The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast | ELA
Education:How To
This week I want to share a productivity tip that has changed my life in ways large and small.
Three years ago we were all in the heart of a pandemic. My children were very young - five and eight. My mom was sick. There was a lot of pressure on our family, as there was on pretty much every family. I had been sharing teaching ideas on this podcast and by email for a long time, and it was clear that my community of teachers online needed more from me than a few ideas each week, given what they were being asked to do - radically change their curriculum to an online or hybrid one with little or no training or preparation.
At this time, I took a course with a guy named James Wedmore about how to be more effective in sharing my ideas online. But it was really one tiny part of that huge course that changed everything. It was the idea that anything can be completed if you break it down to its smallest parts and then schedule them into your calendar. I decided to try the process with opening a teacher membership, which is now The Ligthhouse. I wrote down all the tasks, starting from the tiniest - choose a name. And I scheduled them. Day one, choose the name. And so on. Little by little by little, all the tasks got done. I was able to start and complete the biggest work project of my life while homeschooling both kids and still doing everything at work that I was doing before, when both kids actually attended school.
So that’s a long story, I know. But for me, it shows the power of the chunk and schedule. What is that you do not have time for? That you dream of? Whether it’s getting your masters degree, planning an incredible unit on Jason Reynolds’ Long Way Down, applying to present at a national conference, running a 10K, or something else, break it down into its tiniest moving pieces. Then write them down in your planner. Make them the first thing you do on those days instead of the last. I honestly think you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish once that dream project becomes a series of tiny, manageable tasks.
Because I was able to accomplish a task I found incredibly intimidating during a time in my life when I was unexpectedly busier than I had ever been, I am putting a lot of gusto behind this when I say... I highly recommend you try the chunk-and-schedule method the next time there’s something you want to do that you just can’t seem to find the time for that you want.
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074: Infographic Projects for the Win
073: Help for Harkness Discussions
072: Connecting your English Classroom to the World
071: How to talk about Equity and Inclusion, with Liz Kleinrock
070: Help for Student Apathy, with Dave Stuart Jr.
069: 40 Ways to Reduce your Grading Time
068: Confronting Teacher Exhaustion, with Angela Watson
067: Look Forward to Teaching Vocabulary
066: We Need More Diverse Books
065: Final Exams that feel Meaningful
064: A Beginner's Guide to Writing Workshop
063: Using Stations Creatively in ELA
062: When Students Choose their Own Assessments, with David Rickert
061: Using Podcasts as Texts in ELA
060: Students won't read? Don't care? One Year to Change That
059: Maybe Teaching doesn't have to be so Lonely
058: How to Match Student Readers with Books they'll Love
057: Creative Tech Tools for ELA Teachers, with Jennifer Gonzalez
056: Get Funding with Donors Choose (Dos and Don'ts)
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