The mother in law is still here. We just had an awesome early pirate birthday party for my little guy. Kimberly from Scanlon Speech Therapy generously offered to fill in for me while I am entertaining my mother in law.
One thing I'm always trying to do is get more organized. I love her practical suggestions for how you can increase your productivity during the next school year!
Twice a year I feel particularly motivated to do more and be
better. Usually, it’s at the start of a new year and at the end of the summer
when school’s about to begin. Even though I haven’t worked in a school district
for about 3 years and don’t have any children in school, this change in season
from relaxing vacation mood to eager beaver school mode is the perfect time for
me to renew, refresh and get things done! Here are 5 ways to help us be more
productive! Let’s get started.
1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (or File Away) Your
Clutter.
Clutter is distracting and reduces your productivity. Since
I’ve had a child, I’ve fallen into a VERY bad habit of cluttering my home
office desk with paper. My mentality is, “Oh, I’ll get to it later.” When later
finally rolls around and I’m looking for a bill to pay or an article to read,
it takes twice as long to locate. Hence, I’ve tried to make every effort to
reduce (throw out!), reuse (“Can I do anything else with these cardboard boxes
from Amazon?”), recycle (donate) and file away all those papers. In my home office,
I have started to:
·
Throw out junk mail or brochures that I’m not
going to read
·
Set up automatic bill pay and or pay bills
immediately
·
File away papers or articles that I need or want
to read. One day, I hope to make my organizational system prettier, but if it’s
working, why tinker? These relatively inexpensive file organizers from Staples
work well for me:
I store all my speech therapy toys, products, and materials
at my work office. Since I like to buy new “speech stuff” more often than I
like to admit, I have vowed to go through all my materials at least twice a
year. I recycle (donate) any speech therapy games, toys, or materials that I
have not used in several months. Rotating my toys and games is also beneficial
because it encourages me to use everything that I have. Kim Rowe of Little
Stories has written a fantastic blog post on
How to Rotate Toys.
A general rule of thumb is that if you haven’t used
something in 6 months to a year, than you probably won’t. Reduce, reuse, and
recycle your way to better productivity!
1. Keep it Simple.
Keeping it simple saves you time. Several years ago, when I
was going through a “get yourself organized” phase (like I said, I have these
episodes about twice a year), I took a trip to the awe-inspiring – Container
Store. If you know this store, you’re aware that it’s probably one of the most
over-priced but well-marketed stores - EVER. It’s folks like me who end up with
a shopping cart loaded with stuff within 5 minutes. For one reason or another,
I thought it was a fantastic idea to organize my sock drawer with one of these
fancy sock section apparatuses – looks something like this:
What a waste of time. Carefully stowing my socks in each
square after doing the laundry was painstakingly slow. It took much longer to
put the socks away then it did to find them. So, I recycled it.
Lesson learned – Devise a simple organizational system that
maintaining is not going to be too time consuming, stressful, or involved. Make
commonly used items easily accessible and visible. For me, this means keeping
the articulation books on the top stack of my workbooks and keeping the less
frequently used ones on the bottom.
1. Take the 5 minute challenge.
Sometimes just starting something is the hardest part. I
feel this way about working out. If you have a report to write, a score to
test, or other tasks to do but keep putting them off, take the 5 minute challenge.
Set a timer and START. Tell yourself, “I’m only going to work on it for 5
minutes.” This will give you that incentive to start. It’s amazing how much you
can accomplish in just 5 minutes. But more importantly, many times once you
start an odious task and your juices are flowing, you’re more likely to
continue working past the 5 minutes.
1. Have specific, measurable goals
As SLPs we’re great at writing goals and objectives. Why not
write some for ourselves? When you have a huge task to accomplish or a long term
goal to achieve, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The only way you’re going to
complete big projects is to break it down into smaller steps. Similar to how we
write our speech and language goals make yours specific, measurable and
realistic. For instance, if you have a tedious report to write, try the
following:
·
Will score 1 or 2 standardized tests before
lunch
·
Will record all the relevant case
history/background information during homeroom
·
Will complete the classroom observation section during
my break
·
Will proofread while I wait for Johnny to come
for speech
Not a speech therapist? Rather, you’re a mom who has a house
to clean and a party to plan? How about:
·
Will fold the laundry while Sandy plays in her
playroom
·
Will order (or, oh gosh start to prepare?) the
food for Bella’s party while she is taking her nap
·
Will respond to 3 emails while I sip my coffee
(this one’s my favorite!)
·
Will wash the dishes before I leave to pick up
Ben from school
Can you think of
more? Please comment below!
1. Be present in the moment.
The best time saving tip I can share is one that accidently
presented itself to me. While taking my daughter for an afternoon walk, I
selfishly decided to quickly “check” Facebook via the app on my iPhone 4s. You
guessed it. I was juggling too many things and dropped my phone. The screen
cracked. Bye bye 4s and hello 5 (FYI – there’s not much of a difference). Since
I’m not tech savvy, I haven’t transferred over all my apps onto my new phone. Yes,
that includes also those nifty social media apps for Facebook, twitter,
LinkedIn, Pinterest. I no longer have instant access to check my social media.
This has been a blessing in disguise. I’m significantly less inclined to
randomly check status updates. This in turn has improved my productivity but
more importantly allowed me to enjoy being in the present. If you’re getting
obsessed and distracted by social media, delete the apps on your phone! Need
more motivation, read these posts:
I hope these
strategies help you. Best of luck in the new school year!
Kimberly
Scanlon, M.A. CCC-SLP, is a speech language pathologist practicing in Bergen
County, NJ. In addition to running a small private practice, Scanlon Speech
Therapy, LLC, she is a devoted mom, wife and dog lover. She blogs over at www.scanlonspeech.com and www.mytoddlertalks.com. Recently, she
published her first book My Toddler
Talks: Strategies and Activities to Promote Your Child’s Language Development
and has started her second.
