Staying Connected

Staying connected to what’s happening in the world makes me a better teacher, leader, and overall person. It’s also a great way for me to continue learning even though I’m no longer in school as a student.

There are so many easy ways to keep in the loop with current events, emerging trends in education and leadership, and interesting learning opportunities around the web. One of my favorite tools for this is an app called, ZITE. It’s available for Apple products, Android, and Windows too. And even better…it’s FREE!

 

 This app is customizable and easy to use. Think of it as online newspaper that lets you pick the categories and topics. Based on your reading “likes” and “dislikes”, it customizes your “Top Stories” when you first open the app.

You can also customize the categories to your interests. For example, I have a category for “Education”, “Technology Education,” and “Leadership”. By doing this, the app pulls articles from around the web. I can skim the headlines or read full articles.

The app is a great way that I can quickly update myself on a variety of topics from a variety of sources. I like being able to get articles from the Harvard Business Review and a favorite blogger on the same topic. It allows me to get a full range of perspectives.

What other tools do you use for staying connected?

 

 

A New Chapter

“Life is not a dress rehearsal. Stop practicing what you're going to do and just go do it. In one bold stroke you can transform today.”  Marilyn Grey

 Hello world! I am back from a brief hiatus and excited to start the new chapter in my life. December marked the end of my two year graduate program and endless hours of school work. I completed my internship, which was incredibly educating, and graduated with my Master’s degree.

It’s taken me a couple of weeks back in the saddle to get into the swing of things, and so I thought I would begin by sharing some great books on leadership that I have read, am reading currently, and have marked on my “to read” list.

Probably my all-time favorite writer is John Maxwell. I have read several of his books and they are all great. The one I recommend to start with is The 360 Degree Leader. This book talks about how you can be a leader no matter what your position or level at your job. It really helps to shift your perspective about the power of influence and how you can use it to impact your role for the better.

A book that I'm currently reading is The  Leader's Guide: 101 Indispensable Tools, Tips, and Techniques for Any Situation by John Baldoni. This book is full of great nuggets of wisdom that apply to any situation. For example, in chapter one Baldoni writes, "yes it does matter what people think of you. Since leaders accomplish very little by themselves, they need to bring others together for common purpose. How others perceive the leader is important to encouraging followership. Followership, which is based upon trust, is a reciprocal act" (Baldoni, 9).


Last, a book on my "to read" list is Michale Feiner's The Feiner Points of Leadership. My husband (who's working on his MBA) was assigned to read this book in one of his classes and quickly became a Feiner fan. As we would discuss the day or situations at work, he would mention something he read in the Feiner's book that applied to the situation and shined a crystal clear light on things. The more I heard about Feiner's "laws" the more I bugged my husband to hurry up and finish the book so I could read it. Finally, he gave me a copy for my Kindle for Christmas. I plan to starting this book within a couple of weeks. The thing that makes Feiner's book unique is that he has personal real-world experience in managing people and explains and relates his principal in ways that can apply to anyone in any type of work environment.

So there you have it. These books are the way I plan to keep educating myself as I begin this new chapter of my life. Even though I'm not in school anymore, books are a wonderful way that I can keep my mind learning and growing. What are some good books on self-improvement or leadership that have impacted you?

Organizing Information

Part of what helps me stay organized is how I manage the information I receive. Over the years as a teacher, I have refined the way I process new information and how I store it. This semester in particular, it seems that I am on information overload with my internship, school, and life. Here are some easy ways that I keep track of all of the important information files I need to have at my fingertips.

These strategies may take some time on the front end to set up, but they will pay off in the long run when you are able to find and access the information you need, right when you need it.

1.  Be as “paper-free” as possible. Back in the old days everything was communicated through paper. Today, that is not the case. As a teacher, they give us a large three story black filing cabinet to store all of our “lesson plans” and other important documents. As a new teacher, I received so much information from helpful colleagues that it initially made sense to store a hard copy of documents because most times that’s all I had. However, through the years I have eliminated hard copies of most everything and moved to keeping a digital copy on a flash drive.  This saves me space and time. It saves me time because it’s so much faster to locate the file I want. It also saves time because if I need to adjust the form/file/handout in any way, I don’t have to retype the whole thing. I just open it on my computer and make adjustments.

Two ways to go “paper-free”: use a scanner to scan hard documents, then file in a logical location on your computer. Use a smart phone Ap to scan and email yourself the file. I use JotNotPro for the iPhone. It allows me to take a picture of the document, crop, edit, adjust, then email it to myself as a PDF, JPEG, or Word document. It’s easy and the Ap only costs $0.99.

2. Keep your electronic files organized in a way that makes sense to you. The more organized they are, the easier it will be to find information. For example, we receive numerous emails from our administration throughout the month on different initiatives. If an email or attachment is regarding a specific topic or committee, I file it in a folder for that topic. However, if it just general information, I have folder titled “Admin” in which I file it under. That way, later in the year if I am looking for an email or attachment about general information and I know it was sent from one of my administrators, I just look in my “Admin” file.

Another important rule of thumb for using folders is: if I have more than ten documents in a folder, I create sub folders and re-file the documents. This keeps my information super organized and eliminates time spent searching for files. 

3. Back up your files…and then back up your back up file! At school we are given a personal drive that we can use to store all of our files. However, I also use a personal jump drive to back up my files at school. In addition, I back up my jump drive onto an external hard drive every few months.  This keeps my files extra secure in case I lose the jump drive or a computer crashes.  

4. Clear out your inbox daily. I have written about clearing out your email inbox before, but I can’t stress it enough. If you do not take time at the end of the day to read through emails, address items that need immediate action, and mark as “unread” the ones that need addressing later, you could miss important information. In addition, those emails start to pile up and can leave you feeling overwhelmed by the end of the week if they are unread. 

 

I also have an “inbox” tray on my desk that I use for keeping items that need to be addressed, like copies to make, discipline slips to file, papers to turn into the office. I make it a point to clear this tray out each day. Doing this prevents documents from piling up and never getting filed. It also helps me make sure that I turn everything in on time.

Staying Positive While Climbing the Ladder of Life

Staying positive is a challenge for everyone. Life can throw you some curve balls from time to time, and people/situations can distract you from your goals. A lesson that I keep learning over and over again is: who I surround myself with impacts my outlook on the situation.

We live in insecure times. People struggle with all kinds of hardships, insecurities, and fears (including myself). If you find yourself grappling with negativity, take a look at the people you hang out with and make adjustments. One of the greatest gifts we get to have as adults is to decide who we have in our lives and who we don’t. Choose wisely.

Surround yourself with positive people who are moving in the same direction you want to go in. Surround yourself with people who want to grow and learn, people who tell you the truth – not just what you want to hear, and people who encourage you on your journey. I am fortunate to work with and be surrounded by gifted people who value learning, self-reflection, honesty, and integrity. They push me, motivate me, and encourage me to grow and evolve into the person I want to become. While success or failure is ultimately up to me, having positive people in my life certainly helps me stay focused on what's important and forget about the small stuff. 

Work Bag: Keeping it all together

Having a good work bag is essential to staying organized, especially if you are as busy and on-the-go as me. 

On a weekly basis I teach school from 8AM-4PM, stay at work until 6PMish or run to the main office for a meeting, go to class, come home and work on school stuff, and tutor privately on the weekends across town. I love my life and I actually enjoy being so busy, but I need a go-to bag that I can take with me everywhere that will help me stay organized. Here is what my bag looks like:

  This is a Zara bag that I got for my birthday. It's very large and big enough to hold all of my stuff. You can find the exact bag here: ZARA Plaited Shopper.

Here is the inside

Inside my bag I keep the following items at all times!

 1. My Erin Condren Planner   2. My iPad   3. A pencil pouch  4. small black pouch with small notepad, binder clips, paper clips, and a mini-stapler.

 

I got the black pouch in a set of four from Barnes and Noble. All four were various sizes, and I use it to store essential items that I would need while grading papers or managing paperwork on the go. You can find a similar one here.

This is the pencil pouch I use. It's actually a makeup bag by Sonia Kashuk from Target. I thought it was fun and cute and not so boring. It works perfectly for me because it has two sections. I use one for pencils, pens, markers, and the other for post-its, white out tape, page flaggers and other things. I take this baby with me everywhere. It's so handy to never need to scrounge for a pen. Here is a similar one.

Erin Condren Life Planner vs. Other Planners

Hi Friends, 

Well my Erin Condren Life Planner finally arrived yesterday. It was perfect, and I love everything about it. I decided to do a video review about the planner and how it compares in size with other planners. 

With all of the online reviews I saw about the EC planner, I never found one that talked about the size of the book compared to a purse or handbag. I thought it would be a helpful perspective. 

Enjoy!

How do you manage your time?

Time. It seems, no matter how far in advance I start planning, or how late I stay at school, there is always a never-ending list of tasks for me to complete. Not mention this week, I have had a meeting every day before school AND during my conference period! Sigh.

One of the biggest problems that all professionals have is finding enough time to get things done during the day. Some weeks as a teacher, every single minute of my “planning” time or before school and after school time, is often consumed by meetings. And yet, I’m expected to keep all of those plates spinning in the air in perfect harmony.

Here are a couple of things I do to help keep myself organized, balanced, and out from under the “weeds.”

1. Keep a running “To-Do” list – I keep a running to-do list that I write down in my planner. I take this book with me EVERYWHERE. Whenever a thought comes into my mind about something I need to do…I write it down. If I’ve had an extremely busy day of adding tasks to my to-do list, I spend five minutes at the end of the day prioritizing the tasks. I ask myself…”what needs to get done today”? What can I get done tomorrow? And so on. I highlight the tasks that need to get done right away in yellow and the rest in green. Color coding helps me because I am a visual learner.
   
2. Read your emails -  I read every email that comes into my inbox as soon as possible. Some days I get 10 emails, most days I get 50+. And before all of you business people gawk at how low the number fifty is, let me remind you…that’s fifty emails WHILE I’m teaching and talking to a billion students at one time. It’s the ultimate in multitasking.  

• I read every email and try to reply/respond/act as soon as I can. When I do that, it feels like I’m scratching another item off my to-do list. However, if it’s a lengthy email, or something that requires more time and thought to respond to, I read it, then go back and mark it as “unread.” This is a signal to me later on, that I still need to go back and re-read the email and address something. Managing emails this ways eliminates a ton of unnecessary or superfluous emails from my inbox, while at the same time, keeping me updated on pertinent and important information. This habit has been a lifesaver for me because our school uses emails as its primary form of communication.

If you have any great tips on how you manage you time, please share them! Reply to this post…I’d love to learn a better/new way.