There are two core abilities to thrive in the be economy:
1. Master hard things quickly.
2. Produce at an elite level; quality and speed important.
Above all, however, you need to produce!
You need to have a routine of deliberate practice; focus on a specific skill; get feedback so you can tune your attention to where is most productive.
Busyness (responsible to messages quickly) does not equal productivity. In fact, this is more in line with taylorism. Taylorism is when Frederick Taylor timed people doing their jobs at the beginning of the industrial revolution looking for high to make it more efficient.
Gallagher (science writer – ‘Rapt’) theory tells us that your world is the outcome of what you pay attention to!!!!
Flow – an activity with flow should have built-in goals, feedback rules, and challenges.
Humanity are happiest when in a state of flow.
Note that flow is generated by Deep Work.
Deep Work helps to extract meaning from any job.
Eudaimonia = philosopher Aristotle used it as a broad concept to describe the highest good humans could strive toward – or a life ‘well lived’.
You only have a finite pool of will power.
Batching – schedule time each day for shallow tasks wh. Socializing, emails, IM etc
When planning tasks in shallow and deep, categorize them into what are the end outcomes. Larger outcomes should equal deep Work .
Approach for Me: just a rhythmic approach, in that schedule a ,90 minute session each day to one single task. Extend this to six 90 minute sessions at the weekend. Which will equate to 11 sessions each week.
Create rituals and habits and follow this
Furthermore, never wait for inspiration.
My Deep Work ritual looks like this:
a. Glass of water and 4 minute meditation and stretch
b. Brown noise
c. iPad and laptop ready and charged
d. Work for 90 minutes without interruption or break.
e. Work at the table in the house with computer connected to the laptop.
f. When the 90 minutes is up, summarize what was completed.
Thinking time. Schedule 90 minutes on a Sunday to, wake up early and walk and talk or listen to podcast on the Riverside.
For some projects find someone to collaborate with!
The 4 Disciplines
1. Use 4Dx or the magic of thinking big to set amazing goals as well as deadlines for these goals.
2. You need to track the hours you work and the impact this has on? I.e. input and output.
3. When a result is acheived highlight it on the spreadsheet tracker
4. Finally, you need to review what you accomplished each week. After the review eek out what caused the better performance and identify what you could do better.
Down time – you need complete escape from work everyday. This increases seeing your tasks from a different angle. This is best served by embracing nature – leading to ART attention restoration theory. Try not to work in the evenings where possible. For example I will not do any deep work on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s. This also applies to shallow work any night of the week.
Shut down ritual – similar to the start up, except perform a review of what you accomplished and what you still need to do. At the end say something like ‘Shutdown complete’.
You need to train your brain to be able to do deep work. You need to practice resisting urges!
Schedule times to play games or browse online.
Practiced meditation – when walking to and from work, use this time to unpack a professional problem e.g. coaching or literacy. Break this think time down into task variables e.g. for planning a lesson think about the learning outcomes or instructional activities. Once the variables are identified, then associate a question linked to them. E.g. how will this activity use UDL. Finally review the results before moving on.
Memory training for a deck of cards- taken from the memory champion Ron White
1. Memorize 5 rooms in your home
2. Picture 10 large things in each room in order e.g. TV or sofa – in order of how you would scan a room. Two items can be from the hall way
3. Now associate each card in a deck with a memorable person or thing. They should have some connection to that card. E.g Emperor Palpatine could be the the king of Spades, with other Empire characters being associated with spades (dark energy).
4. After step 3 is memorized then associate the person with the object in each room, again in order. So if the front door of the house is opened first and the door is associate with Luke Skywalker, who is the ace of diamonds (sky and Lucy in the sky with diamonds) – use scenes
Craftsman approach.
Identify the core factors that determine success in happiness in my professional and personal life. Only adopt tools if it has positive impacts on these factors under these are where the negative impacts.
For me the happiness of my professional life would be autonomy using a technology, working with more adults but also working with kids from time to time. Furthermore, I would pursue a responsibility position and with many different projects on the go I have a flat leadership style. Regarding the personal life, it is being with my wife also in a hot country exercising regularly eating well and not drinking. Furthermore, again on personal life, is reading constantly learning I’m having a family and pets on a place to call home. The goal should be general like for example to be an effective teacher.
Goal = to be an effective teacher
Key Activities supporting these goals = research inquiry based learning / androgogy for adults / ISTE trainer / literacy workshops / use data on a regular basis to inform teaching / give less but more meaningful feedback / use UBD
Hours of work per week? Set a limit in hours and then work backwards to allocate time for each task eg. 60 hours per week