I have a favorite coffee mug, which was given to me by a former student, that reads “Today is going to be a great day.” There is no exclamation mark, because who wants to deal with all that energy first thing in the morning? It is a calm statement of fact, and sits right below where you take a sip, so you seem to drink the idea in. On those days where I get to believe my mug, I feel accomplished, and it’s really satisfying.
Covey’s third habit, “Put First Things First” is painfully simple. It adds to his See → Do → Get paradigm that contributes to building trust first with yourself, and then with an increasing circle of friends, coworkers, and beyond. It allows you to expand your sphere of influence as people see you as a person who reliably does what he says, and those results are consistent with his values. Authenticity is an integral quality of a strong leader. My iPhone is useful to me for many reasons (Apple is quite good at creating functions I “need” my phone to do for me), the most important of which is my calendar. Whenever I leave my classroom, en route to a meeting or whatnot, people always remind me about places I need to be, or things I need to do, which without my calendar or my “Reminders” app, would drop off into another dimension far from the reaches of my memory. Not knowing what I need to do, leaves me with an uneasy feeling, like with the next step the ground is going to swallow me up -- not exactly a position of strength. However, having a list of responsibilities and meetings can still seem overwhelming, and that’s before opening the email inbox which is a whole other random to-do list. Email requests almost always fill up Quadrant 3, things that are shared with false urgency -- it may feel good to have less “unread” in the inbox, but not at the cost of living in Quadrant 2. If I want to master this habit of “integrity and execution” and be a quadrant two leader, where I can address things that I consider important (and difficult), BEFORE it becomes an urgent need, I need to focus on that end. It is imperative that I get to work fifteen minutes earlier, to take some time at the beginning and end of each workday to prioritize items on that list, playing them against my values, and as Mark Twain said, “Eat a frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Building on that, “Your “frog” is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it.” (Tracey, 2016). In an effort to have everything in one place, I also need to make sure that should I jot down notes or obligations on paper at a meeting, that I should transfer it to iCal. Ben Franklin suggested that all of this should exist in one book: for me that’s my iPhone. He also advised, “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” If I prioritize, I can be effective and enjoy results that I, and those I hope will follow me, can consider authentic. My students are about to go to enter the world of middle school where, with six different teachers it is going to be imperative that they organize themselves well and manage their time carefully. I intend to teach the habit of putting first things first by having them understand where each item on their to-do list sits on the four quadrant chart. By understanding that procrastination puts at risk the quality of their work, and that getting the right things done first can help them manage and avoid stress, they can strive to be Quadrant 2 middle-schoolers! References H. (2016, May 19). The Truth About Frogs. Retrieved November 07, 2016, from http://www.briantracy.com/blog/tag/eat-that-frog/
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Mike
11/9/2016 05:24:36 pm
Stephen
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