Want peace? Start a fight with yourself.
This is part two in a three-part series about de-stressing your school district work-life. Whether your tension comes from after-hour emails, demanding bosses, irritating teammates, or other work-related issues, peace is possible with a dose of the 3 Ds — Delineate, Develop, and Deflect.
When my phone blew up one night with calls and texts, I felt trapped between a big hammer and an immovable anvil.
By now you know the story (or can read it here in part one). A parent had threatened our school system with potentially costly and embarrassing legal action.
Mr. IT Supervisor (my boss) and Dr. Paycheck Signer (his boss) wanted the cause of irritation erased.
Immediately.
A parent-powered hammer smashed my leaders’ nights, and then it continued on its arc to crash through my family’s gathering.
Like most people, I’d like to place the blame on someone else. I will point out that other people could have fixed the problem.
But the bottom line is this — despite several similar incidents, I had failed to develop habits, processes, and infrastructure to handle unusual situations.
This time, I chose to change. Rather than staying stuck in the vicious cycle, I decided to break it. Delineation was step one to attaining work-life peace – it gave me an understanding of what my job required.
But to break the pattern of undesirable results, I had to stop hoarding knowledge, take another big step, and develop efficient ways to deal with expected and unexpected circumstances.
“It’s hard to drive a nail with a screwdriver.”
Learn to use the proper tools.
DEVELOPMENT
Get a delineation refresher here if you need one, and then you will know what tasks your job requires, how to meet the requirements, and when to deliver them.
Now it’s time to develop habits, processes, and infrastructure to help you maximize your efforts.
WHAT ARE YOUR CURRENT BOUNDARIES? (Hint — they’re not immovable.)
First, delineate yourself. Look in the mirror and honestly assess your current state of being within the chalk outline you drew in step one.
Answer these questions —
- Are you taking care of yourself? Self-care doesn’t have to be selfish — if you break down because of overuse or end up being a production bottleneck because you’re over-extended, everybody in the system suffers either directly or indirectly.
- Are you maximizing your time and effort by planning your days? You know the old saying — a person who fails to plan, plans to fail.
- Do you understand and make use of practical tools to get your tasks done? Another truth is this: it’s hard to drive a nail with a screwdriver. As a data manager, are you proficient in the use of spreadsheets and automation techniques?
“Well, I didn’t kill anyone today.”
Celebrate something every day.
Second, choose one or two hacks (action steps) to get started. Here are some options.
- Most people, even couch potatoes, know they should physically, mentally, and spiritually take care of themselves. Here’s something specific for school system data warriors: set an alarm for every hour or 90 minutes to get away from your desk. Take a five or ten-minute coffee break or, better yet, a short walk outside or inside (maybe laps around the office). Taking breaks and playing games helps students develop and learn more (documentation can be found in many places, including here and here). It will also work for those of us who are slightly older than pre-kindergarten students.
- Create an efficient way for your data staff to submit problems and requests which don’t involve emergencies. I was fortunate that Dickson County Schools operated a ticket system (GroupLink HelpDesk), but it took work and boundary reinforcement to teach my school staff to use it. You may have to get creative with email templates or look at free customer management relationship software, but developing an orderly system assures better service. A good CRM organizes requests and documents your work so that bosses don’t have to wonder how you’re spending your hours.
- Schedule times of day for special projects, customer service, and system maintenance — and stick to the schedule except in EXTREME circumstances. My days started between 7:00 and 7:30 AM. I did my best to work on high-intensity, high-demand projects for the first 30 minutes (preparing for year-end transitions is an example). The rest of the morning, I stayed available for customer service (working on staff requests submitted through the ticket system). Most afternoons I spent on system maintenance, which is to say I worked my number one priority — bringing in the dollars (ADM auditing and correction). I already know that you’re incredibly gifted (data warriors must be), but so far, no one on earth has proven capable of multitasking without some dropoff in performance. I do my best work when I can concentrate on one thing at a time. While you may have no choice but to drop everything when the district director comes calling — he does sign your paychecks, after all — schedule your customer service hours and communicate that schedule to your bosses and school data staff.
- Practice positive, flexible, and adaptive thinking. I’m not talking about forcing optimism or reciting deep thoughts such as “I’m a success because I deserve to be.” I’m encouraging you to look at proven science such as that documented by Carol Dweck in Mindset. Dweck uses science and case studies to show that genetic code does not limit our ability to adapt and change. A simple, effective exercise is to ask “What can I learn?” and “How can I fix this?” when something goes wrong rather than asking, “Why do these things always happen to me?”
- Learn the basics of spreadsheets. Excel and Google Sheets can be two of your best friends. There are thousands of free samples and explanations online, and a few minutes of learning can lead to hours saved. For example, I put together a free spreadsheet for finding ADM errors — FundMax Lite. You can copy this Google Sheet for your use, even download it as an Excel file. Enjoy this freebie and any others that help you get your job done.
- Learn automation tricks, such as how to record a macro. I know some of you are already Excel gurus — good for you! — but you don’t have to immerse yourself in code to take advantage of automation. If you must complete repetitive tasks using spreadsheets (I’m talking about daily copying and pasting data from one form into another), then do a quick online search for macros — which are available in Excel and Google Sheets — or ask a friend who knows how. (I’m one of those friends, by the way — just saying)
- Before you do anything else in the morning, make a list of three things to accomplish today. Three seems to be the tipping point for getting essential tasks accomplished.
- Celebrate your accomplishments. If you didn’t check a single task off your list, add something you did. As a teacher, I used to resort to, “Well, I didn’t kill anyone today.” But seriously, this goes back to mindset — you’ve probably heard Thomas Edison’s alleged response when someone told him he had “failed” numerous times to invent a lightbulb — “I didn’t fail. I discovered a thousand ways not to make one.”
Listen, I know this is just the tip of the iceberg, and I’m sure you and other data warriors have proven tactics from your wealth of knowledge and experience. Please share your thoughts, reactions, corrections, or other feedback with me at RKBrison@TennSRS.com.