Teacher’s Bag of Tricks

Updated: I completely forgot about a previous GTD/Weekly review post.  Spring break is approaching fast.

The power of the Getting Things Done lies in the trusted system philosophy: if I completely trust my system, I’ll use it all the time and my stress level will go way down. In order to keep your system seaworthy and free of leaks (and therefore, trustworthy), it’s important to review all your lists and projects on a weekly basis. Now, I’m secure enough to let you know that I don’t review my system enough. So rather than tell you how to do this, I’m going to defer to some other people who are perhaps more qualified than me to describe the ever-elusive weekly review.

Audiobook Review: David Allen’s “GTD > Weekly Review” - Lifehack.org summarizes a new resource from the top guru himself.

David Allen Company | Free Articles | Weekly Review - David Allen’s consulting company has plenty of free resources and articles, including this free download (pdf file). You have to sign in like you’re buying something, but they won’t ask for a credit card.

Mental dialogues, yak-shaving & the triumph of the ‘mini-review … - Merlin Mann slices and dices the weekly review to a bite-sized event that might be more schedule-friendly.

Getting Teaching Done is really about not doing things. A teacher can only successfully complete one action at a time (forget multitasking). This means that as a teacher, you have to be very comfortable with all the things that are not getting done at every moment of the day. To get there, plan out your action times and defer like crazy:

• Plan a day ahead. Find open time slots and write down actions you will complete during those times. This will be your next action list for the day.
• The stuff you don’t like to do gets done first. Whether it’s grading those persuasive essays, emailing your committee members, or writing those science lesson plans, getting the annoying and boring out of the way can be a good way to build momentum. It’s the all-downhill-from-here approach to productivity.
• Alternately, go for some easy wins. Put a couple of quick, painless tasks at the top of the list, and hit those first. Momentum builds as you cross actions off the list. If you feel productive, you’ll be more productive.
• Stick to contexts. We lose a ton of time because we hop around from the computer to the office to the phone to your co-worker’s classroom. Instead, organize your next actions by context. Pick one time answer all the emails. Collect everything that needs to get done in the office and take up in one trip.
• Don’t get guilty. Prioritize your actions, and if some things don’t get done that day, don’t beat yourself up. Make a plan for the next day and recognize that there will be things that don’t get done. But remember, you’re in charge of the “didn’t get done” list.

Check out this great post from lifehack.org for a ton of ideas to kickstart your productivity.

50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily

Merlin Mann presents a compilation of GTD articles and resources from the archives of 43folders.com. The productivity blog got a much deserved mention on NPR in a recent radio segment about Getting Things Done. Here’s an excerpt from one of the articles:

“So you sprint from fire to fire, praying you haven’t forgotten anything, sapped of anything like creativity or even the basic human flexibility to adapt your own schedule to the needs of your friends, your family or yourself. Your ‘stuff’ has taken over your brain like a virus now, dragging down every process it touches and rendering you spent and virtually useless. Sound familiar?”

Seems to ring true with the sentiments of many teachers in the lounge. Congratulations, Merlin and friends.

43 Folders: Best of GTD | 43 Folders

Tags: gtd, productivity, links

A trusted system stays trustworthy for about two minutes in the real world of near-constant input and frequent distractions. A weekly review of your lists can go a long way toward clearing your mind, reassessing your commitments, and ultimately getting teaching done.

• Take a look at your calendar. Whether you use a physical plan book, or an online service, your calendar is sacred ground. If your calendar tells you to go to the library at 1:35 on Wednesday, go there without a second thought. Create a separate calendar or list for optional events during coming up in the next week.
• Scan your active projects. Make sure that each project is moving forward. Are your lists of actions up-to-date? Are there any actions you should move to your calendar? Are you waiting on someone that you need to follow-up with? Can you do anything in two minutes or less?
• Think in contexts. As you find actions that you’d like to take in the upcoming week, place them on lists that are context-specific. Lists like “calls”, “errands”, “copier”, and “computer” can give you a quick reference when you have a some open time to knock out a few actions without jumping from the phone to the computer to the office copier and back to the phone. Some other helpful teacher contexts might be “beginning of day”, “end of day”, or “class meeting”, for those announcements, papers, and instructions you need to give to students.
• Cut away. Don’t be afraid to cut tasks that just don’t seem to be getting done week after week. They’re probably not that important, and that’s why they’re not getting done. If you absolutely can’t bring yourself to trash a to do, then create list called “someday”. This list is available anytime your feeling particularly visionary, or when you reach that golden moment when everything is done (read: never).

Kelly Forrister at Simply GTD lays out some clear guidelines for getting things done by directing and controlling the actions on your to do list. Teachers tend to work at the mercy of administrators, parents, and sometimes even students who want things done. Kelly suggests we need to exercise more self-advocacy:

One of the most powerful aspects of GTD, in my experience, is the part
about agreements. What am I doing to create, promote or allow the input
I am receiving? What’s the agreement I am making with everything that I
collect? Is there anything I can do to better communicate when my
priorities and interests shift so I stay clean, even when things land
in my world that I don’t want or think I should do?

Simply GTD with Kelly: It’s either actionable or it’s not–there is no gray zone

Getting Things Done is really about four things: capture, label, list, and do. Possibly the most complicated step is listing, because there’s just so much stuff, and organization doesn’t happen by itself. All the stuff needs to fit into lists, and it all needs to show up in the right place at the right time. Currently, I use Remember the Milk to list my stuff, or at least represent my stuff in lists. I’ve used other lists, and I’ve learned that one indispensable function is tagging (or labeling). Tags allow you to slice and dice your tasks many different ways with the option of view everything in one big list, if necessary.

Desktop-based solutions

GTD in Outlook - via Bill Kratz
Text File - (via 43folderswiki)

Web-based solutions

Remember the Milk - Getting Things Done with Remember the Milk (via Lifehacker)
Google Notebook - Getting Things Done with Google Notebook (via Lifehacker)

Crazy-big list of tools:

GTD Software Tools for PC and Mac (via Jeff Sandquist’s wiki)

What do you use to keep organized?

You’ve captured everything that might possibly grab at your attention. Now it’s time to sift through that pile in your inbox and make some basic decisions about what each item means to you. Here are some questions to help you give meaning to each piece of stuff you’ve captured.

Is this actionable? If the answer is no, then it belongs in the trash, or in a filing system where you can get to it at the right time.

For actionable items, the next question: Is this an isolated task or part of a project? Teachers are project managers, therefore many items can be categorized into different project folders. Here are some suggestions:

• Every student is a project.
• Every committee is a project.
• Planning lessons is at least one project.
• Preparing grade reports is a project.
• Special events like parent nights, field trips, and holiday parties are all projects.

Another question for actionable items: Will it take less than two minutes? If the answer is yes, then complete the task and move on. Make sure to capture any stuff that results from completing the task. If the task is going to take more than two minutes, then it needs to be deferred or delegated.

Deferring the task funnels it into one of three places: the calendar, the next action list, or the “waiting on” list. Each of these holders has a different relationship to your time. The calendar lists future events, the next action list quickly shows you things to do when you have moment free (like in a planning period). The “waiting on’ list quickly shows you what you should not be doing (because you’re waiting on some one else to complete those tasks).

Vicki Davis shares her implementation of David Allen’s Getting Things Done with multiple inboxes:

I have an inbox at home and one at work. I also have an “inbox” in my planner as a place for any papers I collect “on the go.” When I go home, they go in the inbox there.

Check out her full post for more about her system and her thoughts on GTD.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Make Life Easier: Callwave, Email Tricks, and more

The first step to getting teaching done is to capture and collect all the stuff in your classroom and in your brain. By collecting everything in one place you can take one important step to freedom: you can stop worrying about the things you think you’re forgetting.

Get an inbox. Get a plastic, letter-size tray or a wire basket. Use it to collect the physical (paper) stuff. If there are
things that are too big to fit in your inbox, write the name of that thing on a piece of paper and put that paper in your inbox.

Get geographical. Start in the messiest corner of your class, and move foot by foot, picking up papers, books, supplies, everything you can physically move to your inbox.

Carry a notebook. Whether it’s a spiral or a smaller form factor, use this to collect your mental stuff. You probably won’t get it all out sitting at your desk, so take it with you everywhere. Write things down as they pop into your head when you teach, or as you eat lunch, or as you sit through those captivating staff meetings.

Next in our series on Getting Teaching Done, Google hosted a talk with the man who sparked the GTD fire. It’s 45 minutes long and it’s a great way to learn about the process and the inspiration for Getting Things Done.