? Why do I skip my work out? Why do I miss breakfast?
Because I can." (HEART, p. 72)
The author goes on to state "everyone I know has this issue I suspect that, at one time or another, you have taken on too many tasks and become overwhelmed. The demands of managing work, family, and your personal health (and energy) make it impossible not to skirt the edges of faulty assumptions. Eventually, one of these areas, if not all three, begins to suffer." (72)
As a teacher, there's always more work that can be done. Being aware of this is the first step. However, life can't be all work. Instead, I should focus and fully commit to three goals per day instead of attempting everything with varying levels of focus.
Even as I write this post, I had to make a conscious effort not to have Netflix on in the background, not to be checking my phone, not to be texting, or not to be on social media.
Newsflash: It was difficult. I was uploading some pictures to dropbox, so I checked the status of that. My phone went off a few times, so I checked the social media updates. It was nothing crucial or important. I also listened to music. B's at a softball tournament, so it means I can listen to the Wicked Soundtrack without his sassy comments. My mind started to stray about the laundry I could start, or the errands I could do, or the chores that could be started, and as a result, this post took a while to write.
This is exactly what the author is talking about: the superficial tasks and the "simpler, better, faster" mantra.
The blunt truth of this chapter really resonated with me:
Except in rare circumstances...you will never be as good as if you focused on one thing at a time. Period. That's the bottom line. " (71)
He goes on to quote The Way We're Working Isn't Working with "We create plenty of distractions for ourselves by juggling tasks, making ourselves perpetually available to others, opening several windows on our computers, and focusing on whatever feels most urgent at the moment without regard to whether what we are doing is really important." (71)
The book suggests thinking about 3 goals per day. So, that's what I'm going to try.
I found this while cleaning:
And it seems perfect for this new strategy.
My goals for Monday (the first day back) are:
1) Plan my smart notebook for the day and gather necessary materials
2) Plan for Tuesday (lay out copies, etc) right after school
3) Plan with Ms. H (we were supposed to plan over break, but family time was more important)
My going into Monday with my goals in mind makes it easy to grasp. My day is planned. My 3 goals for the day are laid out (and written down in my goal setting planner).
However, I don't want to wait until Monday to try this new strategy. I've started today's list of my top 3 goals:
1) Go to Target for a few items
2) Spend 45 minutes in the garage organizing and going through teacher boxes
3) Nail appointment with two coworkers (It's been a month)
What are your top three goals for today?
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