Tag Archives: time

AprilMayJune

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One of the biggest challenges in being a school principal is the month of AprilMayJune. Three months that feel like they are condensed into one single month. From here to the last day of school it’s Go-Go-Go… It doesn’t feel like there is a break or a transition, it’s just non-stop action.

Good things will happen, wonderful events will be a big part of this extended month. So, it’s not just a slog, there will be some special moments to come. It’s just that things go so fast, and the pace feels accelerated, and then at the end of June we will look back and we won’t remember anything that delineates separate months from now until then.

To all the educators out there, have a fantastic AprilMayJune!

Time limits

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I’ve written quite a bit about creating good habits and using time well. It’s a focus of mine because I find my work day gets absorbed in a whirlwind of busyness and interruptions, and I get home after a long day, exhausted. So using time well matters, and there is always room for improvement.

But time has limits. Time is limited.

These are a few things I’d like to do if I had the time:

  • Podcast – I really enjoy listening to podcasts, and I also enjoy making them. But my last one was almost 4 years ago, and I find editing them time consuming and they are a lot of work for one person.
  • School visits – I would love to travel to innovate schools and learn about them.
  • Connecting- I’d love to spend more time with friends.
  • Video editing – I have a personal video project I’m doing for students at my school and a fun video project I’m doing with my uncle and they both require a fair bit of editing time.
  • Writing – I have 3 book ideas, but it’s hard for me to get sustained writing time. I’ve considered stopping my Daily-Ink and using this time to write other things, but I don’t consistently spend a lot of time writing these and it’s harder to continue an idea for short bursts daily than to pick daily short topics.
  • Traveling – it’s a big world and I’ve seen very little of it.

I could go on but I think I’ve made my point. It doesn’t matter how efficient I get, I will still wish I had more time to do the things I’m passionate about, the things I’m interested in doing… if only I had the time.

The trick isn’t to try to get everything I want to do done. The trick is to create opportunities to do some of these things, and to commit to them fully and in a way that I enjoy doing them without beating myself up for not doing all of them. It’s about not wasting time being inefficient or lazy, but also not running myself ragged and feeling like I’m rushing through time, not getting enough done.

Yes time is limited. And so it is to be enjoyed and not spent worried about what isn’t done, or what still needs to get done. Time is not just limited, it’s also precious.

If I had the time

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Here’s a great comic by @MrLovenstein:

On the same topic, I printed this and stuck it to my home gym wall by my exercise bike, after I read it in James Clear’s weekly email last March:

Author Julia Cameron on how to find time to write (or do anything, really):

“The “if I had time” lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born — without the luxury of time.”

Source: The Right to Write

Sometimes I’m brilliant at making the time for things. I’m up every day between 5 and 5:30am, I write these posts (if I didn’t the night before), I meditate, I do a workout, all before I get in the shower to start my work day. Recently I was challenged to do 2,000 pushups in February. I started on the 3rd, and as of yesterday I’d done 80 pushups for 10 straight days. I might take today off before doing another  800 in the next 10 days. Then a last break before 5 straight days and hitting 2K on the 29th. That’s the plan. If I forget and miss a day, guess what… I’ll make it up and still make sure I hit the target.

For other things I’m notoriously bad at finding the time. Tidying up my closet is a great example of that. I seem to know how to mess it up, but I never seem to have time to organize it. Some days I get home and my back is sore, but I’ll sit uncomfortably on the couch and think about getting in the hot tub until it’s too late and I just skip it. My blog drafts usually have a whole bunch of idea starters for when I get stuck, but now it’s filled with longer writes that I’ve started and don’t seem to have the time to follow up with. Drafts used to be drafts, now they are just good ideas that have died from a lack of taking the time to expand on them.

If only I had the time… would I use it? Would you? How convenient and comfortable is this lie? The reality is that if it’s important enough, there’s probably time for it, time we can find, time we can make, rather than making up excuses.

Seizing Moments

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to have lunch with my admin team. Now when I say that I’m talking about 3 ‘teammates’ that do not work in the same building as me. So when we can get together and enjoy a meal it’s a special moment. The moment was made that much more special because two of the three people I met are moving on… one to a new position, and the other one retiring. Then, after work, I connected with some other administrators for a wellness gathering. It was wonderful to spend that time connecting with colleagues that I don’t always see during my typical work week. And when I came home, my wife and I had a wonderful evening together. We both seem to have a little more energy than we usually do on a Friday night. It was a fun night of laughter and conversation.

This morning I did the Coquitlam crunch with my buddy, and while it was cold and early, and we were the only ones in the parking lot, it was a ‘seize the moment kind’ of opportunity. This was our 120th Crunch since we started 3 years ago in January 2020. My buddy suggested that the title of this post should be “Just Do It”, and that was the initial plan, but my thoughts go a little beyond that this afternoon.

After our walk and coffee shop social, I went home and said bye to my wife and helped her pack the car to head over to the island to visit her parents. Then my daughter called and asked for a ride because she spent an anniversary night out with her boyfriend and they were heading home from downtown. After dropping her boyfriend at his house, my daughter and I decided to go and enjoy a sushi lunch at a wonderful restaurant. I can’t express how wonderful it is to have grown-up kids who still look forward to a meal with their father (and yes, especially when he’s paying).

Now I am sitting in my hot tub, penning my ideas using voice to text, and even enjoying a little visit for my cat.

Visits with colleagues, chats with my wife, walks with friends, meals with family, and hot tubs on a cold winter day, these are all small little moments individually… But weave them together, and they make for an absolutely wonderful life.

We sometimes go headlong into work, and bury ourselves in busyness, not realizing that we don’t have to put everything on hold until our next vacation, or gathering with family or friends. Tiny moments, planned, and unplanned, are the moments we need to seek and enjoy.

A five minute job it wasn’t.

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Yesterday I changed a toilet seat. It’s a 5 minute job… until I tried to do it. Unfortunately for me one of the old metal screws was rusted and even though the head could take both a flathead and the Robertson square head, they were both stripped in a matter of minutes of trying to use them. Then the plastic bolt got shredded and I was stuck. Exasperating the issue, the toilet is in a tiny alcove and I had to use my phone like a mirror just to see the bolt.

I spent way too long trying to somehow grip the screw head and undo the bold, leaning over the bowl and messing with the bolt I couldn’t directly see. It was futile, but I’m stubborn and continued to waste my time. But it actually wasn’t a complete waste because I shredded the old washer and that provided a little room between the toilet top and the screw head.

What was my next step? I took a new hacksaw blade and stuck it between the toilet top and the screw, and with a tiny 2 to 3-inch back-and-forth motion I cut the screw. It was a process that took over 10 minutes to do. The whole process left an absolute mess to clean up behind the toilet, and from start to finish I was there for close to an hour and a half.

I seem to be cursed when it comes to doing anything ‘handy’. It doesn’t matter what the job is, I end up taking much longer than expected to complete it. Eighteen times longer in this case. I made about 7 or 8 trips to the basement. At least it was only one trip to the hardware store to buy the seat, usually it ends up being 2-3 visits. I always end the job just relieved it’s over rather than having any sense of accomplishment.

My rule of thumb is, don’t start a a quick handyman job unless I have at least two hours to get it done, because for me there is no such thing as a 5-minute repair.

Simple little things

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A happy thought,
A quiet walk,
A restful pause,
A candid talk.

A social night,
A laugh out loud,
A mutual friend,
A gap in the crowd.

A good book,
A favourite meal,
A restful nap,
A bargain deal.

Simple little things
that come our way.
Simple little things
that make our day.

We can appreciate
what we’ve got.
We can be happy
with our lot.

As long as we
are aware,
that we really
needn’t care…

About things we lack,
and things we dread.
And avoid negative thoughts
in our heads.

As long as we
are aware,
that we really
should care…

About the people we love,
and people in need.
About doing what’s right,
and doing good deeds.

Simple little things
that help us cope.
Simple little things
that bring us hope.

Appreciate the little things
that come our way.
And remember to cherish
each and every day.

The best gifts we have
are love and time.
A life well lived
is truly sublime.

Life need not be filled
with accolades and aclaim,
It need not be a life of
excessive wealth and fame.

What makes us rich are
the simple little things,
that bring us joy
and make our hearts sing.

Simple little things.

4-day work weeks

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An interesting article, ‘Employees are so sick of the five-day workweek that most would take a pay cut to make a four-day week happen‘, by Ryan Hogg, states: “In the battle for a four-day workweek employees seem ready to put their money where their mouth is—they’ll take a pay cut if it means having an extra day of free time.”

At a time when inflation and cost of living is extremely high, people would rather sacrifice money for time. This isn’t about a lack of ambition or drive, it’s about wanting balance. It’s about prioritizing wellbeing over profit.

The article continued: “Last year, the U.K. piloted the world’s biggest-ever four-day week trial, made up of more than 60 companies and nearly 3,000 employees. Most businesses maintained or improved their productivity, while the trial also revealed that quit rates among staff plummeted.

Of the businesses involved in the survey, the majority chose to continue with the scheme.“

It can work.

I read another article, which I can’t find to source right now, and it was mentioning how many big companies are struggling with high absenteeism, with employees taking more sick time than they ever have before. Employees are taking days off in far greater quantities than my generation and our parent’s generation ever did, and these absences are costing companies far more than expected. Apparently this isn’t just an issue if people being sicker, but rather employees taking more time for ‘mental health days’. Essentially just taking a break from the grind of a 5- day work week. A shorter week could work to reduce this.

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I think the 4-day week could work for schools too. Add one hour to each of the 4 remaining school days and you’ve got 2/3’s of the missing school day covered. Add 30 more daily minutes of collaborative/prep time and teachers would be working the same hours, and embedding some needed prep time to their schedules. Same hours of work, close to the same number of hours of class, and so not even a reason to reduce pay.

Doing this, students and teachers would have 4-day weeks and 3-day weekends. I wonder what that would do to student absenteeism? I wonder how well students would perform? This year our senior PE classes start an hour early, and we haven’t noticed an issue with students struggling through a longer school day.

It could be piloted in a high school, but probably not the younger grades because it would be challenging to arrange for child care/supervision on the weekday that students don’t have school. I’d be happy to volunteer my school to try it out… I wonder what teachers, students, and parents would think of this?

a Quarter Century of Search

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I went to Google yesterday and the Google Doodle above the search box was celebrating 25 years of search.

I instantly thought of this comic that I’ve shared before both on my blog and in presentations to educators.

It is likely that no one under 30 will remember life without Google… Life without asking the internet questions and getting good answers. I remember my oldest at 5 years old asking me a question. I responded that I didn’t know and she walked over to our computer and turned it on.

“What are you doing?”

“Asking Google.”

It’s part of everyday life. It has been for a quarter century.

And now search is getting even better. AI is making search more intuitive and giving us answers to questions, not just links to websites that have the answers. It makes me wonder, what will the experience be like in another 5, 10, or 25 years? I’m excited to find out!

 

Closing the gap

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There are people, both friends and family, for whom time between connections always seems small. You don’t see a friend for months, even years, and when you finally reconnect the distance that has passed disappears.

More lines on our faces, more grey in our hair or less hair, but the same person, the same relationship, the same bond remains. Time moves more slowly when the bond between friends is strong. It is as if the time between meeting is somehow time-shifted. Just as Einstein’s theory of relativity explains how traveling faster slows time down, it seems that gaps of time between friends meeting has a relativity to it.

The time gap travels closer to the speed of light. All other experiences between visits race by in the blink of an eye, and the time between visits disappears. Friendships have a relative time that closes the gap between visits. And when friends meet again it is as if the gap between visits was nothing but a passing moment.

There is a general relativity of friendship, and rooted within it friendship is timeless.

Web Logging

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I went to my LinkedIn profile last night. I hadn’t really looked at it for a while. It could use a bit of an update, but I’m in no rush. Still, while I was there I saw ‘Open Thinker’ under my experience, which is where I describe my blogging. I was surprised to see this:

I’ve been blogging for over 17 and a half years. I also passed 4 years of blogging daily in July. I’m coming up on 1,500 daily posts.

I had no idea 17 years ago that this would be something I would stick with for so long. I could not have fathomed that I’d be writing every single day on a web log, back when I hit the ‘Publish’ button for the first time.

Instead of feeling tired, and wanting to bring this to a close, I find myself wanting to write more. That doesn’t mean it has gotten a lot easier, I still find writing a challenge. I still can’t predict when I will feel the muse and when I will struggle to get past the blank page. I still get pangs before hitting the Publish button, though the feeling is somewhat muted. I still get pissed off when I find a typo or grammatical error after hitting the Publish button.

And I will continue to write. Maybe not for 17 more years, but I don’t see a reason to stop in the foreseeable future. I am keeping a journal. It just so happens that anyone with an internet connection can read what I’ve written…. including you!