Thursday, March 30, 2017

#SOL17 Small Things 30/31

2017 is the tenth year of the Slice of Life Story Challenge hosted by Two Writing Teachers, The goal is to write and post a "slice of life" story every day during the month of March. My seventh graders are also participating in a slimmed down version of the challenge, writing 10 slices during the month.

Slice of Life: Small Things


Why are small things to hard to do?

Today, I polished my shoes. ALL of my shoes, actually. I can't remember the last time that I polished any of my shoes. I know it has been an item on the weekly part of my bullet journal's task lists at least since I started my current notebook (which was in January). But each week I'd simply migrate it along to the next list and leave it sitting there.


What is it about these small, tiny, totally do-able tasks that keeps them from getting done?

Sometimes it's just plain fatigue. Teaching kids and being on top of your game takes a lot out of you. Some days I come home and collapse. The mental energy required to do anything more than basic functions can seem like too much. Shoe polishing? Hopeless.

Other days I come home, still full of energy, but none of that energy gets spent on shoes. (For ideas, see: Procrastination Productivity or a list of things that got done while I tried to write this post.) Sort of like how the only time my dishwasher gets immediately emptied is when I am supposed to be grading papers or writing report cards.

I'm sure you're familiar with the chart. The one where you draw two axes: one for urgent vs. not urgent and the other for important vs. less important. I would put shoe polishing squarely in the not urgent but still reasonably important quadrant. That's the one where tasks go to die. Where we spend our time worrying about the urgent things (whether they are important or not) and neglect to come back to those less urgent, deadline-free things.

Even with the self-imposed deadlines of my bullet journal, I still find it hard to overcome the inertia required to deal with those kinds of items. Polish the shoes. Brush the cat thoroughly. Return that email to a friend. Finish the most recent scrapbook comments.

But at least with an external deadline, I've got this post written and shared ...

(Click here to read my previous Slice of Life Challenge posts.)

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