Task management...The fluidity of “teaching” from home has me thinking about my daily use of the task management app, OmniFocus. Under "normal” circumstances I use the app for recurring tasks/actions... occasionally adding new things when needed. A few days ago I put all of my projects related to schoolwork on hold and reset dates for the tasks/actions I do weekly for the day we are supposed to get back to “physical“ school. Actually, that’s not completely true. I did, just this morning, re-start my “School” Project…which is where I put things that are not Literacy/Math related. I thought it would be a good idea…just in case I needed to place things there that need to get done…beyond the workflow I’ve highlight below. 

Here are the things (for now) that I'm doing regularly…in no particular order…

-Reading emails

-Checking Google Classroom

-Checking Remind app

-Writing announcements for Remind app and Google Classroom

-Checking my principal's Google doc

-Creating content for students on Google Classroom

-Supporting families with what it's going to mean to learn from home

-Participating in virtual meetings with my colleagues and students

There is no priority with regards to when each of these tasks/actions needs to “get done.” The only exception I'm making (the one that goes directly to the top of the list) is responding to families that reach out to me for assistance. Like yesterday...I was in the middle of reading emails when the family I haven't been able to get on the Internet for 3 days reached out again asking if I'd heard anything from our IT department. I stopped what I was doing and for the next 30 minutes focused on them. I got on the phone and called the Help Desk, got through, reexplained the situation, got another proposed fix, got off the phone, and contacted the family. They too were trying the Help Desk, got through, and got to talk to someone who was able to guide them to a solution! Doing what it takes to get things done sometimes means abandoning the creation of a list of “to dos.”

So how am I handling the things (task managing) I'm doing daily while “teaching“ from home? Everything on the list above gets done in a fluid, as it needs to, sort of flow and I'm good with that. Might I need to integrate OmniFocus back into my daily routine? Maybe. I actually did add a few things to it so I wouldn't forget to get to them...when I wasn't doing the other things.

Since Friday is an optional teacher workday I have an interesting idea for my next blogpost! Until then!!!