Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
Today is the first day in a while that I don’t have an 8:30am neeting, but I have one at 9, a long one at 10, then 12, 12:30. And 1pm. For almost four and a half hours I’ll be sitting at my desk staring at my computer screen in meetings. That’s less than what I had yesterday. And yesterday, I ended up on 3 one-on-one conversations with teachers, and a phone call with a student as well. I barely got out of my chair.
I know things will settle down. I value much of the work being done in many of these meetings, but right now I feel like these meetings are equally a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I still get to connect with colleagues and video helps me feel far more connected than voice alone. Cursed because many meetings could just be informational meetings take 1/10th of the time.
Spending 4-6 hours a day in meetings is not efficient or effective, and some days even small ‘to do’ lists are taken home, or added to tomorrow’s list.
What’s really making this tough is that when I normally have days like this, I can take a break by walking down the hall and checking in on kids. I can peek in on teachers teaching a class. I can sit in a busy staff room and join a conversation. My daily 12:30 meeting is a staff check-in organized by the teachers and still feels like this, but for the most part I miss the opportunities to connect with students and teachers in a busy school… and I’m getting a bit tired of non-stop meetings.
I didn’t like in person meetings that could be emails. I now don’t like zoom meetings that could be emails. #TeachSC
My commute to work is 15 minutes, including going out of my way to drop my daughter to school. Other than my two years in China, since my wife and I moved to the city we work in 21 years ago, I haven’t commuted to work for longer than 15 minutes. I know this isn’t the norm. Many people must commute much longer than that.
Two days ago my sister came to town and I had to head to the airport and back during rush hour. Yesterday and today I travelled 40+ minutes to UBC to watch my daughter perform at Nationals for synchronized swimming. These trips are giving me a small taste of what many people face on a daily basis, although traffic today was light.
I know some people will always have to commute. A store clerk, a hotel concierge, a teacher, a factory worker, or a hospital doctor or nurse, all need to get to the building they work in.
Does a lawyer need to be in the office every day? An accountant? An architect? The list can go on… How many people commute to a building, travelling for over an hour-and-a-half a day, over 45 minutes each way, to get to a physical location that they don’t need to be at in order to get their job done?
What will the future hold for commuting when this every-day forced travel isn’t deemed necessary? What will happen when work weeks (potentially) move to 4 days a week? Will this reduce travel time, or will continued urbanization and densification of populations make traffic just as bad, even with the reduced number of trips individuals will need to take?
One last question is how automation of travel will change too? Will cars be able to travel more efficiently when they all communicate with each other, and can avoid accidents created by human error?
My guess is that in the coming years commuting days for many will be reduced, but commuting times on average will remain the same or worsen. The global shift towards large urban centres will necessitate that many people will need to live in the more affordable suburbs, where commuting time will be necessary. So maybe we should explore what that time looks like, rather than just trying to shorten it.
I know that I’ve moved away from listening to the radio to listening to podcasts and audio books during commutes and longer drives, I wonder what people will use this time for in the future? Will work start when you enter your self-driving car rather than when you arrive at work? What will the commuting experience look like?
Sometimes I get a song in my head and I just want to hear it again and again when I’m doing a specific task. When I do plank workouts, it’s Eminem’s Lose Yourself. And when I write, it’s a lyric-less song called ‘Nerve Centre’ on the Calm meditation app. I’m listening to this now, too late on Thursday night, because I can’t sleep.
Tomorrow is bitter sweet. For the past 2 years I’ve been principal of 3 completely different schools: An online school, a small innovative, uniquely structured, but ‘regular’ school, and an alternate school. These schools have nothing much in common except for being in the same building… and having me as Principal. After tomorrow, I’m no longer in charge of the alternate school.
I’ve been needing a change. The role has been exhausting and 2 years in it hasn’t gotten easier. It has been too much, and I always feel I’m letting at least one school down. So, although I’ll be adding some additional responsibilities, I know after 2 years, I will have more balance. But more importantly, I know I can do more for my schools and feel good about that.
So why is this bitter sweet? Where is the bitter part? I’m leaving a school with students I’ve connected with; I’m leaving a school I wish I did more for. I feel guilt that I feel relieved.
But I felt ready to quit a year ago. I was at my ropes end (figuratively only). What kept me going was my early morning fitness and meditation routine, my audio book consumption, and my healthy time restricted eating routine. Last summer, I added this daily blog. With these routines I created something outside of my work schedule that encouraged self-care. They gave me sustenance when my work scheduled didn’t.
It seems counterintuitive, that adding a bunch of extra routines helped me manage my busy schedule better, but they have strengthened my skills as an educator and a leader. I’m fitter and have more energy. I’m listening to non-fiction books that I constantly connect to my job. I reflect on my learning and life lessons here on my blog. And, I’m sure my daily meditation is helping too, although I still can’t calm my monkey brain down and concentrate on my breathing for longer than a minute, even after trying daily for over a year.
I look forward to dedicating more time to my 2 schools after tomorrow. I know this is a good thing… But Friday… Friday is going to be bitter sweet.
Where does the drive to continually ‘do more’ come from? I can’t help but wonder what we fail to accomplish because we choose to do so much? When we add something new to our metaphorical plates, do we take the time to ask, ‘what am I going to take off of my plate so that I can add this new thing’?
When layers of bureaucracy are added, our productivity decreases. When obligations increase what happens to innovation? Where does creativity go when a calendar gets filled? When we are asked to do more and more, and we comply and fill our days, what gets lost?
What are we letting go of when we keep doing more?
“A lot of companies complain that they can’t hire enough people with the skills they need. This is lazy thinking. Graham Weston, the cofounder and
chairman of managed hosting and cloud computing company Rackspace, based
in San Antonio, Texas, proudly showed me Open Cloud Academy, the
vocational school his company founded to create the workforce he needs to hire.
He told me that Rackspace hires about half of the graduates; the rest go to work
in other Internet businesses.” ~ Tim O’Reilly, WTF – What the Future
This goes well with two other quotes:
The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay. ~ Henry Ford
And,
Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to. ~ Sir Richard Branson
When I think of Tim O’Reilly’s book and his catch phrase, “Create more value than you capture”, one of the ideas here is that there is social capital that you can capture by creating a workforce that is going to help you, not just because of the money, but because they want to. Yes, good and well trained people will leave your company, but is that because of the training you provided, or the lack of support or encouragement that came during or after that training? While some occupations will keep employees for decades, many employees will work for several companies in the careers, and some of those will be competitors. Creating a positive work environment, and training staff, are essential for success. Social capital will be essential for success in the future of most organizations.
Also related:
Work is going to get much more specific and instead of job descriptions like, “A bachelor’s degree and 5 years of experience in the field,” what we will see are descriptions like, “Familiar with at least 2 coding languages and willing to learn on the job.” Or perhaps, “Portfolio evidence of a growth mindset.” Both of these suggest the person is a learner, and willing to learn on the job, with the first example having a specific skill added (in this case coding), and the second one asking for evidence of learning, rather than certification or accomplishments. That isn’t to say that certifications won’t be important, in fact certifications will become more important than degrees.
My nephew has a great job with a startup in Silicon Valley. He didn’t get the job because of his 4 year college degree, he got it because of the 18-month comprehensive training certification in the field of programming and artificial intelligence. Even then, his learning curve on the job was huge. He is and will continue to be successful because he is interested in learning and he wants to learn. He is working in a job where the expectations are high, but it is a rewarding and positive environment.
There will always be a place for university degrees and technical colleges. There will always be a need for doctors, lawyers and teachers, as well as plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Technology will remove some of these jobs, or some aspects of these jobs, but they aren’t ever fully going away. Neither will the degrees and technical training needed. But this won’t be what most work and educational pathways to work will look like in the future. For most employees in corporations and stores, both large and small, the nature of work is changing. The idea that there will be manufacturing and office jobs that don’t involve learning and training and re-training is disappearing. Employees of the future will need to be learners. They will be learning on the job, for the job, or they will be looking for a job.
Most of it is subtitled, and so be prepared to read what you are listening to. Make yourself a coffee, or pour yourself a drink, sit back and step into the lives of some people that you would not otherwise get to meet. Share in the humanity, the struggles, and the hearts of some people from many walks of life that are significantly different than yours. What does it mean to be human for people that did not grow up the same way you did?
Here is the description:
What is it that makes us human? Is it that we love, that we fight ? That we laugh ? Cry ? Our curiosity ? The quest for discovery ? Driven by these questions, filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand spent three years collecting real-life stories from 2,000 women and men in 60 countries. Working with a dedicated team of translators, journalists and cameramen, Yann captures deeply personal and emotional accounts of topics that unite us all; struggles with poverty, war, homophobia, and the future of our planet mixed with moments of love and happiness. The VOL.1 deals with the themes of love, women, work and poverty.
This is a powerful look at love, at work, and at the heart of what it means to live life bound by geographical, cultural, and economical status.
The four burner theory, as seen in this video shared below, suggests that we never actually live a balanced life, and if we do, we can never really be successful in any key areas of our lives: Family, Friends, Health, and Work.
The theory suggests that we have a limited amount of energy to distribute to these different burners, and so we need to decide where best to distribute that energy. The video also suggests that we might want to distribute that energy differently at different times in our lives.
I agree with this video in that I have seldom found balance in my life and I’ve often put one of the areas ahead of others, reducing those other areas in time commitment and overall satisfaction. However, this year I’ve also realized something else… we don’t need to accept that the limited amount of energy we have is completely fixed.
Since the start of this year, I have instituted a self-care program that has really changed my ability to give more to all 4 burners, so by giving time to a 5th burner of self-care, I have more to offer. This vlog shared my healthy living goals for 2019.
Does this mean that I’ve suddenly found balance in my life. Absolutely not! I agree with the idea that balance is not fully achievable if we want to excel in different areas of our lives. But I don’t agree that our fuel, our energy levels are fixed. I think we all know this too. Every one of us have had times when we’ve felt down, and low in energy, when trying to be successful in one area means we have nothing left for the other areas of our lives. We’ve also had times when we’ve had high energy levels and things are going great in more than one area of our lives. The question is, are these differences ones that happen to us, or do these differences happen because we create them? This year, I’ve been able to give more of myself in more areas of my life.
By taking the time to listen to audio books, and to write; by exercising more consistently than I have in over 15 years; by reducing my unhealthy snacking; and, by meditating daily for almost 10 months now, I have felt more energized, more level-headed, and more productive in other areas of my life. That said, I’m the first to admit I don’t have everything under control, I’m not perfect, and in fact I’m still my own biggest critic. The start of this calendar year was so crazy at work, I had days I just wanted to run away and move to a remote island. There were weeks where my only communication with my wife were logistical. There were days where 20 minutes on the treadmill started with 40 minutes of procrastination. But as I approach the end of September, the craziest time in the school year, I feel more on top of things than I did a year ago. I’m enjoying my family time more. I’m seeing leaps of improvement in my strength and conditioning. And I’m doing things like this daily post on a Saturday morning, while my family is still sleeping. Sunday morning, when this post goes live, I’ll be having breakfast with a friend.
The reality is that we may never have balance, but if make taking care of ourselves a priority, we have more fuel to add to the other burners in our lives.
Today was busy, but I never got into a good workflow. It’s the nature of being a principal. I had several meetings, and they all went well: an admin meeting, a parent meeting, a teacher meeting, and several meetings with students… some planned, some not. I had to organize a lunch, and I had to problem solve an issue with secretaries. I had a phone call with a vice principal about a student, and had another student visited to share work his class had done.
Another unplanned meeting with a student and parent after school went really well, but also took away some key time I had scheduled to create a form that I need to share with some online teachers in all our high schools. That form will be completed tonight or tomorrow morning before this is posted. It was the main thing on my ‘to do’ list today. That ‘to do’ list of 7 items was only down to 6 items when I left for the day. I had more unread email at the end of the day than the start of the day. Tomorrow morning the list will only be down to 5 items after I get that form done, the email will be a bit lower.
Some days you can get into a flow and check off things that need to get done, one after the next. Other days can be consumed productively yet productivity is low. The biggest challenge for me is to not let too many days like this pile up.
Email can be overwhelming. Here is something I’m thinking of trying. I plan to make this one of my email signatures, so I just have to select the signature, when appropriate, and hit ‘send’… Then move on.
Please help me make it better!
– – – – –
Greetings,
This is a generic email response to your email below. I receive over 150 emails a day. In my role, running 3 schools, I spend a lot of time away from my desk. This is one of my attempts to direct more of my energy towards my students and teachers, and other parts of my job that should matter more than responding to emails.
If you are receiving this email, please know that:
I read your email.
I thought you deserved a response.
I’m not interested in pursuing what you are offering, or following up on this matter beyond this email.
I am not interested in a response to this email.
Please accept this email with the positive intent with which I sent it… an opportunity to politely respond, while also minimizing the onslaught of emails and email conversations that I receive daily.
Regards, Dave.
Think Good Thoughts, Say Good Words, Do Good Deeds.
– – – – –
Objective: Reduce interactions
• If I don’t respond, I get a follow-up email.
• If I do respond, I get a follow-up response… even a ‘Thank you’ means one more email to look at.
What do you think? Also, what other email strategies work for you?
I just read an article: Vacations won’t help your burnout, which states: “…many of us stress out at work as we prepare to take a vacation, only to face a pile of things to do when we return. What’s better? Carving out small slices of relaxation every day.”
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a customer, when I worked as a manager.
I was working at a tiny Starbucks on Denman, not far from Davie Street, across from ‘The beaches”, in downtown Vancouver. Two doors down was a shoe repair shop. The cobbler worked 6 days a week, and he came in for a triple-tall latte, 2 times a day.
One day we were chatting about vacations and I said something like, “I’m not trying to lose you as a customer, but do you realize that if you didn’t have your 2 coffees a day, you could have a pretty amazing holiday with your wife and kids each year, for the cost of those coffees?”
He took a sip, held up his personal Starbucks logo mug he always used, and said pointing to the cup, “Dave, this is a holiday in a cup, and I get it twice a day!”
How do you, or can you, create your own daily ‘holiday in a cup’?
