Thread by @FunkyPedagogy

Priorities and short cuts - a thread:
People regularly ask how I ‘do it’ because I give off the impression that I do a lot. I don’t. I’m just good at prioritising and have learned some good habits.

My priorities are: my kids, my marriage, my work. That means that, any task which is NOT about one of those three things is something I have stopped doing. I have found ways to streamline and outsource, but also to work smarter.

Here are my current short cuts to productivity:
1. Outsourced lots of household things (investing in a cleaner, for example, is the best thing we ever did). This gives me mental space and reduces stress... worth the money - am happy to forego other luxuries for this.

2. Reduce deduction fatigue.
- set weekly menu at home
- batch-cook and prep lunches
- select work outfits for the whole week in advance and hang up in wardrobe (accessories and all)

3. Write down a morning routine, with timings and follow it (this means I don’t really need to think until after I’ve had my coffee at my desk at work - I’m just following instructions until then...)

4. Use the: important/not important, urgent/non-urgent grid as a to-do list. Game changer.

Everything on my to-do list has a maximum time allocated to it and I try as far as possible to stick to it. If I’ve set myself a time target I’m more likely to do something efficiently.

5. Life events where there is potential mum guilt for getting it ‘wrong’ (birthdays etc.) I get a cake professionally made. I can’t bake, but this is something I CAN do. I don’t buy expensive presents - cake is something which we will all enjoy - experiences over stuff.

6. I write all emails when I want to work, but schedule them for an appropriate time. Just because I’m working at 11pm on a Sunday that doesn’t mean someone else should be too.

7. I automate some tweets - things about my projects, blog, CPD etc. using Tweetdeck. You might see a reminder for CPD come out 30 mins before it starts, but I’m ACTUALLY reading to my kids - I scheduled that tweet three days earlier when I had the time.

8. I’ve prioritised educating myself about using various platforms (Eventbrite, Zoom, Wordpress, Vimeo) so that I’m doing things in an efficient way and not wasting time. Knowledge is power.

9. Dominate your controllables: this is our family motto (it’s corny, but we’re a bit like that in our house 😂). Act when you CAN act, do what you CAN do, and then you’ll be in a better position to deal with the things you can’t control.

10. All the time, no matter how many plates I’m spinning, I’m thinking: what is actually helping me achieve my goals? What is my biggest barrier?

Cut out or outsource the barriers 🤷‍♀️

This is what works for me...

Any other ideas, edu-types?

Oooohh and one final one - we have this ‘family command centre’ in our kitchen. Monthly write-on calendar, shopping list, important post/documents etc. And we have a shared google calendar - if it’s not written down, it doesn’t happen.