New Year = New Goals

The new year brings us a chance to reflect and renew for the upcoming calendar year.

Fortunately, in my line of work, I am able to 'regroup' on several cycles (academic calendar at school, seasonal catalogs for my direct sales business, calendar year).  But a disadvantage to that is that I never quite feel like I get my feet under me to get the ball rolling.

 I may not be completely organized (or even partially organized) but with new gusto I will send my TOP 5 goals for the upcoming year.  Putting them here will, I hope, keep me accountable, and will also help me to check in on a regular basis (and reset if necessary, despite the calendar I'm currently on).

#1 Get my financial house in order:  With a monthly budget (and sticking to it! *note, the spreadsheet link has fictional numbers), attending Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University this January, consolidating the debt with a home equity loan, and sticking to the envelope system, I have a big mountain to climb.  But I am determined and I hope that during the first 9 weeks of the year, I will be able to make great strides on this!  I consider this as a birthday present to myself - and a goal I'd like to make significant progress on in 2014.  The nerd in me is making some graphs and timelines and spreadsheets to wrap my brain around it, but I hope attending the class (with my beau) will also allow me not to complete this in isolation.  It's difficult to complete any task, let alone one that has a lot of emotional value, but I feel that this is my Number One priority this year, for the benefit of my family.  Getting expenses under control will also help focus on what the income needs are - especially on some of those 'fringe' jobs I have - and give me a goal on what those areas should bring in.

#2 Manage my time better: This one will be a tough one to actually benchmark.  It's a lofty goal, that will be able to be worked on in all the facets of my life.  I do have my favorite product (and comparable app for my phone) that I use frequently at school.  Read about it here on a previous blog HERE.  I shared the second one with a colleague at school, who worked with students who needed visual cues and lead time.  I also have found that I have been using my phone app more often - but not sharing it with the kids as often (for cleanup, reading, etc).  For the upcoming year, I'd like to be working more on an internal clock that this one, but also focus on a task at a time and give it my all.  If I am focused on a task, I can actually become quite OCD.  But if I have a long list (like cleaning or organizing my house) I notice that I can work for long periods of time, but it doesn't appear that I get much done, mostly because I flit from room to room and never quite get one section 'completed'.  I think I'll focus specifically on a 15-minute cleanup daily before I leave for work, cleaning off my desk each time I use it (both at home and at school), and working on school work for no more than 60 minutes at home.

#3 Focus on Family: Now that my kids are getting older, they are venturing out in their own interests.  As mom, I feel like it's partially my responsibility to remind them of the importance of family and family time.  Unfortunately, with some technical difficulties, one of our true family time events has been disrupted (watching movies together), but I hope to actually get that rectified today.  I also feel it's important for the kids to set (and strive towards) goals themselves, so we also are sitting down today to write down those goals and post them in their room.  Our goals are thematic:  academic, scouting, health/fitness/athletic, recreational/extra-curricular, and personal.  I'm curious as to what they decide as well as helping them create a timeline and smaller goals to reach the big picture.  Personally, I am setting aside one-on-one time each day with each kid and a 'date night' once a week. 

#4 Clutter Control: This tends to be part of issue with goal #2.  I have intention to clean an area, then it immediately seems overwhelmed by chaos (hence the title of this blog).  My two most recent chaos areas are the kitchen and the dining room/office.  I have been essentially 'banned' from the kitchen (no one likes my cooking, so I have relinquished that duty) but not it's clean up.  Some might say that I am giving up control, which is a HUGE step for me!   But some of the routine is just having a place for everything, and returning it when it's taken out.  So the control and the reminders may still be in place (putting items in the trash instead of leaving them on the counter, dishes in the dishwasher instead of in the sink).  The dining room is my undoing.  I have found that going vertical is helpful, as is stylish storage.  Because we use the same space as an office, a library, and a dining room, the table tends to be overrun with papers, books, and a serious catch-all for mostly MY stuff.  As I stated in Goal #2, a 15-minute clean before work as well as cleaning off the desk and table each night will be my benchmarks.  I should even rate myself weekly.  That would be motivation!  Of course, one thing I do need to remember to do is photograph the 'before' and the 'after' of my projects.  I would like to take one one 'minor project' each week (like a junk drawer, or a linen closet) and one 'major project' each week (like a child's bedroom or the basement family room).  I am reserving the garage for Spring Break.  That will certainly be a proud moment to post that 'after' picture! 

#5 Be Grateful: Though I saved this goal for last, it is certainly the most important.  I don't thank people enough.  I don't tell them how much I appreciate them enough.  I don't live in the moment enough.  And I think 2014, despite all my other goals, should center around an attitude of gratitude.  I will thank more people.  I will tell more people what they mean to me.  I will live in the moment more. 

Our close and extended family had a rocky 2013, from a health perspective, employment perspective, academic perspective, but the outlook is bright for the coming year.  We had many people support us and our endeavors last year, and this year, we are making effective progress towards that end. 

So cheers to you and your family!  Wishing you health, prosperity, and love in 2014!

Visual Timer - my favorite clock!

One of my most favorite finds is my VISUAL TIMER that I use both at home and at school.  It has become a HUGE time management component of my eighth graders as well as the contingent I had during July in summer school.  It's sitting across from me RIGHT NOW as I type this as well!

I first saw this from Alejandra's YouTube site  http://www.youtube.com/user/HomeOrganizing and her own website.  She has some great ideas and I needed to find ways to structure my own time at home and in the classroom - to fight off those time vampires (Facebook, Email, etc) to put myself on a schedule to get things done.

My timer can be set up to sixty minutes by just sliding the plastic disk to the desired time.  Unfortunately, my students enjoy setting and resetting (especially when they're NOT supposed to!) but it since it always 'beeps' four times then stops, you don't have to stop what you're doing to turn it off. That makes it convenient to wrap up stuff and then reset it to the next option.  I like that better than other types of timers that keep going until you turn them off.  My colleagues like this one over my 'bus duty' alarm on my phone that sounds like the fire alarm.  (If I leave my phone on my desk in the morning...it continues to go off...oops!)

I also like the fact that it's NOT an overhead model.  I can prop it up on the chalkboard tray and kids in the back of the room can see it.  It also shows the time remaining in an ANALOG way... something that my kids are quite week at in this digital age (It's depressing how many fourteen-year-olds CAN'T tell time on my analog clock!!  I also still use the timer app on my phone, both this type of version and a digital version, but I'm in LOVE with this timer!  I hope to post pictures of it IN ACTION during my lab stations this year.

I bought my two from Amazon, but you can also find information about timers like these at Timetimer.com 

Enjoy! - Stefani

Top 5 to do

Back from a family-filled and relaxing vacation, and swamped with catching up on life now that I'm back home, I figured that an appropriate blog post world be about my TOP 5 on my to-do list. 

Though this changes practically daily, it gives me both immediate gratification of checking those things off my list, as well as slowing chipping away at the larger items by breaking them down into more manageable tasks.  I am a HUGE fan of checking items off of a list or erasing them off a white-board.  I am queen of the post-it notes (almost to the point of being an addict).  I think the one thing that's actually throwing 'my game' right now, is that I've had to change my systems for the last 2 weeks while being gone, and it's taking me a bit to get back into the routine.

Now, back to the list.  For example, today's TOP FIVE list consists of:

1) Wash vacation laundry (an all day task, made easier by the timer app on my phone that lets me know when both washer and dryer are done.  I am IN LOVE with this app!)

2) Pay/Record Bills (the mail was on hold until today, so this will be interesting once my mailman shows up!  Fortunately, I was able to manage both my direct deposit and schedule some bill payments while on the road via a banking app.  Love technology!)

3) Pack boys and myself for scout camp (no app for this.  However, it is broken into two phases:  kid packs; mom checks.  An all day event)

4) Make customer service calls for my home-business and catch-up on e-mails.

5) Visit my neighbor who just retired yesterday.  (ready for this since my first cup of coffee this morning, but SHE'S NOT HOME!!!)

When I'm feeling particularly sluggish or need a good pick-me up, I often make a top 10 list, but have very menial tasks or individual portions of a larger task.  This might seem mundane, but it really helps me feel accomplished during the day.  A sense of satisfaction and accomplishment can go a long way! 

Now, back to checking those things off my list!

- Stefani

QR Coding! Smart phones to the rescue!

In the last several years, technology has taken a stronger hold of both our students as well as our own lives.  Our district has both an online grading system and school/teacher pages in which homework and other assignments are documented in real time.  This has been both a blessing and a hindrance to my student's (and my own) organization.

Firstly, when we were 'forced' to use the online grading book, I tried to maintain my old 'paper and pencil' system, but found it difficult to do both adequately, so I abandoned the traditional spiral gradebook.  WHAT A MISTAKE!!!  Doing everything on the provided computer system didn't allow be to color code items as I wanted, sort items as I wanted, or tab things as I wanted... and I found myself spending MORE time following through on grading and making MORE mistakes than I care to admit.

What was helpful was being able to email an entire class at once that grades were updated, or individual students with their progress report.  It also was helpful to refer parents to this program (unfortunately, most didn't access it regularly, but those who did it became a valuable resource).

Looking ahead to next fall, I found a QR code site (http://barcode.tec-it.com/) where I could create my own codes that can be scanned using an app on a smart phone or ipod that could take students and parents DIRECTLY to the page I want.  This is quite helpful for both the grading program, but also for the classroom webpage, and even in the future, on worksheets or labs for video or other support material online.  I plan on distributing both of these graphics via business cards and address labels that I had created at Vistaprint will be added to my students Interactive Notebooks and handed out at Open House and Parent Conferences.  Conveniently, I had some great discounts that I could get a TON of business cards for a very low price.

Some battles we as parents and educators will need to tackle, of course, is appropriate use of said smart devices.  Etiquette with these devices have, in my opinion, taken a nose-dive in the last 10 years to the point that my current students don't have any role models of what might be deemed as appropriate behaviors.  This sometimes is just swept under the rug as a 'NO ELECTRONICS' policy thoughout the entire school.  However, with the use of electronic readers and the large array of age-appropriate academic apps available, it seems as though we should be modeling usage rather than condemning it.  This, certainly, is a much more difficult battle, but one whose time has come.

Regardless, I'm super psyched about these QR codes and what I will be able to do with them in the future!