How can I help?

 Parents, teachers, and managers often intervene by offering either a directive or an evaluation (i.e., judgment), apparently assuming that the only alternative is to stand by silently. But what if they asked simply, "How can I help?" - Alfie Kohn Tweet

Start Meetings with Why

 While you might assume that detailed agendas will improve your meetings, they can lead to a false sense of accomplishment. Instead of spending a lot of time and effort on the process for your meeting, think about what outcomes you want to achieve.

• Start with the why. What’s the specific purpose of this meeting? What do you hope to accomplish?
• Move on to the what. What topics, themes, and information do you need to cover? What questions do you need answered? List them out.
• Consider the who. Once you know why you’re meeting and what you hope to talk about, you can determine who needs to be there—and who doesn’t.
• Don’t overthink the how. Some goals benefit from structured, facilitated conversations. Other times, free-form conversations are sufficient. Don’t be afraid to figure out a structure in real time based on how the conversation naturally flows.
• Beware the when. It’s tempting to put time limits on everything: 10 minutes for the first topic, five minutes for the second, and so on. But it can be difficult to stick to these schedules. Instead of sharing a rigid timeline with the group, estimate how long you think things will take and use that as your own personal guide to move things along.

from Harvard Business Review

Email Process

 I’ve experimented with the following process and want to share it along with a few rules and commonplace tools that help me stay productive, meaningful, and efficient in my email exchanges. The first time you do this, it could take several hours since you may have a lot of clean up to do. But after the initial work, you’ll be able to move quickly. Typically I schedule 30 minutes in the morning, at mid-day, and in the afternoon to do email. Here’s how I use that time:

1. Send: I start my timer and begin by writing emails I had planned to send. This often includes follow-ups to meetings, thank-you notes, questions, and scheduling and other requests. I do this first so that if someone gets back to me immediately I have time to respond while I’m still in my 30-minute email period.

2. Delete: Next, I quickly glance through the “subject” and “from” lines on the emails in my inbox and immediately delete the ones I know I don’t want to waste time reading, including marketing emails and impersonal blasts I haven’t requested. This step just takes a few seconds but drastically reduces my email bulk.

3. Respond: I do my best to answer every single email that comes directly to me, even if it means just writing “Thank you.” Since picking through emails to choose which to answer first wastes time, I start with the most recent and work my way down. At this point I don’t click on any links in emails and I don’t read lengthy articles; I save that for step 5 below.

4. File: Once I open an email, I don’t leave it in my inbox. I found that when I did leave emails in my inbox, I’d re-read them repeatedly each time I opened my email, and each time I’d waste more time trying to decide how to handle it. So I either delete it or move it to another folder I’ve set up — waiting, read, someday, travel, client-specific. Every time I go through my email, my goal is to empty my inbox.

5. Read and follow up: In whatever time I have left before my timer goes off, I go through my non-inbox folders, reading through newsletters, clicking on links, and following up on emails in my “waiting” file.

End: When my countdown timer sounds, I close out my email program. Once I’m done, I don’t return to my email — on any device — until my next scheduled session.

As I go through this process, I try not to use email to give someone negative feedback, and I rarely respond to negative feedback over email. Email is a great tool for transactional conversations (Where should we have lunch?), sharing information (Here’s that file, there’s someone I want you to meet), or showing appreciation (You spoke powerfully in that meeting, I’m touched by your support — thank you). For anything else, you’re better off calling or talking to someone face to face. I also do my best never to go back and forth with someone on email about something more than two or three times. If it’s gone that far, it’s usually a better idea to pick up the phone.

There are a few commonplace tools I use that I have found helpful in moving through emails quickly:

Signatures: Most email programs have the capability to create multiple signatures that you can choose to appear at the bottom of an email. I have customized several signatures that I use as responses to common emails I receive. For example, I have a pre-written reply to people who ask about joining my company, want me to review their book, express appreciation for something I’ve written, etc. I often customize those emails based on the sender, but the bulk of my response is already written.

Rules: Most email programs also have rules in which you can automatically send emails that fit certain criteria directly to other folders. For example, when I send out my weekly email linking people to a new article I’ve written, I receive several “out of office” replies. I set up a rule that sends any email with “out of office” in the subject line directly to trash. That way I don’t have to spend any time processing it.

Timer: This is essential to staying within my 30-minute time frame. When I didn’t use a timer it was too easy to just keep going.

Developmental Conversations

 From HBR

• Make developmental conversations routine. At least once a month, check in with your employees about their growth trajectory. Questions to track include: “What are your personal developmental goals for the coming month? What are you in the process of learning? What are your career goals, and how can I help you achieve them?”

Help your team find quiet

from Harvard Business Review

Life is noisier and more distracting than ever. As a manager, how can you build a team culture that truly honors quiet time? Start by deliberately talking about it. Begin an open dialogue with your team in which each member has an opportunity to answer the following questions:

• In what ways do I create noise that negatively impacts others? The best starting point is to have everyone check-in with themselves. Encourage people to question whether any given habit is necessary or if it’s really just an unexamined impulse — a default that needs to be reset.
• What noisy habits bother me most? This isn’t an opportunity to point fingers but ask people to be honest about what most disrupts their day.
• How can I help others find the quiet time they need? This is an opportunity for everyone to step up and to commit to group norms such as “no email Fridays” or “no meeting Wednesdays.”

How to Re-Energize - purpose, to don't do wall

 

Here are some simple ways to give yourself a little boost when you’re feeling down. Write your purpose on a post-it. This might be your overall career purpose (why you’ve chosen the profession that you are in) or a micro purpose (what’s motivating you to do a great job on a particular project or task). Keep it at your desk as a constant visual reminder of why you do what you do, especially when things are exhausting or stressful. Create “a wall of encouragement.” Take any messages of encouragement, awards, positive feedback, or even memes that make you laugh and put them near your desk or store them in a digital folder. Look at them when you need to feel re-energized and appreciated. Write up a "to-don’t" list. What things are you currently doing that are sucking up your energy? Identify which ones you can stop doing and put them on a list. These might be certain people that you decide not to see, habits that you want to break, or tedious tasks that can be automated or delegated.

This tip is adapted from “Stop Trying to Manage Your Time,” by Amantha Imber

Teaching Students Healthy Tech Behaviors

 Experts stressed the need for schools to teach students healthy technology behaviors as explicitly as they teach in-person classroom behaviors and social norms. That means helping students to become mindful about:

• Physical effects: Identifying when and how technology use may change a student’s sleep, eating, or exercise routines. For example, students may learn how to schedule screen time or change color settings to improve sleep.
• Mental effects: Identifying when technology use is causing cognitive stress or emotional distress. For example, students can learn how to limit their use of social media sites that spark negative body images of themselves, or they can take breaks from screen time when they have difficulty focusing.
• Social effects: Identifying how to be a “good digital citizen,” including protecting your own and other’s privacy and behaving in civil rather than bullying ways on digital platforms. This also means teaching students how to balance in-person and online socializing.

From EdWeek - link