Posted on by hildaweisburg

Are You Procrastinating Too Much?

Procrastinating means to put off doing something. The definition doesn’t include the words “something important,” but that’s usually when we think of it. Because often when we’re putting off something – the bills, returning a call, setting up a meeting with our principal – we’re getting lots of other things done. Just not the one that banging around in our heads, the one we can’t stop thinking about that we know needs to get done.

There is no doubt about it. That list of check marks on the unimportant tasks probably means we’re avoiding the priority or the most impactful action. Why do we do that to ourselves? And how can we stop doing it? Greg Vanourek tackles the problem in How to Stop Avoiding Things: 17 Practices:

  1. Start by noticing your avoidance practices – Awareness is always the first step in being able to deal with a problem. What are you go-to tasks that alert you to the fact that you’re avoid something bigger. (Email? Facebook?)
  2. Seek the root cause of your avoidance behavior – It may be feeling uncertain about how to handle the specific task. It could be something frightening such as dealing with a book challenge and/or preparing for a board meeting where your book selection practices are being questioned. Knowing what’s behind your choices can help you make a change.
  3. Process your emotions – Recognize the emotions. Allow yourself to feel and express them. Vanourek suggests journaling or exercising. Both of these can change your physiological state and put you in a better mindset.
  4. Divide the problem you’re avoiding into smaller, more manageable chunks – It’s the old adage about how to eat an elephant. And as you complete each chunk, you feel successful and ready to tackle the next chunk. Momentum helps you keep going.
  5. Start with an easy task or small encounter to get momentum – This works like chunking and gives you a way to get into action – sometimes the hardest part.
  6. Look for ways to boost your motivation for a better result– Keep track of what you are accomplishing. Consider a Success Journal or visible check list. Cheer your own progress.
  7. Reframe a situation to note the positives and refrain from focusing only on the negatives – This may a very challenging project, which is why you were avoiding it in the first place. Keep your focus on the positive results you’re aiming for. If it’s something you are uncertain about handling, consider this a step in your learning. For a book challenge issue, see yourself joining those who stand up for our core values and beliefs as a librarian.
  8. Quiet your negative self-talk – Not easy, but reframing will help. Vanourek suggests being compassionate with yourself, “we are all works in progress.” Know that mistakes are a part of the process, not a reason to stop.
  9. Practice your communication skills – Be ready to talk about the benefits and challenges of what you’re doing by always keeping your communication skills strong. Then you can confidently as you express yourself and when asking for help when needed.
  10. Set a deadline for taking action – “By when’s” are vital to starting and continuing. “I’ll have this step done before Wednesday/noon/break.” It also gives you goals and milestone to reach.
  11. Build action habits – The more you see yourself doing – and as being a doer – the easier it will be to continue. Momentum is your friend.
  12. Recognize that addressing something you’ve been avoiding can make you feel powerful – Instead of carrying around the heaviness of your thoughts as you think about this project and the fact that it’s still not done, taking even that first step will be empowering. You’ll inspire yourself to take the next.
  13. Work on your problem-solving skills –Vanourek suggests exploring creative ways of dealing with problems even before you get to a project that you want to avoid. Knowing you are good at problem-solving will help you spend less time procrastinating.
  14. Develop your tolerance and flexibility – Rigid ways of thinking rarely help us out of difficult situations and challenging emotions. Be open to the process and recognize some problems are beyond your ability. Look for ways to get help – such as your PLN.
  15. Work on improving your coping skills and strategies – Some suggested questions to ask yourself: “How might I address this? What would my best self do in this situation?
  16. Resist your urge to avoid when it appears – Now that you recognize your avoidance behaviors, you are better equipped to deal with them. Get into action as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the harder it is to get going.
  17. Get support – You don’t have to do everything on your own. Look to see who handles this better than you and ask for help. Mentors can be useful in this.

This is a long list – and a long post. If any of these points hit you, then make a change. And if you’re reading this instead of tackling that responsibility you’ve been avoiding? It’s time to get to work.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Rediscover the Joy In Your Work

For the last several years, I’ve been teaching classes for school librarian students at several programs across the country. Universally, they bring the enthusiasm and joy that typically comes with a new career path, looking forward to the young learners they will work with. Yet all too often, as years pass, our enthusiasm dampens, and the joy disappears.

Like at the beginning of a relationship, there’s no way to remain bright-eyed as the years pass and we deal with the less than perfect aspects of our work. It’s stressful and draining. But the truth is – what we do matters. Perhaps even more than ever. We change lives. We help students develop their ability to go out into the world with critical thinking skills, an understanding of how learning never ends, and an awareness of the resources open to them. We need to restore our excitement in what we do and delight in seeing that change as it unfolds.

Jason McKenna recognized the importance of this in his blog post, Embracing the Teaching Marathon with Joy and Well-Being. He discusses the increasing burnout of educators, which includes librarians. and offers five strategies not only to deal with burnout but to “reinvigorate the passion and joy” at the heart of what we do.

  1. Create a not-to-do list – I discussed this strategy in my blog post To Do …And To Don’t. When we add more and more to our plate without taking anything off, we risk overwhelm and burnout. Just as new tech and other resources become available and are important to incorporate, older practices may become less so. It is helpful to take stock of your responsibilities and find new ways to manage them. What can you eliminate? Who or what can help?
  2. Embrace periods of unproductivity – It’s inefficient to go from one creative task to another without taking a break. Our brains don’t work that way, no matter how much we want to do the next thing. After finishing a complex report to your principal, don’t plunge into planning a lesson that will demonstrate a new resource that will foster critical thinking. Congratulate yourself and go through your email. It will allow a healthy shift. If being “unproductive” stresses you, think of it as “differently productive.”
  3. Redefine success metrics – Stop defining success as the number of things you have crossed off your to-do list. Qualitative results count more than quantitative ones. McKenna reminds you to consider how you felt as a project was being done or completed. Recognize and celebrate the ways you made a difference and the changes that happened along the way. Your emotional feelings that came from running a program are also a measure of how successful you were. It’s where the joy is.
  4. Prioritize dialogue over data –. An extension of the last item, notice the impact you’re making by talking to students and teachers and hearing how projects and programs impacted them. How many students became excited about what they were researching? How many teachers thanked you for the help you gave them? We touch lives. Be aware of the many ways you are doing it each day. Making connections with people, particularly one-to-one, reminds us of how we change lives in big and small ways. And it builds relationships and advocates.
  5. Protect your personal time diligently – Never having time for yourself – and the other priorities in your life- is a sure route to burnout and loss of joy. And the road back can be longer than we expect. Someone I know once said, we are human beings not human doings. Take the time for the things that bring your pleasure so you can refill your well.

Can you remember back to when you first decided to become a librarian? Do you remember your “Why?” My students have long lists for their why. Take some time to reconnect with your own passion for school libraries and school librarianship. Remember how much your work, your library, and your programs matter. Take in the ways you are succeeding – and have succeeded in the past – to bring renewed energy to your work.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Mind Your Mindset

Our brains are wonderful—until they are not. The brain’s most important function is survival and to do that, it looks for danger. But even though there is no longer a lion at the mouth of the cave, it’s still searching for what’s wrong. The result of this is – we find problems and places to worry all the time. This onslaught of negative (and not always true) thoughts lower our mood and add to the stress we are already feeling.

It takes work to noticed when your mind is lying to you and reframe your thoughts to a more a positive mindset. You won’t be able to do this continuously, but awareness is the first step to making a change. In a very long blog post, George Vanourek explains the Power of Reframing to Change Our Outlook. Considering the length of the post, I am focusing on what I consider his key points as to what causes all those negative mindsets and how we can manage them.

First, we need to look at what comes up and how our brains react. Negative mindsets are caused by cognitive distortions resulting in “flawed or irrational thinking.” These result in:

  • Assuming the worst – For example, when your principal asks to see you and you immediately believe they are going to cut your budget and eliminate the new program you started.
  • Discounting the positive – While focusing on all the negative reasons for the call, you dismiss that your principal had complimented the new program and the way the library has been invaluable to the school community.
  • Catastrophizing – You might then find yourself jumping to the conclusion that they are going to eliminate librarians despite what has been said about you and your program.
  • Overgeneralizing – This is what always happens. You knew it was too good to last. Just when you think you have it right, it all goes to pieces and things are worse than before.
  • Emotional reasoning – This is when you shift from how you are feeling at the moment to a judgement about yourself. “It was so stupid when I neglected a key direction for students and had to backtrack to fix it. I am so stupid!”

Obviously, this negative self-talk causes you more stress, erodes your self-confidence, and affects your performance. Among the nine techniques Vanourek suggests to counter this negativity, my favorites are:

  • Context reframing – Change how you look at the issue. Instead of feeling you are stupid, consider the benefits students get from seeing you acknowledge an error and move on from there.
  • Stop taking things personally – If a student complains that the book you recommended was terrible, that may not have anything to do with your ability to choose books for your students.  They could have had a bad day and are mad at things in general, or they might not have been clear about what they liked. Maybe there was something triggering in the book that you couldn’t have known because the student doesn’t talk about. This is where context reframing comes in again. Use this as an opportunity to discuss the student’s interests and see what you can do next.
  • Multi-dimensional view – Where we focus makes all the difference in what we are able to see. Look for ways to get a wider perspective instead of the narrow one in which you are viewing the problem. Ask yourself: What has made you so upset? What perspective changes this feeling? What previous experiences are affecting your thoughts? What can you learn from this moment? And remember the bigger picture – your Why, your Mission, and Vison. See where you are furthering them, no matter the stress of the moment.

If you put your hand in front of your face that’s all you see. Move your hand further away, and you not only see your hand, but everything else as well. Your hand (the stress of the moment) becomes only part of the view.  You can’t stop things from going wrong or the stresses that life brings, but you can be aware of and control your reactions. Keep watching for your negative self-talk and then look for ways to shift your mindset. There is always a more positive way to frame the situation and when you do, new solutions are more likely to appear.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

To Do… And To Don’t

Time management is essential for all of us, professionally and personally. As leaders, it is even more important. Our plates keep getting piled higher as we take on or are given new responsibilities. Getting everything done seems impossible. Your to-do list or however you keep track of what needs to get done is getting longer.

What you need is another list.

Stay with me — this second list is “To-Don’t.” It’s time to clear things off your plate. You are undoubtedly doing more than necessary with tasks and treating all of them as having equal weight, but this is not the case. You need a system that allows you to see which things need to be done by you, and which don’t.

Instead of shelving every book as it’s returned – put them on a cart labeled “Just returned—would you like to borrow one?” Instead of creating all your bulletin boards and displays – check with the art teacher(s) to see if they would like their students to take this on as an authentic project. You would give guidelines and topics. You could do the same with different clubs.

Then there are the projects that you started only to realize it’s a much bigger commitment than you thought (genre-fying your collection, anyone?). But you made the commitment or started and now you have to continue. Or do you? Sometimes knowing when to stop is an important as knowing what to start.

David Baker offers a way to avoid these too-big commitments in his blog post, Stopping Is as Important as Starting. To begin he recommends you think of it as trial with an estimated duration. And most important, identify how it will fit into your schedule, making room as necessary by dropping something else. He recommends this two-step approach:

Think of things in season – Quoting the verses from Ecclesiastes, Baker suggests there is a season for all things. Although quitting feels like failure to us, sometimes you need to do it to be successful with your other responsibilities and projects. It’s part of your growth. It’s the learning process. Remember the choice of to-do or to-don’t do is yours. Work to be as clear in your reasons for stopping as you were (hopefully) in your reasons for starting.

Be resolute but not reckless – We are always harder on ourselves than we are with others. Baker advises you to consider what a good friend would tell you to do when you choose a project you shouldn’t have undertaken. It will force you to reflect and evaluate whether the stress of the new commitment will bring about results that are worth it. Think of it a ROI – return on investment. What are you getting out of it that makes it worth the effort. If it is worth it, figure out something you are doing that isn’t worth the time you are putting in and drop that.

You can’t add more hours to the day. When you are over-committed you and your library suffer. It affects your personal and professional relationships. Doing too much will actually move you further from your Mission and Vision. Be honest – and kind – with yourself and make choices that support you and your program. You will be a better leader for it.