One school of thought in time management is that if you get the right system in place, and if you follow it well enough, then you’ll be able to do all of the things that you’re supposed to do. You can get it all done. This is not a school of thought that I subscribe […]
Main Content
Two Ways to Make It Less Complicated
In 1955, civil service worker Cyril Northcote Parkinson invented a beautiful truism called Parkinson’s Law in an article of The Economist. The law describes “the commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” While you can almost see the wry smile on his face from the tone of […]
Why Are You Grading That?
The next time you’re sitting with a stack of papers, I want you to imagine that I knock on the door, walk in, and sit down next to you (awkwardly). I put my hand on the stack of things that you’re grading, and I say, “Hey there, colleague. Question: Why are you grading that?” If […]
Doing Good v. Doing More
There are two ways of pursuing productivity. The first way asks, “How do we produce as much good as possible in our work and in our lives?” The second way asks, “How do we get as much done as possible in our work and in our lives?” I think that most of us start out […]
10 Tips for Motivating Students Toward Full Engagement in Pop-Up Debates
Recently, my students participated in their sixteenth pop-up debate of the school year. (Pop-up debates are most thoroughly treated in Chapter 4 of These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most. You can also get a quick overview of them here. While my goal each school year is to hold a […]
What to Do When You Have Lots of Ideas (and the Dangers of Proactivity)
We tend to think of proactivity as a good thing, but sometimes it’s the reason we end up burnt out and harried. Sometimes, the wisest thing to do with a good idea is to let it remain just that. What we don’t want is to be always acting but rarely thinking. Just like anything, our […]
There’s Only So Much Juice in an Orange
Some of you work constantly. You don’t add up the hours because you really don’t want to. So let me add them for you: if you’re teaching a full load and taking work home each night, you’re working anywhere from 50 to 70 hours per week. If you add weekends onto that, it could be […]
Mind the Gap
“Once we experience success on any level — increased attention from an individual or group, a promotion, funding for a project — that confidence will tend to rise too quickly, and there will be an ever-growing discrepancy between our self-opinion and reality.” Robert Greene, The Laws of Human Nature Consider three scenarios: Teacher A is […]