Want to know WHY I love lists? Read Ten Reasons to Write Lists on my new blog The Psychologist Next Door. Then, tell me how lists make your life better.
This post inspired by a prompt from Mama Kat "5.) On a piece of paper write down something that makes you happy...take a photo of your paper and wa la...there's your post" and by my constant need to control the chaos!
This morning, Leading Mama and the fam are sitting on a tropical island, where time passes so slowly it’s easy to lose track. At home, I’m not nearly this laid back. I value productivity; I’m happiest when I’m right on time or even early; In my professional life, deadlines are sacrosanct.
But today I’m up on my soapbox to say "slow down, people."
I’m not advocating you all take a long, leisurely tropical vacation (though I’m sure you could use one).
I’m asking you to think about the relative value of time and quality.
In the past few weeks, Rite Aid’s new “15 minutes or less” campaign caught my attention and kept it. The promise is simple: they fill your new prescription in 15 minutes or less. If not, you get a $5 gift card.
Don’t get me wrong, I value my time. This fall, while waiting for Rite Aid to fill a prescription for the kids, my 4-year-old vomited all over his car seat, his clothes, and my almost-new car. The cleanup cost me several hours. If a drug fairy dropped off prescriptions at the house and sweet-talked my kids into taking them without screaming, fighting, or a headlock, I’d be thrilled.
But the 15 minute guarantee makes me nervous. Dominoes Pizza eliminated its 30-minutes-or-less guarantee when it discovered the policy caused delivery drivers to have more traffic accidents (duh).
One of the best replicated findings in psychology is what we call the speed-accuracy tradeoff. The faster we work, the less precise the results. When it comes to prescription medications, there’s no room for error. Speed simply isn’t as important as accuracy.
A report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that errors involving prescription medications kill up to 7,000 Americans a year, and that the financial costs of drug-related morbidity and mortality may be as much as $77 billion a year.
So, Rite Aid, Leading Mama says slow down. I’ll gladly wait more than 15 minutes if it means my prescriptions will be accurate. Your $5 gift card won’t wash the vomit out of my back seat anyway.
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If you've been up on your soapbox this week, link up an opinionated post below and share some comment love. I can't wait to hear what's got you fired up. But take your time, the linky is live all week.
As a long-time educator and an assessment expert, I'm risking my reputation by saying this, but I think students need to hear it. We teachers need to grapple with it, too.
The most important skills students build in school are not what's measured by tests, grades, or graduation.
And you can't learn them from a textbook. Or 10.
Maybe students already know this. Or think they do.
I'm sure many of my failing students wanted this to be true. Maybe they muttered it behind my back, or on the way out of my office after reviewing their errors on the midterm exam.
It's rare to hear an educator say it. Out loud. I know that. Let me say it again.
The most important skills students build in school are not what's measured by tests, grades, or graduation.
Straight-A students may suspect it's true, but I'm not sure they want to hear it. When you are working hard to earn high marks; when college entry and job interview offers hang in the balance; and when you think you've cracked the code on how to "succeed," the last thing you want to know is that the teacher doesn't believe tests, grades or graduation are what matters.
In Leading Mama's opinion, the top 5 skills students need to succeed are:
1) The courage to ask difficult questions, and to pursue the answers to those questions, even if they aren't obvious, easy or comfortable
2) A willingness to embrace uncertainty and to sit with it long enough to learn from it
3) Keen self-awareness, including understanding your personality traits, talents, and preferences. What do you have to contribute? How do you recognize or (even better) create opportunities for your contribution?
4) The self-confidence to express your ideas to others -- including teammates, colleagues and authority figures -- and the social finesse to do so without alienating them
5) A deep commitment to a set of personal values that clarifies choices, guides decision making and makes life meaningful despite inevitable ups and downs
In school, students with these skills may be dismissed or even penalized. Standardized testing isn't set up to recognize or reward them. It is challenging to design assessments of these skills, especially "objective" ones. And busy instructors don't always look kindly on students who ask too many difficult questions. Questions that lead the class off on tangents. Questions the instructor can't answer.
But business and civic leaders know these skills make for success. And they are handsomly rewarded in real life. Students should know that.
This post inspired by a post from Mama Kat, by 20 years in higher education, and by the scholarship applicants whose essays I read last night.
Image credit: BOOKS
© Stanko Mravljak | Dreamstime.com
"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
- Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903, in "Letters to a Young Poet"
Usually, I love a book that offers wise answers.
Today, I'm loving a book that asks wise questions instead.
Here are 6 Questions I Love from Robin Fisher Roffer's book Make a Name for Yourself: Eight Steps Every Woman Needs to Create a Personal Brand Strategy for Success
Sit with these questions. Let them soak in. Then, if you dare, share your answer to one of these questions in the comments. Or -- better yet -- share one of your own favorite questions.
Love the questions. The answers will come.
I've been interviewing experts and reading up on change lately. What I've learned is that many changes that seem easy are actually relatively difficult. The reasons are many. The solutions are few. Here are some take-away lessons about change. I hope they'll inspire and guide you in your own self-development efforts.
Miller encourages people to be a little afraid everyday. Big rewards require big risks.
Get more insights in her book Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide.
By fearless, Barthmare means we have to confront our own reality.
That means understanding how the changes we seek fit (or don't fit) with our real life circumstances. Change attempts must be both revolutionary and realistic.
Realistic small actions add up over time.
*No* I don't like being called an elephant any more than you do.
The truth isn't always glamorous.
Find ways to renew your energy or change simply won't happen.
Emotional energy -- not just rational self-control -- fuels change.
What are you trying to change?
Leaders complain that they don't get feedback. Moms, not so much.
Before kids get the gift of gab, other mothers tell us how to do our job better. “If you don’t breastfeed, you’re flushing his health down the toilet.” “She’s probably overdue for a diaper change. I can't believe you're using disposables.” Shell at Things I Can't Say calls these judging others motherbitches. They're mean girls turned meaner mommies.
Family members and perfect strangers chime in. “She’s over-tired.” “You should have his speech evaluated.” “My kids never threw fits like that in public.”
Kids give their own feedback, too. I cried when my then three-year-old called me a bad mommy. I know he was responding to the boundaries I'd set, but it didn't matter. Criticism cuts me deeply.
I sometimes ignore feedback. But more often, I overreact.
I lose all sense of proportion.
Leading Man can make some innocuous comment and I act like I’ve been attacked by my worst enemy. I snap angrily. Or I dissolve into tears and adjourn to a self-hosted pity-party.
I don’t respond well to criticism. At all.
But I can sure dish it out.
A high-school boyfriend once quipped that I probably corrected his love letters with a big fat red pen. I didn’t. At least not literally.
Metaphorically? Probably so.
Critical thinking is my strong suit. My brain spots errors with lightning speed and extraordinary accuracy. I automatically see what is wrong, even if it's a tiny flaw in an otherwise perfect specimen.
I have to work very, very hard to see what’s right.
I used to answer that favorite question of job-interviewers everywhere – “What’s your biggest weakness?” – by saying "I tend to say 'yes' too much and get over-committed." This is totally true. And it *is* a weakness.
But this week I came to the conclusion that my biggest weakness is that I can dish out criticism but I can’t take it.
They say confession is good for the soul, but admitting that doesn’t feel good. It isn’t liberating or cathartic.
I want to build people up, not tear people down. Especially my husband and kids.
My critical nature means I'll have to work extra hard to make sure I tell them what they do right. I have to be conscious about searching for strengths. Otherwise, I'll give them unfairly negative feedback.
Knowing this makes me sad, but it also gives me hope, because I know where I need to improve. Self-knowledge helps good leaders get better.
What do you know about yourself? Link up below to join the conversation and share some comment love. We could all use some supportive feedback, right?
Want to learn how small steps can change your life? Read One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
Want to do a small, random act of goodness right now? Send a card, please. Not to me, silly. Read details in the next post. Two posts in one day? I must be inspired!
Yestertime, I wrote a post on the value of community-sourcing. I asked you how it could help you with an upcoming project. And you went mute.
Completely and utterly silent.
Maybe you thought “that would be neat,” but were overcome by feelings of panic. "If other people help me, they might screw things up." "Aaaask for hhhhellllp? What if they say nnnnooooo!"
I’m not surprised. Really.
Crowd-sourcing is easy, unless you like to control the process, pace, and direction of the work. In other words, unless you’re a control freak with perfectionist tendencies, like Leading Mama.
If you’d like to get others involved in your next big project but are paralyzed by fear, here’s my advice.
1. Make it meaningful. Be prepared with an “elevator speech” about the effort you’re undertaking. People need to feel its goodness before they’ll jump on board. Everyone wants to feel good.
2. Explain the scope of the project in big, round numbers. If you need 8 widgets, ask for 10. But be ready to receive 20. In my experience, you’ll get more than you ask for. Especially if they can feel the goodness. Know in advance what you will do with the abundance you’ll receive.
3. Determine which facets matter most to you personally. Decide what your minimum standards are for those facets. (If you are a control freak with perfectionist tendencies, the minimum may not be so minimalistic. That’s okay. Leading Mama’s philosophy is “go big or go home” and it hasn’t kept me from community-sourcing!) Find a way to ensure the minimum standard will be met. Then let go of your need to control things.
4. Communicate your vision, but don’t tell people how to create it. Telling people how to do their work crushes their intrinsic motivation
5. Practice quality control. Redirect contributions that don’t meet standards or ask for a do-over. People want to be proud of what they do. You’ll protect your reputation and boost participants’ sense of pride by maintaining high standards.
Community-sourcing is win-win-win. It’s less leader-focused than other methods of getting things done. But in the end, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish when you start the ball rolling then get out of the way. Good leadership is never about the leader anyway.
You’ve seen them at the park. They gather near the parking lot. They sit on the benches, preening. They walk in aimless circles while the kids play on the jungle gym. They’re not really watching the kids, but they’re poised to take flight if someone gets in their space. And they’ll swoop in fast if someone drops something edible.
Photo from slack12 at flickr.com
All is calm on the playground until the kid in the too-short sweatpants rips a green plastic shovel from the hands of the toddler in the glittery cupcake t-shirt. The little girl cries out. ‘Mooooom! Dat mine!’
Coffee and smart phone forgotten, she’s off the bench, wheeling and swooping toward the children. Screaming and chastising. Gesturing wildly. Seagull mom flies into the sandbox, makes a lot of noise about the hostile takeover of the green shovel, steals it back from too-short-sweatpants, and returns it to her little cupcake.
She tells cupcake to stop crying. It’s over. She got back the shovel. She screams at too-short-sweatpants about playing with his own toys and shoos him away.
Then she turns and flies back to her bench, where she’ll pass time waiting for another opportunity to swoop into action.
She’s no helicopter parent. She's more like a seagull.
She leaves the kids to their own devices.
She’s in her own world.
Until something happens.
Then she flies in,
makes a lot of noise,
dumps on everyone,
and flies away.
Photo from Dave Harkin at Melbourne LightPainters
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Seagull parenting is an adaptation of Ken Blanchard’s seagull management concept. Learn more about it in his leadership best-seller, The One Minute Manager
Time management gurus would freak out if they saw how I operate. I don't collect empty pizza boxes or tchochkes, but I'm surrounded by so many to-dos and wanna-learns I could star in a special episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive. I'd call it "the overachiever edition." Maybe I should pitch this idea to Oprah.
Here's my dirty little secret to getting it all done.
I let creative impulses, have-to's, want-to's and deadlines determine what I do and when I do it.
Leading Man calls it "just-in-time excellence."
If the ideas are swimming in my head, I capture them on paper. I save files and add details as they come to me. When article is due, I write it. If Little Man is out of socks (again!), I do laundry. If the baby has a hacking cough -- right now she sounds like a 2-pack-a-day smoker -- I take her to the clinic. If I feel like Thai Chicken with Basil for dinner, I get busy in the kitchen. If I don't want to cook, I defrost and reheat.
When someone offers snuggle time, I drop everything and I "nuggle." I *do* have priorities, you know.
The old schedule that housewives perfected over a hundred years and embroidered on millions of flour-sack dish towels just wouldn't fly around here.
Monday: Wash Day
Tuesday: Ironing Day
Wednesday: Sewing Day
Thursday: Market Day
Friday: Cleaning Day
Saturday: Baking Day
Sunday: Day of Rest
Spreading tasks over time would certainly make my life more manageable. But it doesn't fit with my personality. I love the pressure of a deadline. The thrill of keeping too many balls in the air is something I miss if my to-do list grows shorter than my arm. I get itchy to take on new tasks.
But -- even if it looks like I am in way over my head most days -- I manage to maintain a sense of balance in the longer term.
Right now I am working hard. I am overcommitted. I am struggling to stop myself from taking on more. And I am loving every minute of it.
I'm also anticipating a delicious change of pace when we go on a two-week vacation this spring. (Where? Turks and Caicos, thank you very much for asking. Super scuba, gorgeous lush tropical happiness, sandcastle making and shell-collecting. Mmmm. I can almost feel the sun on my face.)
For Leading Mama, balance is relative.
I know I can have it all, just not all at the same time.
This post inspired by a prompt from
