Well, this is one of my weakest areas. I have my work environment very organized and neat, but my home is not. Part of my problem is that I know what to do and how to do it, I just don’t seem to find the energy after working 11-16 hour days to come home and … Read more
We now have our Desk and Desktop under control. But how do we keep them under control? Better yet, how do we keep from having too much stuff coming into our lives that we allow to become clutter? Email Inbox Something that many teachers can’t seem to figure out is how to archive their old … Read more
Yesterday, we began decluttering our desk. Today, we will declutter our desktop. One of the things that drives me crazy is when I install a new program and it leaves all sorts of icons on my desktop. It also drives me crazy when I have all sorts of popup notifications in my Windows taskbar telling … Read more
I have written about having a clear desk before in passing, but here is a little bit about why to do it as well as how to do it. This is a real picture of my half of the office at work. Imagine coming to work each morning and having a nice, calm, clear workspace. … Read more
In preparing for my month-long series on 25 Tips For Less Stress, I realized that I left out a few key ingredients. If you follow all 25 tips listed, and leave out the foundational ingredients, you will still be under intense stress. If you follow the tips with little success, you may actually be under … Read more
Download the entire series in e-book format here This school year has been remarkably stress-free for me. As a middle school band director working with the non-varsity group, this is unheard of. I have come up with a list of 25 things I have done that have helped to make this happen. During the month … Read more
We’ve all been there. The beginning of the first year of teaching can be daunting, to say the least. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. First year horror stories abound. The number of teachers who quit after the first year or two of teaching matches or exceeds the number … Read more
I have spent much of last week and this week with one of the high school band directors thoroughly analyzing our marching fundamentals for the high school band. Though this really doesn’t apply directly to what I do during the school day as a middle school band director, the process we have been through to … Read more
This is the first in a series of articles entitled 5 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers. Communication Procedures Without question, one of the most essential elements of any good relationship is clear and open communication. As a teacher, practically everything that we do in the classroom is communication in one sense or another. With this … Read more
In my last post Organization Leads To Sanity, I wrote about how I personally get organized at work. In this post, I am going to give some pointers that I have and that I plan to begin implementing that will allow anyone to get and stay organized much more easily. These tips apply both to … Read more