De-Cluttering My Office: Best Decision Ever

Yesterday was my first work day in the office I had roughly de-cluttered over the weekend.  It was awesome.

It’s like taking some flotsam out of the office has cleared it out of my mind too.  Working was just so much easier without unconsciously fighting the resistance of Stuff.

I’m also glad to say that I’m about halfway done with my follow-up lists and have hope of finishing this evening.

Here’s to making your work environment work for you!

Unofficial Office Clean-Up

I popped into the office this weekend for some uninterrupted office maintenance time.

A Messy Office by Beth77 on Flickr

Basically, it’s a medium-small office that lots of people use throughout the week, and I’m in charge of it.  I do a pretty good job of keeping the day-to-day stuff under control, but it was feeling cluttered.  And why organize what I could just toss?

I decided to attack the stuff that had no discernible use but still took up space.  It was a single-minded stuff-reduction rampage.  And it was beautiful.

The rampaging actually only took an hour and half.  I spent another uninterrupted hour and a half dealing with statistics (learner hours, etc.) and am proud to report that they’re soundly under control.

The Desk! It's...neat! by Rae Whitlock on Flickr

How I made the most of clean-up time:

• I made sure there were no distractions.
• I went for a huge, noticeable impact, inspired by the 80/20 rule and my mother.
• I only set two goals.
• My follow-up plan is written down: a list and a few neatly labeled piles.

Successful and satisfying.

It would be great to hear about other successes in office wrangling!

From Godin’s Tribe Building: Surprise Them

Item #21: Go Somewhere Different – e.g. Surprise the heck out of them!

This leaped off the page at me for learning centers.  I love my learning center, and one of the things I love about it is its unpredictability.  What with our student population facing transportation and childcare barriers, our entirely unpaid teaching staff, and our geographic propensity for extreme weather conditions (last Thursday it was -10 outside), there’s a whole lot of unpredictability.  Unfortunately, many of the surprises end up being challenges: absences of people or materials; having planning take longer than you thought (doesn’t it always?);  feeling more tired than you thought you would.

It’s kind of a forehead-smacker that a coordinator can (partially) take control by making a few surprises, and making them positive ones.  A card, a balloon, a tasty treat, a “congratulations” for x number of hours spent at the learning center.  Duh – but I’m not sure it would’ve occurred to me in those terms.  Thanks, Seth!

I guess the catch is that lack of time tends to be one of the challenging surprises that comes up repeatedly for me, and contriving positive surprises takes time.  Yet another matter of achieving a delicate balance.

How do you balance the need to control/fix unpleasant surprises and to create pleasant ones?

Blogging for T-Ron’s Cause: Results

Let’s start with what I didn‘t get:

• immediate attention from Obama
• attainment of the end goal

I would still say it was a beneficial exercise because:

• it was a fun first experience for me in cause-blogging
• I was able to publicize the post to get more readers than usual – many times my average daily readership since returning from hiatus.  It’s a good thing to know I can do.
• increased readership means increased awareness
• I learned about Squidoo.com in the process of spreading the word
• I now have a concrete motivator for furthering my current network work

The way I see it, the only way to totally fail is to learn nothing.  Onward!

MLK Day Service

MLK Jr. Time Magazine Cover (LIFE archive)

Go for it.  Please do make it a day on.

Please also think about what your real impact as a one-day volunteer is to the organization, its clients, and yourself.

And know that the more you volunteer, the more value you’re able to add to a given project.

Let today be a taste of service, not just your obligation fulfilled.

State of the Welcome Video Request

To re-cap, I’m hoping secure a 1-minute video of Obama saying “Welcome” to new citizens.  It’s part of every new citizen ceremony, and the first one is the day after Obama’s inauguration.  Read more about the request here.

The good news is that people are looking at the post (not in overwhelming droves, but significantly more than normally read my blog).

And I know that at least a few people have tweeted @obamainaugural.  Thank you!

Next steps:

Continue tweeting @obamainaugural and @barackobama the message:

1st new citizen natlztn ceremony = 1/21. Will they have a new welcome message from the new Pres? http://bit.ly/14EUV

Spread the word to your contacts, linking back to the explanation post at http://bit.ly/14EUV.  From that we’ll either get numbers or the attention of one person with an in.

How else are the Obama folks listening?

What do you think about next steps?

Last Chance to Reach Some New Citizens

"Teacher Ron"

At every Naturalization Ceremony for new US Citizens, they play a recorded video welcome message from the President.

The first Naturalization Ceremony of Obama’s presidency will be Wednesday, January 21st.

According to Teacher Ron, a roving citizenship teacher in the Twin Cities, the video is about a minute twenty seconds – not a big deal to create, especially for a skilled speech-writer and orator.

They can’t use the old welcome video, and unless Obama and some helpers can find five minutes to record a greeting for the country’s newest citizens, they just won’t be welcomed by the President at all.

Crowds of prospective citizens taking an oath - LIFE - L Larson

I guess you could argue it’s a small beans issue.  I, however, would argue that it’s not.  It’s a symbol. This one small nod to the community of the very newest Americans, this stopping everything for just a few minutes to welcome them to the country he just took leadership of, would send a powerful message to them, the larger immigrant community, Americans, and the world.  It would say, “I, the President of the United States of America, value new citizens.” It would be some of the change we’ve been promised.

Teacher Ron pointed out that Obama would need to get the request no later than Friday, 1/16 for there to be any hope of a video for this ceremony.  He looked at change.gov, and tried contacting MN Senator Amy Klobuchar’s office to ask them to contact Obama but was “politely blown off.”  He’s not sure how else to tackle it.  Frankly, I’m not either.

I know I don’t have many readers, and I know it’s short notice and a seemingly small matter, but I thought I’d put it out there on the off chance that the message would get through.

Even if it’s too late for the 1/21 ceremony, we can still ask for it to be a priority.

If you’re listening, could you help get the word out?

Any suggestions for what else I (or we) can do?

First Day Back!

My first day back was Awesome.  I like doing my job even more than I like the idea of it.

It felt good to take stock, set a few basic priorities, and dive in!  I was a teacher short, had backlogs of notes to read from my subs; there was paperwork to be organized and catching up to do with my VISTA coworker; I’m short four regular teachers and need to fix that ASAP… and on top of it all, it was new student intake day!  I basically didn’t pause all day, or even hardly sit down between 5 and 9, and I loved it. It was very satisfying to just suddenly, officially, and most definitely be BACK.

I’m not sure that I would’ve thought yesterday to wish for today to be so busy, but luckily that kind of wish never gets granted anyway.

Tomorrow I need to get all the way through my email, plan several lessons, peruse the new curriculum more closely, and do more to nail down a regular teacher schedule.  Looking forward to it!

Back from Vacation!

I’m back to work today!

This vacation gave me a lot of time to think.  Some of the ideas I’ve been chewing on:

- new beginnings are inspiring, and they don’t only happen in January!  If I have something important to initiate or re-think, there’s always a new season, month, moon cycle, week, day, storm system, etc. coming up that would make a great (and equally arbitrary) starting point.

- I can shape my free time to help me grow.  I especially liked Trent’s post at the Simple Dollar in which his friend asks, “What will you learn this year?”  An hour or two a day can be powerful indeed!

- I was able to spend copious amounts of time with people I love.  It was awesome.  I need to always make time, whether it’s in large blocks or just 5 minutes for an email.

- going to the gym gives me energy – I want to make it a priority to go at least twice a week every week!

- I’m excited to get back into a regular work week!  I’m proud of what I do and I get to work with great people every single day.

So here’s to a nice long vacation, and here’s to starting up again!