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How to Reduce Stress While Getting More Done

February 26, 2011 in Administration, Administrators, Communication, Computer, e-book, GTD, iPad, Jott, Kindle, Leadership, Outlook, Personal Development, Productivity, School Technology, Stress, Technology, Training with 3 Comments

Too much to do! Too much stress! Not enough time! More expectations! More demands! More information! More interruptions! People, meetings, calls, emails, documents, events to attend, speaking engagements, budgets, training ….. and the list goes on!

Does that sound familiar?

In today’s world, we are constantly bombarded with information, the urgent, and ever increasing expectations.

The weight upon us and the pace of our lives often leave us feeling dissatisfied, stressed,and sometimes burned-out.

There must be a better way! There is!

How I work

Over the years I have worked hard at working smarter. My goal is to increase effectiveness and to decrease stress. I make no claim to having arrived—I haven’t. I have learned to juggle the myriad demands paced upon my professional and personal life by developing habits and leveraging technology to help me work smarter.

Below is a brief summary of how I approach my work and responsibilities. If you want more detail or have a question, simply leave a comment and I will respond with more information.

How To Find Time to Focus, Think, and Work

February 5, 2011 in Creativity, e-book, Electronic Reader, innovation, iPad, Kindle, Leadership, Productivity, Research, Trends, Wisdom with 0 Comments

Future_plan_Strategy_telescope It is hard to find it hard to find time to focus, think, and work on important projects. We are constantly interrupted and distracted. The immediate crowds out the important.

In his excellent article Who Else Needs More Mental Focus?, Michael Hyatt, Chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the world’s largest Christian publisher, offers very helpful tips for improving one’s focus. (see a short excerpt and link to his article below)

I have used many of the same practices for years. In addition to Mr. Hyatt’s recommendations, I also do the following to carve out time for focus, thinking, and working on critical projects.

I schedule several hours every Friday morning off campus to focus and think. I do not come into the office. I can be reached by cell phone in an emergency but my administrative assistant has been instructed that I am not to be interrupted. This is some of the most productive time in my week.
Each year I take several days for a “Think Week.” I got this idea from Bill Gates who pulled away each year for an extended time of research, reading, and reflection. I have adopted this practice. I spend these days praying, reading, reflecting, and writing. I take a substantial amount of reading material with me. Because I use my iPad exclusively for reading I am able to carry an entire library of books and research articles with me. I read and reflect from morning to evening only interrupting my reading for eating, running, and showering. It is usually during Think Week that I come up with long-range initiative such as our BCS SMART SCHOOL program.

Click here to read Mr. Hyatt’s article, Who Else Needs More Mental Focus?

A few weeks ago, I had to prepare for a board meeting. I really needed an extended period of time to review the material and prepare my presentation. In doing this, I realized that I go through a similar pattern whenever I need to increase my mental focus and get a lot of work done in a short period of time. Here are ten tactics I use that may help you…

What do you do to improve your focus and creativity as you lead your school?

I Hate to Say It, But Told You So! :-)

January 11, 2010 in Curriculum, Digital Reader, Internet, Kindle, Productivity, Research, School Technology, Technology, Trends with 0 Comments

Dr. Barrett Mosbacker, Publisher
The title is a bit tongue in cheek but I want to update you on a major trend that I believe will have a significant impact on our schools—the rapid development, growth, and acceptance of e-publishing and e-book readers. The textbook and library as we know them may disappear or at minimum be radically transformed.

A few months ago I wrote Welcome to the Library. Say Goodbye to the Books:

Things are changing! For many years e-books have resided in the back waters of publishing. Early adopters and gadget freaks have read them but the vast majority of the population were either unaware of them or didn’t care. The lowly status of the e-book may be about to change—and radically.

Consider the latest developments:

The US Kindle Catalog is has surpassed 400,000 Books. On Saturday (Dec. 26) Amazon issued a press release announcing that on Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books." That’s exciting and seemingly newsworthy, although it is natural that this would have happened with hundreds of thousands of new Kindle owners opening their Kindles and finding nothing to read on them but a snappy welcome letter from Jeff Bezos. But that’s not to say it is not a big deal.

It is the latest in a steady flow of data points suggesting not only that Amazon is dominating both the hardware and content markets of the e-book sector but also that the e-book revolution itself is moving with stunning alacrity from its inflection point this past September to a tipping point that should occur, at the latest, in 2014.

In a separate article, Mr. Bezos, CEO of Amazon makes this statement (emphasis added):

Our vision for Kindle is to have every book ever printed, in every language, available in 60 seconds from anywhere on earth. We have worked with publishers to get the most popular books you want to read. The Kindle Store currently has more than 390,000 titles and we are adding more every day. Whether you prefer biographies, classics, investment guides, thrillers, or sci-fi, thousands of your favorite books are available. The Kindle Store offers 101 of 112 books currently found on the New York Times® Best Seller list. New York Times Best Sellers and most new releases are $9.99, and you’ll find many books for less.

In yet another news story:

Amazon.com said Monday that its Kindle e-reader has become the most gifted item in the company’s history…The online retail giant also noted that its customers purchased more Kindle e-books than physical books on Christmas Day — a first for the company. However, not everyone buying e-books from Amazon this holiday season will be reading them on dedicated Kindle devices.

Amazon has unleashed a Kindle app for the iPhone and iPod touch that users in 60 countries can download from Apple’s App Store. Moreover, in November the online retailer released a free Kindle for PC application that enables customers to read Kindle books on notebooks PCs….The new strategy makes sense in light of Forrester’s projection that e-book sales will top $500 million in 2010. "This is still small compared to the overall book market, but it’s growing quickly," Rotman Epps observed.

The potential for selling content that’s never been consumed digitally before is huge and helps to explain why Barnes & Noble recently launched its nook e-reader at the aggressive price of $259, Rotman Epps noted. Barnes & Noble’s long-term strategy is "to profit not so much off device sales as off of e-book content sales," she explained.

My Personal Experience

I confess, I am now the proud owner of a Kindle 2. My wonderful wife, with wise advice from my daughters, bought me the Kindle 2 Global Edition for Christmas. Below is a picture of my Kindle on my desk in my study with full bookshelves in the background.

After using it now for several weeks, here is my take on it; it is fantastic and not because I like technology. Simply put, it is better than a physical book. Here are some of the reasons why I like the Kindle better than traditional books.

For Good or Bad: Email No Longer Rules

October 24, 2009 in Communication, Computer, Internet, Productivity, School Technology, Social Media, Technology, Trends, Twitter with 0 Comments

Dr. Barrett Mosbacker, Publisher
See my related article: “What is Google Wave and Why Should You Care?”

From the WSJ: OCTOBER 12, 2009

Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.
In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.

We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.

Why wait for a response to an email when you get a quicker answer over instant messaging? Continue Reading…

What is Google Wave and Why Should You Care?

October 24, 2009 in Internet, Productivity, School Technology, Technology with 0 Comments

What is Wave?

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. Continue Reading…

Not So Fast: Is Technology Diminishing Our Quality of Life?

October 24, 2009 in Communication, Computer, Culture & Society, Internet, Personal Development, Productivity, Social Media, Trends, Worldview with 1 Comment

Anyone who has been reading this blog knows that I am an advocate for the appropriate and effective use of technology in our personal lives and in our schools. I am not a Luddite.

Nevertheless, I also share the conviction that technology, like many good things in our lives, can become an obsession and a cruel master. Any addiction, even to good things, is harmful and unbiblical whether it is sex, food, work, or technology.

I recently came across a beautifully written article by John Freeman in the Wall Street Journal. You can read the entire article here. If the link is broken, you can access the article in PDF format here.

Because the article is copyrighted I will not post it here but I am providing a short excerpt with the hope that you will read the entire article.

Not So Fast (August 29, 2009) WSJ Online

… We will die, that much is certain; Continue Reading…

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Disclaimer:

The views and comments expressed are those of the contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the organizations and schools they represent or The Christian School Journal. I reserve the right to redact/edit comments posted to this blog. The purpose of my blog is to foster vigorous but respectful dialog. I reserve the right not to publish or edit comments to ensure that they are not unnecessarily incendiary or disrespectful. To protect the integrity of any edited post, I will indicate the changes that I have made. Omitted text will be indicated by “ … “ and changed text with [ ]

How to Reduce Stress While Getting More Done

How To Find Time to Focus, Think, and Work