Doc’s Sunrise Rants

Scheduling makes people crazy. Once the schedule is compromised by unexpected events, the beholder of said schedule loses focus, can’t reorganize quickly, and often gives up.

It’s better to instill a discipline of organization and goal setting, tying these skills to time management.

Young children depend on their parents to organize the details of their lives, but they can begin to learn how to manage their time by first learning to follow directions. Very young children learn to complete one task; as they age, additional tasks are added. Learning to process a list of instructions develops the thought process needed to organize.

Cooking with children teaches them not only a basic life skill, but how to process a list of instructions. Gather the materials first, and then complete each task in order. Scholastic publishes a book for teachers called “Follow The Directions“, which contains a list of exercises, each one more complicated, aimed at grades 2-5 or so. It covers an entire year. I used it as a basis to make my own daily exercises, generating ‘directives’ that were much like scavenger hunts - utilizing different curriculum areas, like geography (using a series of instructions, find a particular place), math, history, science.

From the time my children were very small, I made them visualize tasks before attempting them. We would verbally go through a task before starting, listing the materials we needed, the series of steps and in what order they needed to be completed in, and then we would set upon the task, making verbal reminders as necessary. Today, my kids are very good at gathering the tools needed for a project, and silently visualizing the series of steps they need to complete. They tell me they often go through their day before getting up, just making a mental “list” of what they wanted to accomplish.

It’s easier to make organization a habit than to retrain the unorganized.

One important attribute I want my kids to have is self motivation. I want them to feel they’ve accomplished something important, and be proud of themselves, and have that be the reward - not the constant need for outside positive reinforcement. I see too much reward for mediocrity. Huge amounts of praise whenever a child does the expected. Life doesn’t work like that. We aren’t rewarded for every task we complete. Self esteem comes from feeling good about ones self, not from feeling good about what everyone else thinks. I’ve always praised and rewarded my children for exceptional work. I acknowledge expected work with a simple “thank you”. I expect my children to contribute because that’s how families (and society) works best, which each member contributing what is needed to get a job done. No allowance for chores. No special rewards for doing the expected.

Time management is easier to maintain than a rigid schedule. Time management allows for unexpected developments. Setting priorities and goal setting ensures the most important tasks are accomplished.

I use a dayplanner (my preferred tool is dayrunner, although I still like Franklin). My kids use regular small cheap datebooks and make lists each day. Crossing off tasks gives them a sense of accomplishment. That is the reward. I’ve seen them add silly things like “eat lunch”, just so they can have a larger crossed off portion each day. Hey, that’s fine. It does allow them to make dated entries for things they must accomplish or do, without having an hourly schedule (which I prefer, but I’m way more anal than the average goal-setter). Tasks not accomplished are either transferred to the next day, or accepted as unable to accomplish. That’s another good skill to learn - accepting defeat. It teaches the learner to set realistic goals.

I went to a time management class, a long time ago, when I was still forced to work for a living. It was based on that book about habits for highly successful people. Obviously that part didn’t make much of an impact on me. The second part of the class used the Franklin Day Planner and taught us how to set priorities and long term goals. That part changed my life.

I never considered myself very organized. I didn’t set goals. I scheduled my life, got off track, went berserk, fought fires, never got anything done, and certainly wasn’t getting ahead in my personal or professional life. Each day was a repeat of the last.

Once I learned to set goals, I did it daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. I set aside a small period of each day to consider my goals. In the beginning, this took 1/2 an hour. Now, maybe 5 minutes.

Separately, I “schedule” schoolwork, appointments, and personal obligations such as grocery shopping and meal planning. Yeah, I have different forms for each of these activities. I am a huge proponent of notebooks. I have a dayplanner, a school notebook, and a household notebook. Each contains a generic calendar with all dated appointments. Each contains separate planning forms. I spend about an hour a week combined, with all three. Actually, I have an additional notebook for farm planning.

Goal planning teaches time management. It teaches one to prioritize. There’s only so many hours in a day, and important tasks should be completed first.

There are plenty of software programs for these tasks. I personally haven’t found one I liked; that I could customize enough to suit me. It’s pretty easy to find forms online, or make your own. I have several sources listed here. Additionally, Flylady has resources for household goal setting. For my farm, I use a software program called “MyFarm“.

Having a day planner allows you to see at a glance when you need to be a certain place, but beyond that, their value is in setting specific goals to accomplish (not when, but how). The goal setting process (below) can be transferred to the day planner and thereby reminding the goal setter of specific priorities.

I use other goal planning sheets on my computer. Some simple templates are included as a download here, but anyone could easily make their own customized documents. Some people don’t need such an organized bunch of paperwork, but I find it necessary in teaching teens how to organize their time.

There are two parts to time management and the student.

Goals and expectations. Goals are long term “improvements” to expectations. Expectations are just that - activities that are scheduled. School work, chores, family time, sports, volunteer activities, hobbies, and clubs are examples of expectations. Assigning priority to expectations into blocks of available time teaches time management. It teaches that sometimes, you can’t do everything. Priorities come first.

For K-8, I made a master list of skills I wanted my children to be proficient in.

For high school, my goals were different. I wanted my children to be proficient in understanding the processes by which our society makes expectations, and to be sure they were ready to meet those expectations.

For math, I wanted my children to be proficient up to an level consistent with advanced algebra. If they chose to move farther, that’s fine. Otherwise, it’s entirely acceptable to take higher math in college. A student may actually retain more higher math if it is done in conjunction with higher philosophies of academics.

Social studies: My goal was that my children understood how our modern society evolved along with the development of societies, and how dependent they are on each other. Additionally, I want them to understand the governmental process of our country, and the basics of other models. Knowing facts and dates is not as important as understanding the role our country assumes in the big playing field of world politics. I want them to be informed on current events, not ancient events. I want them to be more than tolerant of other cultures and beliefs, I want them to understand why it’s so insulting not to be.

Language Arts: I want my children to be able to communicate in many forms, to understand and be understood. I also want them to be able to critically analyze different forms of communication, expression, and information. I want them to enjoy literature for the sake of entertainment. I want them to be able to discern fact from fiction. I want them to make informed choices.

Science: I want my children to be well versed in scientific language. I want them to have enough understanding in all disciplines of science to not be swayed by “spin”. I want them to know the difference between a theory, and a scientific theory.

Broad academic goals that can easily be broken down in to smaller tasks, each viewed as a short term goal. This is where separate curriculum choices come in. Without a long term goal though, planning for small short term goals is impossible. I could post our high school program with accompanying curriculum, but that will have to another post. And another time. These long posts wear me out.

Aside from academic goals, personal growth and responsibility is an important part of growing as an individual.

The broadest goal is that the growing teen become a functioning, happy adult.

The weekly and monthly goal setting sessions I have with my kids include aspects of both academic and personal growth towards goals.

First, I copied a list of life goals from one of those self help books. I changed some of the wording to be more applicable to teens.

Initial long term goal planning: We use a list of life goals and brainstorm possible goals. It’s not required to have goals for each category, it just make it easier to keep track of.

* Attitude:
Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? What goals can you set to improve this behavior?

* Education:
Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to achieve other goals?

* Family:
Where do you see yourself in the dynamic of your family? How do you think you can improve your dynamic?

* Financial:
What things do you need that you want to earn yourself? How will you accomplish this?

* Physical:
Are there any athletic goals you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this? Hobbies and other leisure activities?

* Public Service:
Do you want to make the world a better place by your existence? If so, how?

Then we get specific: For each category, different goals are set. The following list helps me to help them set goals.

* State each goal as a positive statement:
It’s better to say “Improve overall archery score 10 points per shoot” instead of saying “Stop coming in dead last in every shoot”

* For one goal, be very precise:
Set a certain goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you will know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.

* Set priorities:
When you have several different goals, give each a priority.

*Break large goals into a series of smaller goals. Treat each one as a separate accomplishment.

* Set performance goals, not outcome goals:
Set a goal of breaking your own personal record for the 100 yard dash instead of setting the goal of breaking the school record.

* Set realistic goals: It is important to set goals that you can achieve. It’s a learning process in itself.

* Do not set goals too low:
There’s no personal satisfaction in mediocre achievement.

Once goals are set, we then meet biweekly or monthly and discuss progress, reassign priorities, and just generally discuss how it’s going. Some things I keep in mind during these sessions:

* If the goal was achieved too easily, suggest the next one be a little harder
* If the goal took way too long to achieve, make the next goals a little easier
* If something was learned that would lead other goals to change, suggest that

In conclusion. Goals are a series of tasks to be completed. Picture a large goal and break it down into small tasks. Practice prioritizing goals with time management instead of setting a schedule.