School Leadership Briefing: Four Tools to Help You Focus, Be Productive, and Reduce Stress

I was invited to contribute to School Leadership Briefing, an audio journal providing professional development to administrators. Click on the image below to listen to the short podcast.

Getting Control of Repeating Tasks in the New Year

The New Year is a good time to make those grand plans and resolutions. This year, make it a time when you will get control of all of the routine tasks in both your personal and professional lives. From replacing the filter in heating/cooling system to buying the spouse’s gift at anniversary time, we all have tasks that come around the same time every week, month, quarter, or year. If you are like most people, those tasks will number in the hundreds. Hoping you remember each one at the right time is an exercise in futility and a huge stress producer.

One of the biggest productivity boosters for me over the last 30 years has been recognizing repeating task as soon as they appear and putting them in a system. Thirty years ago that system consisted of each task being written on an index card. The task was written in the middle of the card and instructions for when it needed to be done again were written at the bottom. The cards were then thrown in the tickler file.

Over twenty years ago, the system evolved into one continuous list of repeating tasks organized by month. It was stored electronically so that adding tasks and reprinting the list annually were easy.

Today, repeating tasks are housed in Outlook. Enter a task, click the “Recurrence” button, and set the repeating pattern, and I never have to hope I remember to do that task again.

The repeating task system keeps the routine aspects of my life running, keeps the stress level low, and frees my attention for bigger things.

The following podcast is one that appeared on the Eye on Education blog. You can also read about your choice of three systems for handling repeating tasks in this post.

Documentation and "The Final Word"

Those who have attended Get Organized! workshops have heard me talk not only about the importance of documentation, but the ease with which this skill can be implemented...provided you have a good system. Those who receive my monthly newsletter heard a little more about that topic last month.

This month, a short podcast on documentation is being featured as "The Final Word" on The Audio Journal. The Audio Journal is a monthly "executive briefing" on CD that is mailed to over 3,000 busy educators who choose this method as a way to stay on top of trend and ideas in their field. The companion website distributes the same material through streaming audio. My thanks to Dr. James Cisek, who extended the invitation to be featured as "The Final Word" in the current edition. People who have been featured in this segment recently include Harry Wong, Tom Peters, Warren Bennis, and Lou Holtz, so I feel pretty honored.

But, this blog is not about me; it's about getting the word out to other people about easy tools and techniques which improve our ability to work and play. Thanks to Dr. Cisek for bringing part of that message to the 3,000+ subscribers to this professional development series.

You can not only listen to the podcast but take a test-drive of the entire site for 7 days absolutely free. Click here, and after responding to the agreement statement, choose the "I want a no-obligation 7-day free trial" option. Happy listening!