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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]