Monthly Archives: October 2022

the spaces in between

I’ve never been to a session at a conference that has taught me more and been more engaging than the ‘spaces in between’ the sessions.

Connecting with distant friends and colleagues; Engaging conversations about teaching, learning, and leading; Topical discussions and meetings over coffee and meals; And getting to know bright people who have similar jobs but unique life and work experience that open my eyes to things beyond what I tend to learn and in my scheduled blocks of conference time… these are the moments that make a conference a rich leaning experience… it’s the spaces in between.

Complaint driven change

Change is good. We learn, we grow, we adapt, we change. Change is essential, and I like to think of myself as a change agent.

But change isn’t always easy. And the adoption of change is never distributed evenly nor does it affect people equitably. In many cases, when change happens it upsets people who are not ready for change… and that invites complaints.

Squeaky wheels start to squeak.

Something we need to be careful about is that change is happening for the right reasons. This can be hard because no matter what you do, the people most resistant to change are often the loudest. So you are doing things one way and it isn’t efficient or effective, and people complain. You change to a new way that works better. Now, there are happy people (quietly) enjoying the new approach, but a new group are unhappy. That new unhappy group might not be big, and they might not like the new system only because they liked the old way… but they are the loudest group.

This group might be the most vocal, they might make the most complaints, but they shouldn’t be the reason not to move forward, or to quickly change again, before seeing the positive aspects that the new changes have created.

There will always be squeaky wheels. There will always be naysayers and complainers. It’s important to empathize and support these people. It’s also important to learn from these people, but they should not be the drivers of change. A small but loud group should not be allowed to slow down or alter change just because they are the loudest.

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Afterthought: I wish news media thought about this… news today is about attracting eyes and clicks, and the small squeaky groups get far too much attention.

Shadow play

We recently did a first floor renovation. We created an open concept, taking down the walls between our kitchen, dining room, living room, and front entrance. We love it. A few months later I have to say that there isn’t much I’d change. But there is one surprise we didn’t expect.

It turns out that where we our our kitchen island lines up with our big from windows at a perfect angle to create a shadow line exactly on the line between the drawer shelf and the bottom cupboards at our kitchen sink. So, it looks like we painted these two sections different shades of white.

At night, when no light comes through the front window, you can see that the cupboards are the same colour, but any bright time of day the colour difference is significant. We couldn’t know this in advance. It would have looked like a shadow if the line didn’t sit right at the break between the two sections. And we are just going to have to live with it.

Not a big deal, but totally not expected. When designing our space the idea of thinking about how shadows would change the look of our furniture was not on our radar, and in all honesty, even if it was I don’t think we would have caught this.

So if you ever come over to our place in the daytime, no, we didn’t paint these cupboards two different shades of white. And we didn’t plan this… it’s just the way the shadows and light play.

Battery life

I just got the notification at work that I can update my phone. This comes just in time because my battery has been draining faster and faster, to the point where it didn’t even last until 2pm yesterday before needing to be charged. I seem to be very good at killing batteries. I know I tend to be a heavy user, but yesterday I didn’t use my phone a lot more than any other day, and in fact probably less. I don’t know why, but battery power loss has been a problem with every phone I’ve owned.

I think it’s not just my phone, I think it’s me. My mom has had difficulty wearing battery powered watches for years, they would just stop working after a few days of wearing them. I think I inherited this effect from her. I think there is something about the natural charge of my body’s working that is hard on batteries. Of course it could just be my heavy use or pattern of use that causes batteries to have shorter lives, but I really think there is something about me as well.

I’m somehow the problem. This isn’t a helpful belief, and quite frankly I’d like to be proven wrong… but my phone’s battery health is only down to 86% and yet it’s barely lasting past half a day.

The good news is that an update is coming. That said, this was already a replacement phone since the last update. Why did I need a replacement phone? The battery kept dying. It’s not the phone, it’s me.

4-day work week

Maybe it’s my age, but I really wish the work week was just 4 days long. Too often a weekend feels too short. It’s not even about rest, it’s about wanting to do more in such a short time.

We’ve had a few 3-day weekends recently and I’ve really noticed a significant difference compared to this past 2-day weekend. I got stuff done beyond the ‘need to do’ stuff when I had one more day.

I don’t know the history behind the 5-day work week, and frankly I don’t care to look it up. It doesn’t matter what the reason was, it just doesn’t seem necessary anymore. Add an hour a day to the school day, Monday to Thursday, and Fridays get added to the weekend.

What would it take to make this happen? Whose game to try?

Soaking up the sun

It’s 3:35 in the afternoon and I’m sitting in my back yard with no shirt on, just soaking up the sun. This is absolutely amazing weather for October in the Vancouver mainland. It looks like this might be the last week of it before the temperature dips. But wow, what fantastic weather we’ve had for the past couple months.

I feel like we deserve this because we had the coldest May and June that I can recall in the last 25+ years of living out here. But the term ‘deserve’ suggests some sort of fairness and weather doesn’t play fair. So I’ll just say that we have been very lucky!

I feel like im dosing up on sunshine before the dole-drums of winter hit. November and February are historically the 2 months I hate living in a northern rainforest. Ahead of us are entire weeks where I won’t know where the sun is during the day. Cloud cover will mask the exact location of the sun and the sun sets before 5pm. December and January aren’t a lot better, but November and February are definitely the wettest and toughest to handle.

But not today. Today the sun feeds me natural Vitamin D, and I bask in the glory of a bright and warm afternoon. Today I charge my batteries for the dark days ahead. I’ll need to remember days like today when the rain comes and feels like it will never leave. And hopefully next year we won’t have to wait so long for the return of this wonderful weather.

VOTE! (A mostly non-partisan message)

I don’t have a big interest in politics, but from the time I’ve been old enough to vote, I have. The way I see it this is a civic duty and also the privilege of living in a democracy. Going back in my blog, I think I mention the message that it’s your duty to vote every election, and I make the message completely non-partisan each time. My party of choice might not win, but if everyone voted, then I would be happy with the result. However, when only a small percentage of people vote, then it can be easy for a loud but fringe group to end up getting a powerful position, and that upsets me.

So leading up to the municipal vote today, I shared the following message on Facebook and Twitter:

This ParentsVoice BC group vying for School Board Trustee positions is disturbing enough to me that I’m breaking my non-partisan voice. My message isn’t to tell you who you should vote for, just not to vote for them. In a society where everyone had to vote, I would not be concerned about them, but they will probably have supporters who are more likely to vote than other candidates have. And when under 40% of the population votes, each fringe vote is worth at least 2.5 votes worth of the entire pool of eligible voters. With many other candidates splitting the other votes and this cohort (3 in my municipality) are each getting votes from every one of their supporters, suddenly this fringe group has a chance at taking 3 out the 4 possible seats in the election.

So my message is that when a fringe group with close-minded ideas has a chance at an election, then it matters to voice concerns against them. It matters that they aren’t the loudest voices in a popularity contest. It matters that everyone votes… Not necessarily for the same candidates as me, just not for them. If enough people do that, they will be a minority, and they will not have the opportunity to influence the majority.

So for those of you in BC, Canada, take a bit of time out of your day today and VOTE!

‘Making it work’ mindset

This was in James Clear’s weekly 3-2-1 email newsletter:

“One type of person approaches a situation with the mindset of, “How can I make this work?” 
Another type seems to approach each circumstance with the mindset of, “What are all the reasons this wouldn’t work?” 
Both people will be forced to deal with reality, but the first person will only have to solve problems that actually occur while the second person will often avoid taking action entirely because of the potential problems they have dreamt up before starting. 
There will always be reasons to not do something. Be a problem solver, not a problem adder.” – James Clear

It’s not just enough to have the right mindset when you have to work with someone who has the wrong mindset. You lift an idea up, and it gets knocked down. You make a suggestion and three counter examples are brought up. I believe there are times and places that this counter argument can be healthy and even promote better solutions, but when you are still looking for solutions and you have someone knocking the ideas down over and over, well then the problem or problems become unsurmountable. It’s not just your own mindset that matters, it’s the whole team’s.

I remember working on a team where this one person seemed to undermine almost everything I suggested. Even when I went to her in advance to see what the roadblocks were, she’d still undermine my meeting with new problems after I thought we’d exhausted reasons it wouldn’t work. What I didn’t understand was that this wasn’t just about being stubborn and not wanting to change, it seemed more just a mindset of “This isn’t working, and that won’t work either.”

I left that job before ever solving the mystery of how to work with this person effectively, but that experience taught me that it’s not just important to have a solution-focused mindset, it’s important that the people you work with do as well… or that you plan meetings such that ideas are allowed to be developed before there are opportunities to knock them down. Because it’s easier to knock ideas down than it is to build them up.

Going through the motions

My workouts have been minimalist recently. I’m going through the motions but not pushing myself. And I’ve come to realize that this is ok. 5 years ago, I would have just stopped my routine. I’d have made excuses that I was too busy. And, I probably would have stopped for over a month.

Instead, I’ve kept the routine up, and am committing to still getting up early, writing, then working out. In the last week I’ve taken a couple days off exercise, but I am still good with 5 days a week… after I started this regimen in January of 2019 in my first year I averaged only 4 days a week, and now it’s unusual for me not to do 6. I have slowly improved my habit such that only working out 5 days a week is less than normal, while I was actually proud of averaging 4 days a week when I started.

My point is that I need to give myself some slack. I’m not quitting, I’m not breaking my pattern, I’m just coasting a bit while still putting in the time, even if I’m not giving 100%. I can’t give 100% for 100% of the time, and right now I’m just not up to ‘giving it my all’.

Will I meditate? Yes. Will I do a short stretch? Yes. Will I get my heart rate up for a 20 minute cardio? Yes. Will I do at least one strength exercise? Yes.

Done. Mission accomplished. Pat on the back and move on. There will be time to give it my all when I’m ready, but for now going through the motions isn’t just good enough, it’s exactly what I need to do in order to maintain the healthy lifestyle I want to keep, even when I don’t feel up to it.

The struggle is real

This is the time of year that I really struggle to find balance. School startup is over but the pace of the new year hasn’t slowed. Emails are pouring in faster than I can manage them. My desk is a mess… and it seems that most of my days are filled with priority ‘must do’ items and almost no ‘want to do items’.

I’m managing more than leading, and I come home exhausted. It’s hard to keep the motivation going when it feels like momentum is swaying against you. Worse still, I’m writing this past my bedtime because I can’t fall asleep and so figure that I should get this out of the way and sleep in a bit later… if I’m up I may as well be productive.

I’ll keep my healthy living routine going, and try to get to bed earlier tomorrow. I’ll block a bit of time to get a little scope and sequence to the rest of my week. And, I’ll take care of a few big priorities that I know will ease the pressure I’m feeling. The challenge is that schools can throw a wench into the best laid plans and completely disrupt the machinery of the day.

Sometimes you just have to struggle through, knowing that things will eventually ease up. Until then it’s go, go, go. And on that note, I need to go to sleep!