Management Hack - Time Boundaries and Time Blocking

From HBR this article by Elizabeth Grace Saunders:

Meetings that run long or unexpected requests from colleagues can prevent you from getting an important task done, make you leave work late, or even disrupt family time. How can you set and communicate boundaries so that you feel your time is respected? Start with your calendar. Block out times when you’re commuting, taking your kids to school, or when you’re getting focused work done, making sure you’re marked as unavailable. Next, ensure that you’re setting meetings for an appropriate amount of time, and stick to a focused agenda. If you’re not running the meeting, tell your colleagues that you have a hard stop. You also need to manage communications. Make your preferred way of communicating — for example, email versus Slack — clear with your colleagues, and respond on your schedule, when possible. Most messages can wait! Of course, you can’t always set meetings based on your needs or dictate how people communicate with you. But the goal is to find limits that are polite on the outside and make you feel calm on the inside.

Management Hacks - Distraction

From Harvard Business Review article by Maura Thomas, this admonition to  "investigate yourself"

Dealing with endless distractions at work can be exhausting and make you feel like you never get anything done. To avoid burnout — and to accomplish thoughtful, important work — you need to combat interruptions, especially ones you’re creating yourself, such as checking your email every five minutes. Pay attention to how often and why you’re allowing your attention to be stolen. Make a note every time you find yourself switching away from a task before your intended stopping point. Then think about what caused you to be distracted and jot that down, too. Once you become aware of these cues, find ways to overcome them. For example, ask yourself what you could do to stop constantly checking Twitter on your phone, or how you could keep others from interrupting you when you’re trying to focus. Record these ideas, then look for opportunities to try them out. Keep a record of which ones were successful and which weren’t. Over time, you’ll end up with a list of tactics that will help keep you focused and give you a greater sense of accomplishment.

Does reading make us more empathetic?

This article from Stanford by Keith Oatley in 2008 says yes: 

10 Things to Say to Someone Thinking about Suicide

As part of the departmental focus on mental health of teens, here are two practical "what to say" articles:

10 Things to Say to Someone Thinking of Suicide (link)

I'd encourage you to read the entire article which explains why these are good things to say.  But here's the list:

1. “I’m so glad you told me that you’re thinking of suicide.”
2. “I’m sad you’re hurting like this.”
3. “What’s going on that makes you want to die?”
4. “When do you think you’ll act on your suicidal thoughts?”
5. “What ways do you think of killing yourself?”
6. “Do you have access to a gun?”
7. “Help is available.”
8. “What can I do to help?"
9. “I care about you, and I would be so sad if you died by suicide.”  (*be careful with this one)
10. “I hope you’ll keep talking to me about your thoughts of suicide.”

10 Things NOT to Say to someone Thinking of Suicide (link)

1. “How could you think of suicide? Your life’s not that bad.” 

2. “Don’t you know I would be devastated if you killed yourself? How could you think of hurting me like that?” 

3. “Suicide is selfish.” 

4. “Suicide is cowardly.” 

5. “You don’t mean that. You don’t really want to die.” 

6. “You have so much to live for.”

7. “Things could be worse.” 

8. “Other people have problems worse than you and they don’t want to die.” 

9. “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” 

10. “You will go to hell if you die by suicide.”  

Increase in Teen Suicide and What We can Do about it

Richard A Friedman in the NYT.
"Why Are Young Americans Killing Themselves?" (link)

"After declining for nearly two decades, the suicide rate among Americans ages 10 to 24 jumped 56 percent between 2007 and 2017, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And for the first time the gender gap in suicide has narrowed: Though the numbers of suicides are greater in males, the rates of suicide for female youths increased by 12.7 percent each year, compared with 7.1 percent for male youths.

"At the same time, the rate of teen depression shot up 63 percent, an alarming but not surprising trend given the link between suicide and depression: In 2017, 13 percent of teens reported at least one episode of depression in the past year, compared with 8 percent of teens in 2007, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

...

"To start, we need a major public campaign to educate parents and teachers to recognize depression in young people and to learn about the warning signs of suicide — like a sudden change in behavior, talking or writing about suicide, and giving away prized possessions. We should have universal screening of teenagers at school, with parental consent, to identify those who are suffering from depression and who are at risk of suicide. And we have to provide adequate funding and resources to match the mental health needs of our young people.

"Every day, 16 young people die from suicide. What are we waiting for? 

See also the Pew Educational Trust study.

Time-boxing

Harvard Business Review article on Time-Boxing by Marc Zao-Sanders speaking about the importance of ditch to-do lists for time-boxing.

I converted from my religiously observed to-do list (daily work plan) to this calendar system, also known as timeboxing (a term borrowed from agile project management). All five of Markovitz’s criticisms of to-do lists have manifested for me. In a study we conducted of 100 productivity hacks, timeboxing was ranked as the most useful. And over the last few years, I have also discovered several additional benefits of timeboxing, which I would like to share.
First, timeboxing into a calendar enables the relative positioning of work. If you know that a promotional video has to go live on a Tuesday and that the production team needs 72 hours to work on your copy edits, then you know when to place the timebox. In fact, you know where to place the timebox: it’s visual, intuitive, obvious. Working hard and trying your best is sometimes not actually what’s required; the alternative — getting the right thing done at the right time — is a better outcome for all.

Read whole article here.

Give Students New Things to Love

David Brooks, in an article called "Students Learn From People They Love" writes about how we teach attitudes towards our subjects:

“…a key job of a school is to give students new things to love — an exciting field of study, new friends. It reminded us that what teachers really teach is themselves — their contagious passion for their subjects and students. It reminded us that children learn from people they love, and that love in this context means willing the good of another, and offering active care for the whole person.”

Read article here

Reminds me of Fred Rogers

"If adults can show what they love in front of kids, there’ll be some child who says, ‘I’d like to be like that!’ or ‘I’d like to do that!’” said Fred Rogers. He told a story about a sculptor in a nursery school he was working in when he was getting his master’s degree in child development:

"There was a man who would come every week to sculpt in front of the kids. The director said, “I don’t want you to teach sculpting, I want you to do what you do and love it in front of the children.” During that year, clay was never used more imaginatively, before or after…. A great gift of any adult to a child, it seems to me, is to love what you do in front of the child. I mean, if you love to bicycle, if you love to repair things, do that in front of the children. Let them catch the attitude that that’s fun. Because you know, attitudes are caught, not taught"