In a few weeks, most of my mornings will begin in this way: I will be at my desk getting ready for the school day, and a student will walk in and approach my desk. They will want something, and they won't be shy about asking for it. Whatever it is they want, they will want it now. What they want will be an interruption to what I'm trying to get done. I will either feel organized, prepared, and well-caffeinated and therefore ready to help; or I will still be trying to dig out from underneath the six piles of yesterday's randomness, with no real idea of what my 1st hour class, which will meet in 20 minutes, is going to look like. If the latter is the case, my help will likely be begrudging, rushed, and forgettable.
In his book What's Best Next, Matt Perman writes this:
One of the best places for efficiency is being efficient with things so that you can be effective with people. If you become more efficient with things (for example, by setting up your computer, desk, workflow system, and files to operate in the most efficient way possible), you will have more time to give to being effective with people without feeling like you are always behind on your tasks.
This is the best reason I've ever heard for getting organized.
I've been a student of leadership and motivation and personal effectiveness for many years, and there is no shortage of material out there about how to be better at doing whatever it is you want to do. But I've been slow to consider that the central purpose in getting better at getting things done is not solely for me. Yes, I can get more done when I'm efficient and organized in my tasks; more importantly, though, I can be more for those around me.
When I'm organized and effective, it doesn't feel like a burden to chat with peers in the hallways between classes. I'm not too rushed to share a cup of coffee and good conversation at the start of the day. I view students as opportunities, not obstacles. I have time to laugh and to think, especially with others. It's taken 12 years of teaching to figure out that my happiest days (because they have room for all of the above) are my most organized days. The days that go wrong, and in which I subsequently react wrongly to people, are those in which I begin scattered and maintain a state of rushed chaos as I limp to 4 pm.
And the same is true at home. I either am diligent and organized about what I want and need to get done, or I exist in the middle of 10 personal projects in various stages of completion and a mass of housecleaning chores I'm ignoring in favor of sitcom reruns. Why does this matter? Because my children awake looking for me to meet their needs. They want breakfast, and they want it their way. Some juice as well, and a Thomas the Train spoon. Then it's time for whatever activity they feel like at that particular minute, and they seek my help in preparing or participating. What they want might take a minute, ten minutes, or an hour.
I have experienced the joy of serving them and being their provider and protector, and I have experienced the maddening frustration of wanting to get ten other things done (that should already be done) but instead being "bothered" by my chattering bundles of needs. I understand now that the difference is not them and their behavior; it's me and my organization.
So I resolve (once again) to better organize my activity. This time, however, I do so with the understanding that there is much more at stake than just getting things done.
(***Previous Post on What's Best Next: Postcards and Fruit Cups: A Better Path to Goodness)
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