Last week, we had a health wellness check in my building. This is a great service provided to busy teachers who seldom put themselves first. Teachers are notorious for serving the needs of everyone else before even realizing they might have pneumonia or a kidney infection or their left foot is falling off. Teachers just hobble along on the stump that used to be a left foot. There are essays to grade, and lessons to plan, and letters of recommendations to write -- who has time to take care of an obnoxious gangrenous foot? That foot was probably just slowing you down anyway. So, to have a team of medical professionals actually show up in our building and check on our well-being, that's a pretty big deal. I only bring up this scenario because as part of this wellness service, they offered us vitamin B 12 shots. It is believed that these B 12 injections increase energy levels, and for a busy teacher, mom, wife, and student, if there is ONE thing I need, it is more energy. So, of course, when they asked me if I would like a B 12 shot, I said, "How many can you give me at once?" So I allowed this nice nurse to inject some kind of cranberry colored liquid into my arm in order to help me get everything done that just needs to get done. But I don't describe this scenario just to explain how desperate I am to have the energy I need to make my life "happen" on a day to day basis. This also made me think about, outside of vitamins, caffeine, B12 vitamins, and maybe just a tiny bit of meth, what can we do to get it all done? How do we make the time we have as useful as possible? What are people doing to increasing productivity?
In researching productivity, I found several apps that appeared on many lists for helping busy people manage their lives. The Google apps make every list, and I concur. These apps have really changed the way we all work. Google Drive is one app that shows up on just about every productivity list because it has made saving and sharing work simple. All of the Google apps work seamlessly together and help us get our work done better and faster. I just taught my students this week how to upload their work to Google Docs and then use the add-on apps to edit their own work and add works cited pages. The days of slowly working to piece together all of the minutia that is a works cited page is over. You just click, click, and click, and there it is. Every comma and period and italicization is perfectly put together. And the fact that you don't have to worry about information not being lost because it is in or on or over "the cloud" makes everything even more convenient. As a teacher, I am trying to integrate the Google apps into my classroom as we move to a paperless and technology-based system. I know that Google is just going to keep getting better at making my life easier.
Evernote was also a big hit on the productivity top ten lists. This app allows busy people to manage ALL of their information. Evernote, also a cloud based system, allows you to save notes, articles, emails, pictures, audio, and video. You name it, and you can save it in Evernote. Most impressively, you can even take pictures of your handwritten notes, and Evernote will clean them up and save them for later. Additionally, Evernote has easy search capabilities. You can tag your notes in order for it to be easily sorted and organized for later use. Evernote also allows the user to conveniently share your notes with others. In this day and age when we feel bombarded with information, it's important to have a way to sort and save and organize all of this information. Because if we can't utilize any of this information, then it ceases to be information. It's just junk that clutters up our lives. And we just don;t have time for that!
Another very popular app found on numerous productivity lists is Any.do. There are many popular To Do List apps out there to help people stay organized to improve productivity, and Any.do seems to really help get the job done. People like Any.do because it doesn't overwhelm its users with everything that needs to get done yesterday. The trouble with To Do Lists is that they can leave people feeling like failures as they see what they aren't getting accomplished. It can just become an ever-growing mountain of what isn't getting done. Therefore, you need one that makes things feel manageable. Any.do sorts your tasks into "Today," "Tomorrow," "Upcoming," and "Someday." This categorization makes things seem a little less overwhelming. Any.do is also cool because you can add new tasks by emailing them to your do@any.do account. Any.do prompts you every morning to take a moment to plan your day. And as you complete tasks, Any.do cheers you on with, "Like a Boss!"
Regardless of what you're using to make your life more productive, whether it be vitamins, caffeine, or apps, it's important to remember that as teachers, and parents, and spouses, or whatever role you fulfill in life, we have to make time for taking care of ourselves, We can't help anyone or complete any tasks if we are falling apart. In our busy lives, we often put our health on the back burner. Eating right and getting exercise and spending time laughing and talking with loved ones also boosts productivity because it boosts our immune systems and energizes us. Getting enough sleep is also vital to making our very busy lives doable. Therefore, make sure to check out all of the new tech that is out there to help us sort and organize our lives, but also take some time to rest and recharge. Research shows that people who take time in their day to be meditate or be mindful about what they are getting accomplished and why they are working towards a goal work more efficiently. It's not only important to get the job done, it's also important to stop and consider why we are getting the job done in the first place. Don't be a hamster stuck on its spinning wheel.
Sources: Forbes Magazine. "Here are the Best Apps for People With To Much To Do."
Business Insider. "The Best Productivity Apps for Getting Things Done."
Tom's Guide. "20 Best Productivity Apps."
Inc.com. "Inside the Psychology of Productivity."
