Tag Archives: efficiency

Go, go, go

Leave a reply

The year has come to an end. Almost. Our grad is tonight night, I have a second grad to attend tomorrow night, as well as a couple luncheons… and the ‘To Do’ list seems endless.

There is always so much to do at the end of the year, but there are also celebrations and gatherings that need your full attention. That’s the trick, how do you squeeze everything in, and still give everything the time and commitment it all deserves?

You’d think I’d have it all figured out by now but I don’t. I’ll just put my head down and make the most of it. Friday afternoon will be here soon enough, and I’ll pick up all the pieces after the long weekend. The most important thing this week is fully committing to the task at hand and to the events I attend. Worrying about the next thing robs us of the joy and celebration of the end of the year. Go, go, go doesn’t work unless you spend time at each place you go to.

Second monitor

Leave a reply

At work I just updated and replaced computer monitors for my staff. It was time, especially for my online teachers and secretaries, who spend the vast majority of their day looking at screens. Two of my secretaries use 3 monitors, and many teachers and myself use 2. My setup is that I use my laptop as my keyboard and usually have my calendar on that screen, then my two monitors are on the raised platform of a desktop stand-up desk behind my laptop. A couple of my teachers have the same setup, while others put their laptop between the monitors on a flat desk.

No matter what the setup, all but two teachers see great value in having additional monitors. I like having additional monitors so much that I’m considering a second monitor at home. The reality is that more screen real estate means better productivity. Some people might think it means more distractions, but that’s not the case. If you are going to choose a distraction, more monitors won’t add to the distraction. If that’s what you are choosing, one screen is enough.

However, for productivity a second or third screen is invaluable. Almost nothing I end up doing requires just one screen. If I’m dealing with an email about a student, I have email open, and then I might also have our student management system open to see what courses they have with us, and I might also have the ministry data system up to see their transcript of courses. That’s just one of many examples where 3 screens are far better than either jumping from one online system to another or splitting your screen to see different tabs or systems that then require scrolling.

If you spend a lot of time on a screen, do yourself a favour and add at least one more monitor, then watch your speed at tasks and overall productivity increase… but a fair warning to you that once you do it, you can never go back.

PS. And even if it isn’t something that works for you, don’t let that stop you from providing it to others in your organization… it will increase productivity!

Pace and productivity

The end of the year can feel like a constant pace of go-go-go! From wake up to head on pillow that night there is too much to do and too little time. Then things (finally) wind down and you see all that you’d like to do but you’ve been too busy doing what you needed to do. Time suddenly slows, and tasks are more easily accomplishable.

This becomes a time when I need others to collaborate with. Time to have learning conversations and time to co-plan. I notice that working with others motivates me and keeps my productivity pace up.

It’s easy to take a deep sigh of relief as things slow down, and to slow down myself. But the year hasn’t ended and there is still a lot to get done, a lot to accomplish, and an opportunity to better prepare for the new year. Just because the pace has slowed doesn’t mean productivity should too.

Staying motivated as the pace slows isn’t easy. It’s easier to coast through to the ending. My motivation is to do whatever I can to make next year better. Because as crazy as the year-ending June pace can be, the year-starting September pace can be equally frenetic. And so the work I do now will help my productivity in the new school year.

It has been a long ride this year, but I’ve got to stay in the saddle and keep riding at a good pace. I’ve got the whole summer to trot and canter, right now I need too keep the gallop going. Giddy up!

Distractions and interruptions

Sometimes a work day feels like a constant flow of distractions and interruptions, and while I spend the day busy, it seems that little that I hoped to accomplish actually gets done. For the last couple (rather productive) days I’ve noticed a pattern of distractions that I seem to create for myself that slow down my ability to really get things done. Here are two of them:

1. I’m working on a task and some information comes to me (a message or a person) related to another task… and I task switch. At this point, I start on the task that distracted me, even though it isn’t something I can accomplish without more information or work, so it isn’t something ideal to do in that moment. However, from there I let other tasks or distractions keep me from prioritizing or completing the task I was on before the distraction.

2. I let incoming information, emails or Teams messages, derail my attention. That isn’t to say these messages aren’t important, simply that if I didn’t let them distract me, I could have been more effective at getting my original task done.

I have a job that tends to be filled with constant distractions and interruptions. I can’t allow these to derail those moments when I actually have time at my desk to get things done. There is often only a few precious times in the day where I have time to focus on a single task and feel a bit of flow as I get something done… when these moments come, I really need to ensure that I’m not creating my own distractions and task switches. This is a sure fire recipe to having a very busy day, and still nothing feeling completely accomplished.