by tekassi19 | Jan 8, 2018 | Effectiveness & Efficiency, Margin, School-Home Relationships, Strategies & Tips for the Classroom
Teachers make hundreds of decisions every single day—from the most trivial to the most consequential. Does the number of decisions we make have any impact on the quality of our decisions, especially at the end of the day? The answer is ‘Yes.’
No one sets out to make a bad decision, and yet we often end up making decisions we regret. We say ‘Yes’ to things we want to decline and we say ‘No’ to things we want to say ‘Yes’ to. Or we just give in. Why do we do that?
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by tekassi19 | Dec 18, 2017 | Margin
This season, especially during the next two weeks, is a special time not only for celebrating what is most important to each of us during this Christmas season, but also for spending time with family and friends. One gift that we each receive every year, if we choose to open it, is the opportunity to reflect on the previous year. We take stock of who we are and where we are at. We reflect on the success & failure and joy & sadness of the previous year.
The beauty of this gift is that while we reflect on the previous year, we are also drawn to starting afresh with a clean slate. We look to the New Year, a natural division in the calendar, to do something new, to change something we don’t like, or to do it differently.
Unfortunately, of the 41% of Americans who make New Year’s resolutions, only about 9% will actually feel they were successful in achieving their resolutions. 42% have already figured it out and don’t bother making them. If you are one of the 9%, I congratulate you on your incredible will power.
I, for one, got off this merry-go-round several years ago. I found something way better.
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by tekassi19 | Oct 16, 2017 | Margin
When is the last time you went to your happy place? You know—the place where you can totally and completely unplug. The place where you can actually feel the tension begin to slip from your shoulders and neck. The place where you can breathe.
There will never be the perfect time to take off work and go. There will always be too much to do and not enough time. There will always be a mountain of work—whether you get away for a couple of days or not.
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by tekassi19 | Aug 11, 2017 | Effectiveness & Efficiency, Margin, Strategies & Tips for the Classroom
What if you could steal back time from one of the biggest time thieves? How would your life be different? What would you be able to accomplish?
Everyone gets the same 24 hours each day. There will never be enough minutes in a day to get everything done. As much as we say we want more hours in the day, do we really want more time added to an already long day?! Some days I can’t wait for it to be over. I drop into bed with the hope tomorrow will be better.
My guess is we don’t want more hours in a day. Really, what we want is to accomplish what we need to and still have time left for a personal life. We want more margin in our lives.
. . . Those glorious, empty spaces that allow us to breathe. – Jed Jurchenko
So how do we steal back time?
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by tekassi19 | Jun 19, 2017 | Effectiveness & Efficiency, Margin
Wouldn’t it be great if you actually had the time during the school day to grade those papers and plan your lessons instead of working on those things when you get home at night?
Eliminating all the work you take home may not be possible, but significantly reducing the amount of work you take home absolutely is possible.
Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. –Peter Drucker
Effectiveness is the ability to produce your desired effect. Efficiency is about doing it in a way that uses the least amount of time, energy, and resources.
At the intersection of effectiveness and efficiency is the sweet spot—getting the most desirable result with the least amount of work. This sounds great, but what’s the point?
Why is it so important to be operating from the “sweet spot”? When operating out of this place, not only does it build confidence and resilience, but also, and more importantly, it creates margin.
Margin Matters
Andy Stanley describes margin as “breathing room—the space between our current pace and our limits.” Every teacher that I know could use more breathing space—more margin—between their current pace and their personal limits.
Margins are those glorious, empty spaces that allow us to breathe. They give us time to recharge. -Jed Jurchenko
When we don’t have margin in our professional lives, we are increasingly stressed and our personal lives suffer as well. Our enjoyment of life begins to wane. “Life becomes an exhausting flow of endless activity,” according to Jed Jurchenko.
When Effectiveness & Efficiency are Out of Balance
We need to find the right balance between effectiveness and efficiency to help us increase the margin in our professional and personal lives.
Teachers who are effective but not efficient are often accomplishing the things that matter most at the expense of themselves. They spend an enormous amount of time, energy, and/or resources to get those results. At the end of the day, they do not have much left for themselves.
Teachers who are efficient but not effective may be super organized and run things like a well-oiled machine, but often it is at the expense of the desired effect. Their organizational abilities may seem effortless. They spend the least amount of time, energy, and resources to put things in place so that everything runs according to plan.
Oftentimes, their “organized plans and systems” don’t allow for any deviation or interruption including the need for flexibility in response to what students need.
At the end of the day, they may have missed the most important goals like student learning and building relationships, and they can’t understand why they aren’t seeing the results they want.
Esteeming efficiency at the expense of effectiveness is dangerous.
. . . If we are building the wrong product really efficiently, it’s like we are driving our car off a cliff and bragging about our awesome gas mileage. – Eric Ries
Teachers, who are effective and efficient, use the least amount of time, energy, and resources to have the greatest impact on things that matter most. This is the sweet spot—the greatest opportunity for increased margin in your professional life, which in turn creates margin in your personal life.
Assessing Your Effectiveness & Efficiency
A few simple modifications to your practices and/or processes can increase both your effectiveness and your efficiency. How do you know if you are being as effective or efficient as you can be?
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