Tracking your progress

Any goal that is written down is more likely to be completed than one that is not. But simply writing it down once and never looking at it again is not a solid plan towards accomplishing that goal, especially a long term goal that may take years to accomplish.

Remember so far we have discussed creating a goal of where your dream to be someday in the future. Make it a big goal, and as specific as you can make it. Be able to visualize it, have sensory imagery of what that ideal place will feel like, look like, sound like when you have made it there.

Then start working backwards to benchmark times of a few years from now, then down to the end of this year, the end of this month, and now what to do each week to get to that ultimate spot. In Goals, Priorities, and Strategies (Part 2) I shared with you the GPS. The second tab on the same Google Sheet is taken directly from The One Thing goal setting (and completing) framework and is known as the 4-1-1. You actually work backwards from 1 Year to 1 Month to 4 Weeks, but 4-1-1 is a clever name and easy to remember for you as your informational guide to completing the goals.

This is what I have time blocked on Monday morning and Friday afternoon to make sure I spend time reviewing, and have access to throughout the week. The very top part has your Core Values (mine are Growth, Advocacy, and Impact). Then you put in your Yearly Goal, your Monthly Goal(s) to reach to get to your Yearly Goal, and then your weekly strategies you will put in place. The spots in each area are limited to keep you focused on doing a small amount of items really well.

Your goals, and even you strategies, should have some measurement to them, and way of tracking progress. If you have a Yearly Goal of making sure that equitable teaching practices are happening in each classroom, then you had better get into classrooms. How many per month then is for you to do the math and figure out what is appropriate. Then, you need to have a weekly target that you know the number you have done, and can track the number you are at. Generally I then highlight the cells for the ones I have made progress in yellow, and highlight them green when I have accomplished the task.

If you didn't make any progress, that is something to analyze. If you made some, its better than none but now what do you need to adjust to make sure you are acting on the strategies that lead to your most important results. If you made it all the way, then what are the next steps on the journey once this one is completed. And, how can you celebrate your accomplishment this week?

Comments

Vulnerability

I cannot claim to be an expert on vulnerability, that title belongs to Brene Brown. Through her work, I have learned that being vulnerable is key to major breakthroughs in life. The opposite of this is true as well. Being unwilling to take risks, fearing failure or embarrassment, leads to stilted growth and eventual regression. The unwillingness to struggle in the short term leads to eventual major disappointment. That struggle is unpleasant, painful, draining, aggravating, defeating, and necessary. As a teacher, vulnerability arises when teaching a new grade level or content area. It happens when a re-designed lesson is taught for the first time, a new resource is used, and when being observed. Leaders face vulnerability when launching a new initiative and taking questions from stakeholders. Coaches face vulnerability when they meet with a new client or a client who operates outside the coach's wheelhouse of knowledge or skills. Humans are adept at procrastinating, which is a phys...

Navigating Uncertainty

One thing most people can agree on in early April 2024 is that no one knows what to expect right now. Federal agencies are being closed at a record pace, tariffs are rocking global finances, AI is changing faster than most people can keep up with, everyone has an opinion on this, and no one can anticipate what might happen next. The stock market is a prime example of the uncertainty, and on the day I started writing this the Dow Jones surged by 800 points and ultimately fell by 600. Today as I continue writing, it rose by nearly 3000 points. There are countless ways to reach when life becomes chaotic. Some people "don't look up" as the movie's title states, because as long as you can't see the asteroid heading straight towards you it does not exist. Some like to lean into the chaos, acting like Loki, the Norse god of mischief and disruption. Others protest through marches, speeches, and boycotts. All of these are human reactions on which I place no judgment. Based...

Scheduling - A School's Heuristic Problem

Students learn about algorithms in Computer Science to solve complex problems in reasonable times. Some issues are too complex even for the best algorithms to perfectly solve, and those are known as heuristics. The example commonly used is the traveling salesman. While a little outdated, and I have updated the example to be the logistics of UPS delivering packages, the story goes like this. A traveling salesman arrives in a new town intending to get to each house in the most efficient path possible. They get a road map of all the homes they will visit and their hotel room and start mapping out paths. The math works out to show the following: Let's nerd out for a moment. Each number of possible paths is the mathematical factorial of the number of homes on the path. So 3 homes means 3*2*1 = 6 paths. 7 homes means 7*6*5*4*3*2*1 = 5040 homes. Just 10 homes, and we are at 10 factorial or 3,682,800 pathways! How can one possibly solve for the best route with that many choices? It is too...

Teacher Leader Coach

Search This Blog