Organizing Your Students

Organization is a gift that wise teachers give their students, and it is a gift that is useful long after the goodbyes are said in May. In Organization Made Easy!, we devote an entire chapter to organizing students.

One of the central topics is the use of student planners. While some schools have adopted and then left the idea, we explore the subject in enough depth and emphasize the follow-up that is needed from teachers to make the tool work.

We also look at habits and techniques that increase productivity and decrease stress for students:

• Writing it down
• Breaking goals into little parts
• Getting the book bag empty daily
• Learning to deal with papers
• Getting everything ready the night before
• Organizing the locker
• Using the "one-binder" method

You can order your copy today. Use coupon code IRK95 at checkout for a 20% discount.

New posts will continue to appear on this site for the remainder of June. After that, continue to enjoy new material at http://FrankBuck.org.

Who Can You Get to Help? The Art of Delegation

Some teachers are masters of delegation. They take simple classroom jobs and delegate to students. These teachers realize two important concepts:

1. A teacher cannot do it all. When we delegate those things which a student can do we create more time for that which requires our expertise. 
2. Allowing students to help with running the classroom gives them a "stake in the program," gives them a sense of ownership, and builds responsibility. 

What is it you find yourself doing that your students could do every bit as well as you? In Organization Made Easy!: Tools for Today’s Teachers, we examine this idea. We all have those morning “routines” for getting the day started. We also have chores to perform that end the day and get the classroom ready for tomorrow. Have you ever stopped to list them all? Once you do, you begin to realize why you are so tired and feel like you are falling further behind.

We can lower our level of stress, stay on top of our game, and help build responsibility in our students, all at the same time. Let 2014 be the year you change all of that. Take the time to list the tasks. Then structure a system whereby ever student has a job, even a small job. Yes, you will spend a little time teaching what needs to be done, but the rewards quickly become evident.

A dear friend and master 1st grade teacher called her system “Adopted Areas.” Imagine with 3 minutes to go before the bell to end the school day, this teacher standing before her class and saying, “Students, it’s time for our Adopted Areas. Let’s take 2 minutes and then be back in your seat. Ready? Go.” Imagine her standing calmly as 20 students each begin rearranging books, straightening the reading area, cleaning the board, and a host of other duties. Two minutes later, 20 students are in their seats, looking at their teacher, waiting to be dismissed. As the students leave, this teacher is smiling, knowing that 20 jobs were done that she did not have to do, all because she was organized enough to use her students as helpers.

“Adopted Areas” are not only for young students. In every high school, the laptop and projector must be turned on in the morning and shut down in the afternoon. Chairs and bookshelves straightened. Homerooms are used to distribute various flyers. During the day, we collect and distribute papers. Why do all of that ourselves?

We can lower our level of stress, stay on top of our game, and help build responsibility in our students, all at the same time. Why not give it a try?

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Time Management Suggestion for a Writer

I subscribe to HARO, a service designed to match writers who are looking for people to help them with the people who have expertise in the needed area. Three time a day, I receive an email which lists the authors needing help and the type of help they are looking for. I used HARO when I was writing Organization Made Easy!: Tools for Today's Teachers.

Recently, I saw the following posting on HARO:

I'm looking for time management experts and business coaches who can offer advice to small business owners about better time management in the New Year. Areas of particular interest are how to manage time when you are doing absolutely everything to run the business and how to manage time when technology affords endless interruptions. 

I never heard anything back from the author, so I assume she elected not to include my input. I hate to waste good material, so here is the information sent to her for your information and enjoyment.

Strategy #1-Forward email to your to-do list 
Stop using your email inbox as your to-do list. Opening new email generally means inheriting some additional "things to do." The trick is to get those "to-dos" dissected from the email and into the to-do list, where they belong. Outlook users can use "drag and drop." Click on the email and drag the mouse to the Task button in the left-hand pane. Release the mouse button, and Outlook creates a new task. The entire body of email is inserted into the note section of the task for later reference. Make a decision on exactly what has to be done and enter it as the subject of the task. Decide on what day you would like to do the task and set the due date accordingly. Save the task, and now, you can delete the email.

A number of good, free, cloud-based to-do lists (Toodledo, Remember the Milk, Asana, and Wunderlist, to name just a few) allow you to forward email to them. Add the special email address the service provides to your contacts. The next time you open an email and realize you have just inherited something else to do, forward the email to that address. Reword the subject so that it reads the way you want your task to read. Add any additional information in the body of the email and send. This technique works whether you are reading your email on your computer, tablet, phone, or even someone else's computer.

Strategy #2-Automate your social media 
If your business uses Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, you can save considerable time by composing your material for the entire week or even month in one sitting. Set up a free account at HootSuite.com. Link each of your social media accounts to it. Enter your material and designate a day and time for each post to appear. At the same time, you can select one or more social networks on which each post will appear. Your customers hear a short message about your brand on a regular basis with no daily upkeep on your part.

Use HootSuite to organize your incoming information as well. Twitter can quickly become much like a crowded room of people all talking at once about different things. In Twitter, create a "list" and name it something like "Inner Circle." Click on "Followers" and look for those few people who consistently provide great content. Beside each of their names, click the drop-down and add them to your "Inner Circle." In HootSuite, click "Add a Stream," and select "Inner Circle." The tweets from those people you care about most will appear together in one column. You have just improved your Twitter signal-to-noise ratio greatly!

What are your favorite tips? Please leave me a comment.

What's Your "Plan B"?

An old Yiddish proverb states, "Man plans and God laughs." 

 With the holidays behind us, teachers, salespersons, lawyers, and people in all other professions began to dig into the plans they had made for the brand new year. As a former band director, I know this is the time of year bands and choirs are preparing for their annual competition. Rehearsals are planned so the students "peak" at just the right time. Drama groups are practicing for the play which has been on the calendar for many months. Athletic teams have their practice schedules planned to the minute.

After all, planning is a good thing. 
I live in Alabama. We are known for hot summers and mild winters. We understand heat, and we specialize in humidity. We also understand how to survive the August heat. We take keeping our air-conditioners serviced seriously. We schedule football and band practice to avoid the heat of the day. We are sensitive that the poor and elderly may need assistance during the extreme heat, and we make provisions.

 But in Alabama, we don't understand snow. We don't have snow tires. We don't have snow plows. In the rare event that we see snow, we stay off the roads for a couple of hours until it melts.

And then, we got snow, and plenty of it. 
Many schools have been closed two of the last three weeks either due to actual snow or predictions of snow that didn't pan out. All of our well-laid plans for late January and the first half of February are for naught, whether our jobs are in education, sales, food services, or pretty much any other industry.

What's Your "Plan B?" 
Jim Knight, a good friend and former band director, is noted for asking students, "What's your Plan B?" In fact, the slogan was featured on the band's t-shirts at one time.

The life lesson was simple: You may plan, but circumstances beyond your control can, and will, change those plans. Part of planning includes planning for what to do when the unpredictable happens.

"Plan B" includes working ahead of deadlines. Leave the house with barely enough time to reach your appointment, and that will be the very day when roadwork slows traffic to a standstill. Wait until the night before your presentation to begin constructing the PowerPoint, and that will be the very night a power outage leaves you with no computer.

"Plan B" includes looking for the silver lining. For one teacher, "Plan B" meant spending the night at school with a group of students who also could not get home due to snow which came unexpectedly and quickly. For her, it was an opportunity to arrange a Skype session between her students and a nationally-recognized entertainer. For one band director, "Plan B" involved listening to his students pass-off their music via Skype. 

"Plan B" understands that Murphy's Law is alive and well. What can go wrong will go wrong. Ironically, the ones who have a good "Plan B" also turn out to be the ones who seldom need it. Have you noticed it never seems to rain on the days you bring your umbrella?

Finally, "Plan B" provides peace of mind in a world that is already too stress-filled. The snow has melted. Schools are back in session, and are trying to make up for lost time. Thousands of students are left with memories they will one day tell their own children of the day the snow meant they spent the night at school. All of us are left with a lesson. Life presents unexpected challenges and unexpected opportunities. Our best-laid plans may be replaced in a flash. And when life happens, what's your "Plan B?"

How Many People Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

How many [fill in the blank yourself] does to take to change a light bulb? The original answer to the joke is, “Three,” with the punchline being “…one to hold the bulb and two to turn the ladder.”

Musicians kid that the task requires five trumpet players…one to change the bulb and four to stand around and tell how they could have done it better. In the case of the movie star, it only takes one…she holds the bulb and the world revolves around her. We can find pages of “light bulb” jokes. It’s a favorite way to poke fun at a rival college or different ideology.

We all know it should take one person to change a light bulb, but we wait for the ridiculous answer and the even more absurd explanation. The absurdity is what makes the jokes funny.

What is not funny, however, are the real-life “light bulb” jokes. They are those tasks that could and should be handled by one person, yet wind up involving far more. Our time is wasted, our patience is tried, and we neglect the important work we could be doing in favor of the one-person job someone has seen fit to turn into a twenty-person job.

My background is the world of education. One of my pet peeves was to see teachers being asked to spent huge amounts of time collecting and reporting information when one person could have handled the whole job in a few minutes with software readily available at their fingertips. It happens in elementary schools and high schools, in the suburbs and in the cities, on the East Coast and on the West Coast. It happens every time we take a one-person job and begin farming it out to dozens.

The great leader’s mantra is, “One in; a dozen out.” “It won’t take anyone more than 10 minutes,” we say. When you start multiplying 10 minutes by the number of people being involved, the time adds up quickly. When we examine how many times bits of administrivia are dropped onto dozens of people, we begin to realize why people can’t accomplish the important work which would truly make a difference. They are so busy being forced to “major in minors.”

“One In; One Out” or better yet… “One In; A Dozen Out” 
We are good at instituting procedures. The problem is that new procedures seldom replace old procedures; they are just added to what is already there. We institute software which does what our paper procedures did. But, we keep the paper procedures “just in case.” I have seen it happen time and time again. You probably have as well.

The good leader’s mantra is, “One in; one out.” New procedures replace old procedures. The great leader’s mantra is, “One in; a dozen out.” A new procedure takes the place of a dozen others, and life gets simpler for all involved.

The poor leader’s mantra is, “One in, and here’s another, and another, and another.” Procedures duplicate procedures already in place. Dozens of peoples devote time to produce reports which are never read by anyone. Everyone is busy, yet nothing of substance is ever accomplished.

Today, our organizations have software that can crunch the numbers, organize the data, and spit out the reports that used to require teams of people many hours. All it takes is one person who understands the software to do the same thing in minutes. Why not spent the time mastering the capabilities of the software? Why not spend the time figuring out the task can be accomplished by a person instead of a whole committee? 

How does your organization operate? Are a few, simple procedures taking the place of a boat-load of complicated ones? Is technology making your job easier or adding to your workload? How many of your co-workers does it take to screw in a light bulb? What can you do to end the madness?

What is the Greatest Challenge You are Facing Today?

"What is the Greatest Challenge You are Facing Today?" That was the question Learning Forward President Stephanie Hirsh posed to attendees at December's annual convention in Dallas. Using Poll Everywhere to gather responses, the answer to that question was available within seconds.

The overwhelming response was "Finding time and resources to do it all."

This conference was one where each attendee surely came away inspired and with ideas to take back home. So often, however, the excitement of conference attendance collides with the reality of the day-to-day demands of the job.

...if it's going to be happen, it's going to happen through the dimension of time. Learn new ideas for motivating students? Have a better grasp of Common Core implementation? Heard about ways to engage parents? All of that is well and good. But if it's going to be happen, it's going to happen through the dimension of time.

When I hear people talk about what keeps them from getting their important work done, the answer generally has to do with time...time as the enemy.

That's why I do what I do...help people organize their time and surroundings. It's the foundation for success everywhere else...time as your friend.

Need Paper Planner Pages? Take a Look at These

While I have been organizing my life digitally for well over a decade, there are still many people who prefer paper. A paper planner, when used correctly, is a great tool to put everything which requires your attention into one place. Perhaps a paper system is your choice, but you have not found page formats which suit you. Perhaps you don't want to spend money for commercially-prepared pages. If either of these descriptions are applicable, this post is for you. The Free Resources page of my website lists four forms you can download, print, and use. Since it is on the "Free Resources" page, that's a pretty good indication that the price is right. 

Paper Planner Daily Page
The layout for this page matches the concepts I teach in my workshops and in my books, Get Organized!:Time Management for School Leaders and Organization Made Easy!: Tools for Today's Teachers. Items should be worded clearly. Like items should be grouped together. You will find a space to list your "Fab 5" for the day. Of course, the page provides a space for appointments. Finally, you have a dedicated space to answer the all-important question, "How did you make today count?" The page size is 8 1/2 X 5 1/2, meaning you will get two pages per sheet.

Put the pages on a paper cutter, punch holes, and you are ready to go. The back of the page is intentionally left blank. This page is where you take notes from meetings, phone calls, etc. Documentation is easy when you have this space available.

Montly Calendars
Click the tab for each month and print. Put the pages on a paper cutter, hole punch, and insert them into any notebook designed for pages which measure 8 1/2 X 5 1/2. Use the back of each page for additional information related to that month.

Goal Planner 
 Goals or projects are different, in that they are accomplished through a series of tasks. We need a place to house all of the tasks and related information for the projects we undertake. We then "farm out" the specific tasks to specific days. Having some Goal Planner sheets in the back of your book gives you control of the big picture.

Master List
We all have those tasks we want to accomplish "sometime," but do not want to assign a specific date. The "Master List" is just such a parking place. Put some of these sheets in the back of the planner, and you will never be at a loss for a "parking place" for the random tasks which come to mind.


What tool do you use to stay organized? Is it paper or digital? For those who organize with paper, what commercial pages do you use (if any)? For those who organize digitally, what software do you use?

Take Time to Save Time

If you want to "get organized," plan on spending a little extra time now. The time you save comes later. Maybe that's why so many people avoid getting organized. It's easier to leave things in disarray...right now anyway. But, we pay the price later. So many people are so hard pressed to simply get through the day, working a little harder now to make things easier later is not a concept they want to hear.

At this time of year, one small example comes to mind. Our Christmas decorations include the "Sheltie Tree," a metal tree on which we hang a collection of decorative Shetland Sheepdog ornaments. Each ornament fits into its own particular cutout in a Styrofoam container. Putting the ornaments on tree...now that was always a breeze. Taking them down and putting each ornament in the correct place in the Styrofoam holders, now that was a different story! I would spend for what seemed like an eternity turning and trying to fit an ornament into this hole or that until finally I got it right. I always dreaded that part of the process.

One year, I got smart. As I was taking the ornament out of their containers, I took the time to write the description of the ornament beside the spot where it would be returned. When Christmas was over and it was time to pack it all away, the job I had dreaded was a snap. The Sheltie holding Santa's list went here. The Sheltie tangled in the Christmas lights went there. The annual ornament for 2007 goes here and 2009 goes here.

When all was said and done, the Sheltie ornaments were back in their protective boxes in a fraction of the time I normally spent. The time I had spend on labeling had been more than recouped.

Every year when I take those Sheltie ornaments and look at the hand-written description of the ornaments, I smile, knowing that the time I spent on the front end several years ago now saves me time each and every year.

The Art of Delegation (for Teachers)

Some teachers are masters of delegation. Simple classroom jobs are delegated to students. These teachers realize two important concepts:

A teacher cannot do it all. Delegating those things which a student can do and do well leave more time for the teacher to do those things which require his/her expertise.

Allowing students to help with running the classroom gives them a "stake in the program," gives them a sense of ownership, and builds responsibility.

In Organization Made Easy!, the chapter entitled "Focused or Fragmented" examines this concept. Read about how two elementary teachers structured systems giving every student responsibility. Read tips on how something similar could be used in secondary schools.

Peter Drucker on Focus

Cell phones ring, visitors drop in, e-mail comes rolling across the screen. Maintaining focus can be a challenge, and the challenge is only become worse in this age of constant and instant availability.
One of my favorite books is The Effective Executive by management guru Peter Drucker. Despite its 1966 copyright date, it remains a hallmark book on time management. One of my favorite passages is this one:

"To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive, therefore needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks. To have dribs and drabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours." (Page 29)
While opportunities to fragment our day increase, the fact remains that nothing of much worth is going to be accomplished without some degree of focus. How can we create the "chunks" of time in an age that so desperately tries to fragment our lives? Below are five suggestions:
To have dribs and drabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.

1. Allow things to "pile up" and handle them in one group. This technique applies to such things as e-mail, voice mail, and the U.S. mail.
2. Stay ahead of deadlines. When we bump up against deadlines, we are invariably causing problems for other people. Naturally, they call, e-mail, and drop by for a "status report." Staying ahead of the game eliminates the need for others to "check up" on you, and provides more time to focus on the project at hand.
3. Visit other people on your own time schedule. If drop-in visits from the same few people are a problem, drop in on them first. In this way, you are doing it on your schedule. As a principal, I made it a point to be in the halls before the start of school and circulate through the building. If a teacher had a quick question, my presence coming down the hall provided the perfect opportunity. Those quick interactions in the hall reduced the number of interruptions throughout the day.
4. Plan your work, and make it easy. We interrupt ourselves. We often do so by turning from the difficult job at hand to some diversion that is easier and more fun. To combat that temptation, make what is at hand easy, and hopefully make it fun as well. Break the overwhelming goal down into manageable tasks that are clearly worded. All to often, the to-do list contains items which have rolled from day to day simply because they are ambiguous. Clear up the ambiguity by making decisions and asking questions.
5. Group related tasks. Grouping applies to more than e-mail and voice mail. When a few quick face-to-face meetings are needed, handle them all in a group. Go from one person to the next as you make your way through the building. Do the same with errands. Once you get in the car, go from one to the other.

When our work is easy, interesting, and fun, there is less temptation to succumb to the interruptions in our lives. Focused or fragmented? It's a choice. Nobody is going to protect our time for us. That one is up to us.

Using Spare Minutes Constructively

In the last post, we talked about carving out chunks of time, allowing us to focus on something of worth. Drucker talked about being able to accomplish little with "dribs and drabs" of time. Life happens, however, and often leaves our days broken into fragments. Sometimes "dribs and drabs" are the only vehicles through which we can move forward. The ability to use those spare minutes allows us to reclaim time that would otherwise be wasted, sometimes fairly large amounts of time.

This post is one such example. On the day I composed it, our school system was in the midst of a professional development day. My role was to circulate from school to school and observe the training that was happening at each site. I knew ahead of time that my day would be spent sitting and watching. For that reason, I started the day by scanning my to-do list for items which could be done while I watched the various trainings. Writing a post on using spare minutes was actually one if the items. I changed the due date to move it to the top of the list where it would be easily seen. I grabbed a piece of paper, and off I went.

Everyone probably thought I was taking notes on the training being observed. I was, in fact, giving a goodly portion of my attention to the training. At the same time, I was writing this post which I completed in its entirety to later be keyed into this blog.

When life breaks those chunks into tiny fragments, choosing the right tasks can turn "dribs and drabs of time" into productive minutes. Other items I noticed as I scanned my list were phone calls which could be made quickly. I changed those due dates as well to move them to the top of the list. Between visiting schools, I was able to place these several calls from my BlackBerry while in the halls.

Reading material is always a good source for filling spare minutes. I have a section of my brief case reserved for reading materials. When magazines arrive, I throw them in there along with any book I happen to be reading at the time. When there is any chance that I will have down time, I either grab the briefcase or at least pull some of the reading material from it.

Nothing beats chunks of time. When life breaks those chunks into tiny fragments, choosing the right tasks can turn "dribs and drabs of time" into productive minutes.

Room at the "In"?

Life used to be simple (or so we like to think). Those who worked in an office had an “in” box. When the in-box was empty, you were up-to-date. Incoming paper went in the box. Phone messages were jotted on slips of paper and dropped in that box. Ideas could be jotted on scraps of paper and dropped in the box to be handled later.

In the “old days,” work showed up in few places. Check the mailbox at home and dump the contents into your in-box at home. Check your mailbox at work and dump the contents into your in-box. When you saw the bottom of the in-box, you could relax.

Getting “in” to “empty” was the name of the game. Getting “in” to “empty” is still the name of the game. What has changed is how many “ins” you have. Before you can get a handle on everything that calls for your attention, you have to first get a good idea of the number of “ins” and where they are. Ask yourself if you have:
…a mailbox at home for U.S. mail?
…a box at work where your receive mail and paper messages?
…voice mail at home?
…voice mail at work?
…voice mail on a cell phone?
…e-mail at home?
…e-mail at work?
…more than one e-mail account at either home or work?
…a notepad living by the phone?
…a fax machine?
…a bulletin board at work where information is posted?
…a work website you are expected to check?
…a legal pad where you take notes during meetings?
…information fed into Evernote?
…a memo pad in your pocket?
…a brief case or purse that collects papers?
...social media accounts to check?
...professional reading piling up in your reader feed?

You may have more in addition to those examples. Take a few minutes to sit down with pencil and paper. List the “ins” you have. If you get them all, the length of the list may surprise you. Each one is an opportunity for things to slip through the cracks. Use this list as a starter. Before you can organize all of your “ins” and have any hope of getting them to “empty,” first you have to know where they are.

Secondly, think about how many you can eliminate? While you may have five different e-mail accounts, tools such as Outlook or Gmail can be configured to check every e-mail account and dump them all into one place. If you have one notebook where you take notes during meetings and another for phone calls and another for meetings with clients, could you merge them into one book with every interaction in chronological order? Can we get rid of that bulletin board where current information is camouflaged by notices for meetings that happened four years, but nobody ever took them down? The fewer places you have to look, the less opportunity exists for the ball to be dropped.

Finally, Can we get rid of duplicate notices? If you have ever gotten a phone call asking if you got the faxed copy of the e-mail sent to both your home and work e-mail addresses, you know what I mean. You are looking at a noise-filled corporate culture that is out of control. The time spent to examine how information is communicated in the company and how it could be improved is a great investment of time.

Of course, we can’t roll back the clock to 1975 and the one in-box. We live in a world where information will continue to arrive in multiple places and in multiple forms. Trapping it all, funneling it into one place, and organizing it so that we clearly seeing our marching for the day…that’s the challenge for the 21st century knowledge worker.

How many "Ins" can you count in your own life? When you counted them, was the number a surprise? 


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Be Quick—But Don't Hurry

For those who follow college basketball, "March Madness" is upon us. No tournament is complete without references to Coach John Wooden and the dynasty he built at UCLA. The program produced 10 NCAA championships in 12 years. While Coach Wooden passed away just under three years ago, his wisdom lives on. One of his gems was, "Be quick—but don't hurry."

Sometimes, the best thing to do is jump into a task and get it done. Sometimes, the best thing to do is step back, relax, and plan. "March Madness" brings to mind a prime example.

One day, with about an hour and a half left before time to go home, I started a project involving the assimilation of a large amount of data, data which had just become available. My goal was to enter the appropriate parts of the data into a spreadsheet, write needed formulas, and forward to completed project to colleagues as soon as possible.

"No better time than the present to just knock out the whole thing," I thought. For the next hour, I put shoulder to the wheel while watching the clock all along. The clock seemed to be going faster than the progress on the task at hand. In addition, two phone calls which had to be made before leaving weighed heavily on my mind.

With 30 minutes until time to leave the office, it became obvious I had severely underestimated the time required for the task. Furthermore, I was not enjoying what I was doing. At this juncture in my life, I have come to the conclusion that being happy doing what I am doing in the moment ought to be a primary focus. Furthermore, I felt frazzled. I found myself feverishly looking for a particular flash drive only to find it was in the pocket of the coat I was presently wearing!

I made a decision which may turn out to be the best decision of the entire weekend. I put the project in the briefcase. That left 30 minutes to plan my weekend and my Monday. I left the office with a clear picture of what needed to be accomplished that evening, the weekend, and the start of the next week.

Saturday morning, I resumed work on that spreadsheet at home, pulling the needed material from the briefcase. The previous afternoon, I was watching the clock and wondering what I had done to deserve such torture. Now, with a clear head and enough time to accomplish my task, I was having fun. I was relaxed.

During my commute to and from work, I made it a habit to listen to recorded books on CD. It was during that time that I listened to one entitled Be Quick—But Don't Hurry. The book was written by a former UCLA basketball player who recounted his days under the legendary John Wooden. The title refers to that piece of advice Wooden often gave his players. Author Andrew Hill, recounting his playing days with Wooden, says, “Life, like basketball, must be played fast–but never out of control.” At first glance, Wooden's often-quoted maxim, "Be quick—but don't hurry" seems contradictory. In actuality, it could not be more accurate.

When we are relaxed and "in our zone," we can be quick. Everything flows. Everything is effortless. The activity is fun. When we hurry, we make mistakes. We stumble, and find ourselves having to re-do and re-think.

The previous afternoon, I was trying to hurry. The next morning, I was quick. The task was the same. The difference is what was work one day became play the next.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is jump into a task and get it done. Sometimes, the best thing to do is step back, relax, and plan. I think that experience made me better at distinguishing the one from the other.

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.
- James Michener

Say "Yes" or Say "No." You're Really Saying Both

Education is a "helping" profession, and those who embark on a career in this arena have the natural tendency to say "yes." Whether the request is to provide extra help to a student, serve on a committee, complete whatever paperwork appears, or do all of these at the same time, we are a people who tend to say "yes" first and figure out how we will accomplish it later. After all, doesn't saying "no" make us seem uninterested, uncaring, and selfish?

In today's world, the demands on our time generally exceed what is available. Choices must be made as to what gets done and what is left undone. When we say "yes" to one request, we are ultimately saying "no" to all else available to us at the moment. Therefore, the question becomes not one of whether we say "yes" or say "no," but which request get which answer.

Why is it that when we are saying "yes," so often we wind up feeling bad. Perhaps the answer is that, at some level, we realize more important responsibilities received a "no." Consider the veteran teacher approached during instructional time by a well-intending agency representative with the request to compose a memo, and to do so right then. Saying "yes" to this request meant saying "no" to the instruction which should be happening in that classroom. The teacher wrote the memo yet felt bad about having to choose between two poor alternatives--saying "no" to the agency representatives or saying "no" to the students.

We need not feel bad about saying "no." In fact, it is a necessary tool in our arsenal of time-management tools. Without the word "no," our time will never be our own. Instead, it will be free for asking by those who scream longest and loudest and present themselves at our doorstep the most often.

As leaders, we help those around us reach their goals by helping them understand that saying "no" is not only OK, it is an absolute necessity if they are ever to accomplish anything of significance. Today, you will encounter opportunities to make the day significant. You will also encounter the trivial disguised in royal garb. Will you be able to distinguish the one from the other? Will you be able to say "no" to the one and "yes" to the other?

Say "yes" or say "no," you are always saying both.

Need a Personalized Homepage? Take a Look at igHome

This past August, I wrote about my transition from Outlook to an web-based suite of tools, and my transition from the BlackBerry to an Android device. Those posts are as follows:

• Why I Chose an Android Phone
• Moving My Organizational System to the Cloud
• From Outlook to the Google Calendar
• From Outlook to Google Contacts
• From Outlook to Toodledo
• From Outlook to Evernote
• From Outlook to Gmail
• Putting All the Parts Together
• Coming Full Circle

With Outlook, all five modules were located together, with the five buttons listed on the left-hand side of the screen, one below the other. The post entitled "Putting All the Parts Together" was about getting the same effect through the use of a personalized home page, and used Netvibes as the tool to do it. Since that time, I have come across another personalized homepage I like even better.

A great deal of talk has arisen following Google's announcement that iGoogle will no longer be available after November 1, 2013. The announcement has left many scrambling for another alternative.

I am experimenting with a new service called "igHome." The only slightly confusing part to me was when I created an account, it appeared to be asking for my Google password. That is not the case. After creating an account, the resemblance of igHome to iGoogle is unmistakeable. The page even includes the toolbar at the top, which takes you to Google Calendar, Gmail, YouTube, etc.

The igHome page provides what Outlook provided, the various modules of my organizational together. Furthermore, they are together on my desktop computer, my laptop, or on any computer in the world which has Internet access. I can go into a public library, school, or any business establishment and log into my account. I see my organizational system and can work from it just as if I was sitting at my home computer.

When the browser opens, I see my calendar, to-do list, and email side-by-side. (I have hidden the tasks and email from view in this screen shot just to keep private things private.) Imagine being able to view these three tools all at once. It's great for productivity.

You can add your own gadgets by clicking the "Add Gadgets" button in the upper-right corner. There, you can enter a subject in the search window and see whether or not the gadget you want exists. On the left-hand side of the screen, a list of categories is visible. Clicking on any category name reveals a list of suggested gadgets.

The page even includes a link to leave a suggestion for a new gadget. My experience has been that the library of gadgets is rich, and virtually everything I had on my iGoogle page is also available on igHome. I am finding the selections on igHome to be better than Netvibes.

I have found the creator of igHome to be very responsive to suggestions. He has a good system in place for taking requests and providing feedback on the status of those requests. For example, I found the Google Calendar gadget would display only the main Google Calendar, whereas I also have a second calendar which tracks my wife's appointments, and a third containing "FYI" events. I asked about the possibility of being able to show multiple Google calendars in igHome. Within just a couple of weeks, that capability was there.

Presently, the service is in Beta, and that may cause some people to be nervous. However, everything I am seeing looks good. If that situation changes, I always have Netvibes as a fallback.

 

Do you use a personal homepage, and if so, which one? Anyone else using igHome?

Getting Your Google Calendar to Sync

If you use a Google Calendar and the calendar on your computer is successfully syncing with your mobile devices, you can stop reading now. This post is not for you. However, if you use a calendar on your phone, but your digital calendar is only on your phone, this post can make a difference for you every day. If you are maintaining a Google Calendar on your computer, and you are also entering the same data on your mobile device with two thumbs, this post is also for you.

A calendar which syncs between your computer and mobile devices is something that is great if it's working...and extremely frustrating if it's not. The same holds true for having tasks, contacts, and notes , but those are other posts for others days. Today, we address the calendar.

When life is coming at you, and there is limited time to tinker with the technology, very talented people find themselves "getting by" by doing double entry on computer and phone, printing a calendar from the computer to use when out of the office, or simply trying to remember what was on the computer back at the office. Worse yet, they get used to this madness and never take the time to get the technology working correctly. It is something they will get to when "things settle down." In practice, "things" rarely settle down, especially when time-wasters are built into the system. With a sigh, they say that just "live with it," and continue to live with data which does not sync and calendars they can't fully trust.

If the last couple of paragraphs describe you, read on. Rather that reinvent the wheel by keying step-by-step instructions, I have found where others have already doen the work. In this outstanding article entitled "How to Sync Google Calendar to iOS, Android, and Windows Phone," you will get those detailed instructions for Android, Apple, and Windows Phone and see what you need to do whether you are working with an Exchange server or not.

Michael Hyatt writes a great blog and is a very tech-savvy person. In one of his posts, however, he expresses his own frustration with getting his iPhone to sync with his Google Calendar. If Michael Hyatt can run into problems, don't feel bad if you do as well. Michael went a step further and provided step-by-step instruction for what worked for him, including extensive screen shots. If you are an iPhone user, I recommend you read Michael's post, "How to Setup Google Calendar on Your iPhone."

As I poll participants in my workshops, a huge shift has occurred over the last 5 years in the percentage of people whose calendars reside on their phones rather than on paper. Smartphones are ubiquitous for school administrators and business executives. The compactness, ability to view data in a variety of forms, the search function, and alarms has made us fans of having the calendar on our phones.

Where do you stand? Are you an early adopter who has been syncing a digital calendar with a mobile device since before the new millennium? Are you a more recent convert to the digital calendar, but your sync process is working great? Are you in the group this post targets—someone who would love for the syncing to work, but it's just not? Are you a paper planner devote, possibly looking into whether or not you want to take the digital plunge? I would be interested in hearing your story. Please leave me a comment.

Take Time Now To Save Time Then

If you want to "get organized," plan on spending a little extra time now. The time you save comes later. Maybe that's why so many people avoid getting organized. It's easier to leave things in disarray...right now anyway. But, we pay the price later. So many people are so hard pressed to simply get through the day, working a little harder now to make things easier later is not a concept they want to hear.

At this time of year, one small example comes to mind. Our Christmas decorations include the "Sheltie Tree," a metal tree on which we hang a collection of decorative Shetland Sheepdog ornaments. Each ornament fits into its own particular cutout in a Styrofoam container. Putting the ornaments on tree...now that was always a breeze. Taking them down and putting each ornament in the correct place in the Styrofoam holders, now that was a different story! I would spend for what seemed like an eternity turning and trying to fit an ornament into this hole or that until finally I got it right. I always dreaded that part of the process.

One year, I got smart. As I was taking the ornament out of their containers, I took the time to write the description of the ornament beside the spot where it would be returned. When Christmas was over and it was time to pack it all away, the job I had dreaded was a snap. The Sheltie holding Santa's list went here. The Sheltie tangled in the Christmas lights went there. The annual ornament for 2007 goes here and 2009 goes here.

When all was said and done, the Sheltie ornaments were back in their protective boxes in a fraction of the time I normally spent. The time I had spend on labeling had been more than recouped.

Every year when I take those Sheltie ornaments and look at the hand-written description of the ornaments, I smile, knowing that the time I spent on the front end several years ago now saves me time each and every year.

Is Content from Pages You "Like" Showing Up in Your News Feed?

When we create a Facebook  "fan page," we naturally assume that when someone "Likes" the page, the content posted to that page will show up in their news feed. Right?

As it turns out, that's actually not true. I am not sure about the actual algorithm, but it seems that it requires people not only clicking "Like," but also interacting with the content, commenting on it, sharing it, etc. All of these factors seem to play into whether or not the content from that particular page shows up automatically in the news feed.

If you currently like my page (Facebook.com/DrFrankBuck), but are not seeing its content in your news feed, here is what to do:

1. Go to the page.
2. Hover over the "Liked" button. Hopefully, you will see a drop-down menu.
3. One of the options is "Show in News Feed." Select that one.

I am not sure if taking that action will bring all of the content to your news feed. It seems this is one of those "moving targets" social media brings our way.

By the way, if you have not already "Liked" the page, why not do so now? The content you will find there consists of quotes I have collected over the years, notices about new blog posts, and links to other content I think readers would like.

By the way, when the page reaches 200 "Likes," I will give away a copy of  Get Organized!: Time Management for School Leaders or Organization Made Easy: Tools for Today's Teachers. Right now, we are at 180 "Likes." Only 20 more to go! If you have already "Liked" the page, you are already eligible. If you haven't, come on over and get your name in the hat.

I Do It When I Think About It

"I do it when I think about it." When I hear that statement, it always scares me. At the same it gives me a "heads up" that I am talking to someone upon whom I did not need to depend. Things are going to slip through the cracks because the person doesn't think about it at the right time. This podcast explores the subject.

Click here to listen to "I Do It When I Think About It."

 

Great Time in Quebec City

Davonia and I spent a wonderful several days in Quebec City. Thanks to Marielle Stewart for bringing me in for a full-day workshop for the Central Quebec School Board administrators. What a great group!

Quebec City is a beautiful place, and we were glad to have able to spend a day seeing the historic city with it's many restaurants and shops. Despite differences in location and climate, we share the same challenges when it comes to staying on top of the demands of our work.

We covered a great deal of ground during the day, addressing everything from handling the paper in our lives to using Twitter more effectively. When asked to complete the thought, "If I had one more hour every day, I would..." here are some of the answers we got:

...exercise
...read
...take a walk
...finish work an hour early
...regularly clean out my e-mail
...meditate
...have "me" time
...sleep
...play the guitar
...rest
...walk my dogs
...spend more time with my grandson

 I hope that as a result of our day together, you have just found that time!