Program Challenges, Communication, and Health

Program Challenges, Communication, and Health

Ready to ditch the old school playbook and blaze a new trail in education? If so, you’re in the right place. I’m Danny Bauer and this is the Better Leaders, Better Schools podcast, a show for ruckus makers reshaping the future of learning. This is your go to podcast to learn how to challenge the status quo and unleash the full potential on your campus. In today’s show, I speak with a private coaching client named Ryan and we cover a range of topics like starting the school year and the challenges that brings, curriculum and communication challenges, personal health and work life balance, email management and prioritization, goal setting and communication strategies. Thank you for listening. This show doesn’t exist without wonderful Ruckus makers like you pressing play right now.

We’ll be returning to the main episode, but first we’ll get some quick messages in from our show sponsors. Hey Ruckus Maker, I’ll make this quick. If you’re listening to this message right now, you’re missing out. When you subscribe to the Ruckus Maker newsletter on Substack, you get access to micro books focused on how to do school, different tools and other resources that will help you make a ruckus and do school different stories and case studies of the world’s most legendary Ruckus Makers of all time, access to my calendar to schedule coaching sessions, and you’ll also get bonus podcast content that won’t be released on the main podcast feed and podcast episodes without any advertisements. If you love this show, if it’s helped you grow and you want access to more tools and resources that will help you make a ruckus and do school different, then become a paid subscriber@ruckus makers.substack.com.

The secret to peak performance is not complicated. It’s a plan on how to optimize the five fundamentals found in the Ruckus Maker Mindset tool. This simple tool will help you consider where you are now and where you want to be in the next 90 days. For each area, you can complete the tool in 5 minutes or less. Download it for free at betterleadersbetterschools.com . If you could differentiate instruction in 20 minutes or less, would you do it for your students? Well, you can with IXL. Over 1 million teachers use IXL because it empowers them to use effective data informed instruction. Get started [email protected] leaders that’s ixl.com leaders when you work with Quest Food Management Services, you’re gonna feel good about the food you serve your students. That’s because the food is real and it’s made from scratch and locally sourced. Learn more about Quest Food Management [email protected] or follow Quest Food on social media. That’s questfms.com well, good to see you again, Ryan. Like you said, it’s been a minute. So why don’t you update us on anything you want to update or share Any celebrations and then what would be something that you want to dig into?

03:41
Ryan
Well, I missed you. I mean, just a lot going on. The school year started rocking and rolling. There is no easy transition. I mean we only had, I think I was able to get together with staff for like four hours just so we could cover building level stuff before we rock and roll into the school year. I mean we have a couple teacher work days and then there’s a district PD day and then I get a building day, but then I gotta give staff a couple hours because we have an open house in the evening. There’s not a whole lot of time where I really get together with my staff. We just hit the ground running, having my 90 day plan all nice knocked out. I haven’t been revisiting it like I should. I feel like I got ahead and then now I went and moved something last week. I’ve been playing catch up with it or with everything. But I mean, things are going good. I mean this job is funny because like some days you feel like you got it and then other days you’re like, oh, I’m awful, I am not good at this. And then feel like you kind of got it. And so it just kind of goes back and forth. But Mitch Weathers, I mean I really wanted to push with him that whole executive function piece, but I just got that email in here a couple or a day ago that I’m going to put that on the back burner because this year we’re building wide. We’re not calling it intervention, we’re calling it acceleration.

05:06
Ryan
In acceleration, it just means everybody has access to a grade level curriculum. So every teacher in the building during our fifth period is teaching math or language arts or math or reading. And man, that’s been an absolute animal. I mean we’re fortunate that we have instructional coaches. I have one for math and for language arts and they’ve been doing a lot of work with dad. Staff’s been super receptive to it. I mean our data shows that we do, we have to just focus on. There’s a big need for math and there’s a big need for reading, especially getting these kiddos ready for high school. So dad’s been a big lift this year. We’re getting ready to move toward the first grouping of those kids next week. So that’s happening. What else we got going on Yonder. Yonder pouches. I was told, I think in July, that. I don’t know if I even told you this, that we’re going to two schools. Three schools in the district are going to be piloting yonder pouches, which are magnetic pouches that you’re supposed to put your cell phones into. And then they click and they lock. And we have magnets all over the building. At the end of the day, they run around and click on the magnet. The pouch opens, and they could take their cell phone out. That is going on.

06:24
Danny
I know the founder, Graham, so that’s cool. I’d be interested to hear how that pilot goes for you. He was on the show once talking about it, so I don’t want to turn it into a yonder episode. This is about sharing and serving you. Excuse me, but I do know, obviously cell phones are impacting the quality of education, the instruction and learning experience. And sometimes we just had to step up, especially when parents aren’t stepping up and saying, put that away.

 06:58
Ryan
Yeah. And it wasn’t really a huge lift. The expectations. The last couple years have been off and away during the school day. We allowed them at lunch before this year. No lunch. There’s just no need. I mean, turn around and talk to your neighbor. You don’t need to text your neighbor when you’re a foot away from him. With all the busyness, I was into that Ruckus Maker thing. I’m like, oh, no, I can’t afford that. But then I looked at the cost. I’m like, gosh dang it, dude, I didn’t see the deal you gave us. I’m thinking I want to get back in there.  I would like to get in the club, but it’s probably too late.

07:39
Danny
I have a soft spot in my heart for you because we know each other.  I don’t know everybody that listens to the podcast. I don’t know everybody that reads the emails and that kind of thing. But if you want, we’ll work it out.

07:52
Ryan
I am sorry. Was it swamped at that time? When I saw that original price tag, that was what all of it cost together. And then there’s that monthly discount where I’m like, oh yeah, that’s reasonable.

08:07
Danny
Yeah, yeah, for sure. That was part of the reason I created it too. So just a real quick plug for the club. I’m not sure when this episode will be released and when the club will be open. I know each summer will open like I did this year. But I think part of what’s in the club, we’re going to have these innovation labs and I know that our live events are really good. So we’ll still have our live summer in person event if people can make it. But then we’ll do three virtual events as well. So it’s super easy for everybody to be there. Plus it’ll be recorded too if you can’t participate live. And I think that I might test out opening the club just for a very short window around those events.

08:50
Danny
So basically people will invest in coming to the event and they’ll just get the club as a result. So we’ll see. That’s kind of the plan. I’m going to test it out. But yeah, we’ll get you in there. We’ll get any listener who wants in. We’ll get you in as well. All right. So what’s top of mind? What can we dig into to serve you today?

09:09
Ryan
This is just such a funny profession because I can’t always meet with everybody. I can’t always get everybody’s input. And I had my foundations meeting, my leadership meeting the other day. So that also happened to be our PLC day, which we’re talking about rolling out the whole new wind groping and I mean all the students in the building are leveled. We’ve got our green students that we’re going to be doing an enrichment piece for the yellow students. I mean getting them lessons to get to front load for what’s coming down for math and for reading. And then the red students are two to three years behind and what we’re doing to catch them up to and expose them to grade level curriculum. It was good that I had the foundations meeting after that plc and it was one of those things where I thought, oh man, like good questions they were finally able to collaborate. I wasn’t speaking as much during the plc. I let teachers get in and start doing their thing, and I thought, from my perspective, oh, man, that went really well. And then when we had our foundations meeting, I’m like, okay, like, give me your feedback, because I know where. What. What I think is. Isn’t always the reality of the situation. And I just had, like, a lot of good things that were brought up by the team. And it’s just you could get frustrated where you’re like, well, you guys don’t understand that I.We don’t always have time to meet with you and to get all your. But it was good. It was good to hear what Boots on the Ground were seeing. Admin and the instructional coaches, it was just a good perspective, and it made me realize I need to be getting more input from. Finding ways to get more input from teachers, from the leadership team, multiple voices in the building.

11:08
Danny
Got it. So was that the feedback you received? Because it sounded like you had the plc, then the foundation’s leadership team meeting. You said you got positive feedback, but are you just. Are you saying the positive feedback was that they were candid with you and saying, hey, we would like to be able to share more of our opinions or something? Is. Am I following you correctly or.

11:28
Ryan
The plc, where they were finally getting into place and students, we had a general layout of where everybody should go, and we said, hey, this is just what the data showed. If you want to move kids around based on personalities or based on different things, because you know them like, you guys are the experts with this. Make the moves. And then the foundations team, when I was talking about it, I’m like, hey, where are we with this? Because now everybody’s teaching lessons for the math teacher. You know, he’s like, hey, I don’t know if we have enough lessons for all this. And you’re going to have to support these teachers a lot more than you guys are thinking you need to. We’re just hearing from the company what needs to be done. And the guys that have been in the curriculum are telling us, well, it’s a little bit different in the curriculum from the curriculum side of things. So, fortunately, tomorrow we do have the curriculum people coming in, and I’m going to get that math teacher to come in so we can kind of have a conversation and work through some of the kinks that he brought up.

12:31
Danny
Got it. So there’s an Incongruence with what your people are seeing in reality and what the company thinks needs to be delivered for adequate or over delivering on the intervention time, like acceleration or whatever you’re calling that wind time, is that right?

12:47
Ryan
Yeah. And it’s one of those things too, where we just haven’t gotten jumped into the pool yet and seen what it looks like. We’ve seen the lessons, we just gotta get in there. And you know, I’ve told the staff, hey, there’s gonna be growing pains with this. They’ve all done a good job of adapting to that. But next week we’re moving into having groups and teaching lessons across the board.

13:14
Danny
Some things to consider for sure. And I’m sure you have a story around this, so you’d have to figure out which is the story that’s the appropriate one to tell. But usually like before doing the thing, whether that’s moving across the country or taking the new job, marrying somebody, all the stuff our minds sometimes go to, like what won’t work and why and it really embellishes and amplifies the problems when in reality it’s actually not that bad. I don’t know if you have any personal stories about times you thought, oh, the world is really ruined here, everything is done, but you got through it in hindsight’s always 2020 sort of thing. It might be a nice gentle reminder as anxiety or worry might be a little bit elevated within the staff. Not to say what you’re feeling isn’t valid, but in my experience, here’s something that I know that I do. Maybe you do this too, How many make something bigger than it actually is. Something to play around with. See how that works.

14:26
Ryan
Yeah. And that’s the line I’ve been using. We’re going to get through it and every decision we make in this building is what’s best for kids. Data is showing us we have huge gaps and big gaps in reading. That’s a good perspective to look at things from for sure.

14:45
Danny
So is that, do you want to dig on and explore that topic more? Is there some support around this stuff that you’re looking for or is it. It sounds like it’s. It’s great that you had the support of the person from the company’s coming out to provide some development.

15:00
Ryan
They’ve done a nice job. This is the vision I had last year and wanted this year, but we didn’t get support. And there were a couple other schools that did get that support. So they’ve kind of gone through the process a little bit, so I can kind of get some information from them. But it’s not new for everybody in this building. So with something new there’s reservation. But we’re going to get through it.

15:28
Danny
I think it helps a lot too if there’s a way to paint a picture of the ideal future for everybody on the staff. And leaders can probably lean into that a lot more in terms of where we are, but this is where we’re going. This is a much better place. And also here’s how it benefits you. The weird thing about this, because we’re saying what’s right for kids and that kind of stuff, educators do care about that. But you know what they care about even more? Just how it is. It’s human nature. So if you can identify and articulate and over communicate, what’s in it for you? Classroom teacher, when you learn this new way of redesigning instruction and reassessing and whatever you’re doing with this wind time and all of that, but you really hammer the benefits for the individual teacher and how their life is better as a result. I think that also makes the change or whatever a lot more doable. Right. I’m open to that because I could see how this makes me better.

16:34
Ryan
Yeah, that’s a good point.You hit around the whole over communicating and I feel like, I mean, ideally I would have loved to have over communicated on this, but I feel like it’s just tough when you don’t get time with your whole staff. And then you have time for that hour period for PLC every Monday. And it’s like you’re prepping for this. But during plc, I feel like, man, I need to just shut up and let them work for sure.

17:03
Danny
And you could send stuff out newsletters, print or email, social, these kind of things.

17:10
Ryan
You send all that stuff out, then you’re like, man, you guys gotta read this.

17:14
Danny
I mean, part of it too. I have one of my favorite ruckus Makers, his name’s Demetrius. I work with him one on one. I visited him at his school. He’s just absolutely doing a great job. He’s been in the Mastermind for as long as I can remember. He’s come to every live event and something that I admire about him this year, I forget where we’re at. Oh, in the club we have monthly themes. The September theme was on goals. And so we’ve been talking a lot about goals and things we’re working on. And for him, he’s revamping the newsletter and just making it more bite sized. I think that’s great. And success leaves clues. So you can look at social media too. Like in some respects, I’ll use LinkedIn as an example.  LinkedIn a lot, but many of the platforms do this. On LinkedIn you only see the first three lines of a post and then there’s two little words in the bottom, right says See more.  And then if you click that see more, if there’s a longer post, it all opens up. Okay, well, from an algorithm point of view, LinkedIn wants to know who’s clicking my post to see more. And if that’s getting more action, then it’s going to show it to more people. But to connect the dots and build the bridge to your life as a school leader, how do you communicate the most important information in three lines? Okay. And then you just have like maybe a little link, maybe it’s to a bigger Google Doc or whatever you use, right? And it’s like, click here if you want to learn more about this, you know. So anyways, Demetrius is really playing around with nice heading, shorter body content. Right. And then there’s hyperlinks if you want to dig into a deeper, more robust look at whatever he’s introducing. But how does he deliver the gist, the kernel that everybody needs to be aware of in as few words as possible. So that’s interesting too, because then if you make a newsletter scannable, for example, there’s still, it’s still information dense, but people can see and get through the material quickly. Their eyes can go to things that they want to. So when I was principal let’s say I’m reviewing stuff that’s going on with athletics or with drama, actually. Not everybody cares about it, right?

19:30
Danny
So they can get through it quickly without having to hear the whole thing. And then the other sort of hack would be if you use a Bitly link or you know, a link shortener type of thing like Bitly allows you to see not who, but how many People click on it. And then let’s say we’re talking about wind time intervention acceleration type stuff, and you have a short little blurb. Read more. How many people actually click. Read more. That’ll tell you a lot about your staff. Right. Tells you a lot about your writing as well. But then you can refine from that data and make it better and better. And if you see people clicking a lot, maybe that’s actually an expanded SEction because everybody wants to know it.

20:11
Danny
And these other sections, maybe they get shrunk a little bit more. There’s a lot too. It’s all hypothetical without real data. But that’s that’s how it works.

20:20
Ryan
So we’ve been using S’more as a platform, and my assistant principal. I think you can get in there and view analytics.

20:28
Danny
I’m pretty sure you can, too. That’s a very popular newsletter tool for sure. But that data only matters if you’re using it.

20:37
Ryan
I don’t think Smoor breaks it down by heading, but that is interesting because last year I was like, oh, man, we’re going to do this more and we’re going to have a special section and then we’re going to have assistant principal tidbits. And I mean, the feedback I got was, whoa, baby, that’s way too big.

20:56
Danny
Too much, whoa.

20:57
Ryan
This year we have worked on just give them two weeks out, what’s happening, and they need to know a few things for the week and then a couple other things in it at the bottom.

21:10
Danny
Something that drove me nuts as a ruckus maker was hearing teachers say I taught it and the students should have learned it. But really, some teachers just don’t know how to reteach so that all kids get it. That’s where IXL comes in. IXL’s diagnostic automatically identifies knowledge gaps for teachers and provides them with a personalized growth plan for each individual student. Teachers can step into the classroom every day knowing what their students know and what they don’t. IXL’s adaptive platform makes differentiating instruction easy. As students learn, IXL adjusts to the right level of difficulty for each individual. Close knowledge gaps and accelerate learning with IXL. Get started [email protected] leadership. That’s IXL.com leaders for some students, the meal or two you serve them, that’s going to be it. That’s what they get for the day, which means we’ve got to get this right, Quest Food Management Services elevates the student dining experience, serving scratch made meals using high quality ingredients that are sourced locally and responsibly. Now you might be thinking, okay, Danny, I get it, the food’s high quality, but do the students eat it and enjoy it? Bottom line, students love the food. Quest is one of the fastest growing companies in the school food service industry and has been consistently ranked in the top 50 food service providers by Food Management magazine. Learn more about Quest Food management [email protected] or follow Quest Food on social media. That’s quest fms.com so longtime listeners and Ruckus makers definitely know Mitch Weathers. He founded Organized Binder and he wrote a recent book, Executive Functions for Every Classroom. Now this book is absolutely amazing.

23:20
Danny
He has a saying, you can’t tier three or tier two yourself out of a tier one problem. And a missing component of much of tier one instruction is this idea of executive functions. When kids get it, everything is unlocked for them. They’re able to succeed, achieve at much higher levels. Like I said, the book has done really well. It’s become a bestseller in less than six months. And to celebrate, Mitche has put together a really generous opportunity which is you could get 30% off the book in free shipping. So go to organizebinder.com ruckus and then when you check out, use the code RUCKUS30. Now spell RUCKUS ALL CAPS and 30 for 30 to get that 30% discount and free shipping. So one more time, grab executive functions for every classroom.

24:12
Danny
Go to organizebinder.com/ruckus and use the code ruckus30 for that discount and free shipping. So the other ideas I have too, like, cause you only have a limited amount, it’s a finite amount of time with the entire staff. So there’s all the random chance encounters in the hallways and that kind of stuff. There’s sweeping the school or doing the rounds in the morning at the end of school where there might be opportunities to share. You talked about PLC time.  I don’t know if there’s grade level time or department time. So you might be able to pop into those even though it’s not PLC time. And then the other thing that I’m sorry, I don’t remember from your context. I don’t remember if you have apps, and if you have aps, how many. And then I don’t remember if you have more grade level leads or department chairs. But the point is grade level departments, like if you got those people, then it’s really making sure that they understand the core message. Even practice and role play with you, that they understand the message you want to be shared out there. Because what they hear and what they say might be two different things. And if you role play, you can correct it in the moment before they go tell people all the wrong information. But it’s about leverage, right? It’s the network effect. There’s only one Ryan. So there’s not enough of you to get the message to sink in. But if you leverage your community, it will sink in a lot faster. But to answer the question, I don’t remember about the APs, do you have any?

25:43
Ryan
I have an AP, yeah.

25:44
Danny
Okay. And so getting him or her out there too, sharing some of that stuff as well, you know that would be important as well.

25:51
Ryan
And that’s a good point too. I mean, I’ve tried just protecting that day from staff at the end of school. I mean, because they get done at 2:30, 2:30 to 3. I mean that’s instructional stuff. That’s collaborating with other staff, that’s phone calls to parents, communicating with parents. I try to protect that as much as possible. But the other day it was like, you know what we do? We need to add department meetings at the end of the day. We can do on foundation Mondays and then department meetings every other week on Monday just to be able to get more information out. And like you said, that vision and just clarity with all that stuff.

26:32
Danny
I think most meetings are like, really, they’re boring and they suck and they’re not run well.  I think if you can figure out and really home being able to deliver the core message succinctly, concisely, quickly, and then just say, right, Q and A, like if you have anything, people will come to love those meetings because you’re not talking their ear off. Definitely don’t read them a PowerPoint slide, just send them the slides if you’re going to read it to them. But you know what I mean? And if you’re able to do that in a different way and in a way that creates a space for people to have voice and actually participate then like I said, I think they’ll come to love what you do.

27:12
Ryan
And it’s also nice because we’re doing school wide portfolios with students and right now the only section built is the whole I ready reflection on their first assessment where students at? And it actually broke. I mean, we broke it down to four students. Everybody in the building is writing down math where they stand grade level, geometry where they stand, grade level. I mean, it’s broken down by all the domains for math, for language arts. So we’ve been brutally honest with students this year. But the piece that’s missing is now the whole portfolio piece for just the different departments. And letting them build what they want to see in the portfolio so that students are able to reflect the progress they make throughout the year on the different subjects.

28:00
Danny
I can see that being a powerful portfolio experience. I’m sure you’ll give some guidance too, right? Some constraints in terms of what success looks like for a portfolio. But then they have agency within those boundaries.

28:12
Ryan
Because I was like, man, I’m pushing this portfolio right now, which is coming from me. Well, they gotta be able to. They gotta be able to do some stuff on their own in this. And what should that look like and what do they want to see in these portfolios? That’s going to help out with clarifying messages too.

28:31
Ryan
And then the whole just that healthy piece. I preach just to have, when you’re done with school be efficient, get done with school, healthy lifestyle, spending time with family. I’m getting kind of frustrated with my wife because she’s coming home and just working, working. And I’m thinking, I hope I’m not doing that to my staff because we just need to be able to come home and just be there, be present. But then one of my goals in that 90 day plan was just to be healthy, like getting out, exercising. I have to force myself to be a morning person. But that’s one of the things too. I just want to be pushing myself. And the next time we chat, just being able to say, hey, like you said, you were making this a goal. Are you following up on this?

29:17
Danny
Why do you have to force yourself to be a morning person?

29:20
Ryan
I like staying up and I hate getting up.

29:22
Danny
I get that. But are you saying because, like, that’s. That’s the ideal time to work out or. Or is there.

29:29
Ryan
I don’t think you can be working out at 8:00 at night and then going to bed at 10 I mean, that’s kind of 10, 11, like it has to be that morning piece. And it’s funny because I kind of got a little jealous of the Anchorage school district. They just are there in the process of moving start time for later, for middle School. And I’m like, oh man, if we did that’d be sweet because I could get stuff done in the morning.

29:53
Danny
Yeah, well, maybe you could. Maybe you could plant that seed then.

29:56
Ryan
You get out later.

29:57
Danny
Research shows working out releases cortisol stress stuff and it keeps you up. So if you have later afternoon evening workouts, it’s typically harder to fall asleep, according to science.  I have 2:00.  I like a 2:00 workout that works well for me. I’ve done mornings as well, which is really nice. But I do try to avoid the evening ones if I can. It’s hard to start being an adult, right? I like staying up too. The only way is when I am able to wake up, I guess, earlier and stick to that. There’s something about that lifestyle that outweighs whatever I’m getting by staying up. And I don’t know if it was with you.  I’ve shared this with a million people, but sometimes when digging into the different levels of why the healthy and why being present with family matters, I can make a lot of assumptions about it, but digging into the significance should provide some motivation. And then the key question, this is the one I don’t remember if I shared with you or not, but like if I believe that me five years out, 10 years out is a bigger, better version of who I am today, right, Then the question that quite challenges me and is able to me to get like, shoot straight is what does that version of me need from the current version of me in this moment? What do I mean? And so if I am.

31:27
Ryan
Hold on, I got the front. My front office is coming here. Is it a 91 1? I hate it.

 31:35
Danny
It’s all good. I can’t make up for real life. It’s just the idea of love.  Does the future version of me who is bigger, better, creating more value for everybody? What does he need from the smaller me in the, at this moment? Maybe smaller is not such a good word, but the current reality, right. If the future reality is even more amazing. Ruckus maker. I know I don’t want to let myself down and so that helps out.  And maybe there is. Maybe there’s a way like you’re gonna have to figure out how to hack your own operating system. The operating system of Ryan. I like gifts, I like toys, If I was gonna invent a game for myself, actually I’ll share some. I wasn’t prepared to share, but I’ll share it anyway. But if I was to hack my own operating system, there’s a new Pixel phone out, there’s a new iPhone. Maybe it’s something after working out X mornings or something. Oh, you can buy that. I could buy it now if I wanted to and that’s what most people do. But it feels, it’s more satisfying if you work for it a little bit and play that game with yourself. What I was, what I was about to share and I don’t, I need to figure out the reward for it, but. And I probably need to actually identify the specific points that I get.

32:55
Danny
But I still like games honestly, Ryan, they can be like on the PS5 or just on my phone or tablet type of thing. Like a car game, like Marvel Snap or something my 20 year old nephew’s really into that too, by the way. But long story short, like with any of that stuff there’s leveling up, there’s better cards, there’s more powers that you can get and that’s by playing the game well and it feels fun. And then I thought, is there a way I could just make life the game.Like trick my mind into, oh, I clean the oven and I get X amount of life points because I know it’s going to be me being an adult, right.

33:38
Danny
But also it’s gonna mean something to my wife as well and that ‘s a good thing. So that’s helped me be way more present and involved with things like house projects and stuff. I typically, it’s not my natural inclination to get involved in. I don’t consider myself a great builder. I don’t like to do a lot of construction stuff. We built an accent wall and it actually looks really good. Painted it, cut the wood and got it up with a Brad Kneeler. I learned all that stuff. It’s like that. I didn’t know it before and it’s probably just a story I tell myself. Like dad wasn’t around to teach me these things and I just never learned the skills and so I feel less competent doing that stuff at the moment, right?

34:20
Danny
I can ask you what you take away from that story, but my point is those things I sort of shy away from. I’m trying to make it like, oh, you level up. You get awards and points if you do this thing, even. Even though I know I don’t.

34:36
Ryan
Well, it’s funny you bring that up because, oh, one of our friends has been talking to us about this like skylight calendar where you can, everybody, it’s a digital display and meets the sets up the month and everybody. You could put your chores on there. And I’m just like, oh, that might be just a nice thing to put some of my goals on there too. So as my kids rewards, I could be looking to reward myself on it too.

35:05
Danny
Why not? Right? Something to try. What dad doesn’t want to like, I guess beat him. His kids are right in whatever they can be, you know what I mean? There was any time I played my dad in basketball, that kind of thing I was like, I gotta beat this guy. And I know he wanted to beat me. S

35:26
Ryan
Interesting. I could beat my wife. Actually, she needs to hold me accountable. Like that should be a thing that we’re doing together for sure.

35:33
Danny
But speaking of that, there could be a shared relational goal, right? Like, hey, we both knock these things out, model these great behaviors for our kids and then we go take a weekend getaway type of thing that we want to. We always say we want to do, but we haven’t and so that there’s so many different ways that you can make it fun and interesting and that kind of.

35:54
Ryan
So she listens to this. Then she knows there’s going to be a weekend getaway.

35:57
Danny
I was about to say it like, I’m pretty sure my wife doesn’t listen to the show, but it is like I have been really tracking these things that typically I used to ignore and now I’m like putting it at the forefront. Because here’s the other thing, right? I’m so good at business goals, right? School goals, the coaching stuff. Knock this out. Of course I can grow, but I am competent, doing really well. And I’m like, to be honest, right? Am I putting that same amount of energy and focus into my personal life? The answer weeks ago for sure was no. Today it’s better and I still have room to improve, but I’m happy with the progress that I’m seeing so if you can relate or not, I’m sure some listeners can for sure.

36:42
Ryan
I’ll have to let you go. It’s a skylight calendar. I think it’d be a nice way to. I don’t know if it does anything for you. I’ll have to ask somebody.

36:52
Danny
But sometimes I even think, is that something? Is that like an app people would invest in? But I don’t want to start talking about businesses and stuff. But you load up. Here’s your adulting stuff you’re trying to win, and, okay, here’s the awards you get and that kind of thing.

37:07
Ryan
Well, it’s so funny because adults do go for badges as well. When Google is doing badges and some people are like, oh, I got certified in this, and I got these badges, I’m thinking, oh, okay.

37:18
Danny
We give our students stickers. It does work. No, I was just gonna say, if you want. Do you want to dig into the health stuff anymore? Do you feel like that? That covered it?

37:28
Ryan
It’s just that accountability piece now. Next time. Hey, where are you at with this? I think I’m good with that.

37:36
Danny
Okay, cool. Is there anything else? We got a few more minutes. Is there anything else that you want to lean into?

37:42
Ryan
Sticking with that 90 day plan setting. My setting, my other third setting. Just been thinking about the other 90 days too. We’re almost in the first quarter. We’re six. Six weeks into school. That’s crazy. But, yeah, just planning out long term because like I said, I felt like I was ahead of the game. And now you miss a couple of days of school and you’re like playing catch up. Five million different emails.

38:11
Danny
That’s only if you think like sort of time is. Time’s fixed and today’s not a new opportunity. So it’s like the grocery store, right? And you see, I don’t know what grocery stores are in Alaska, but I’m assuming they’re the same.

38:26
Ryan
The same.

38:26
Danny
Do you play the game where it’s like, okay, do I pick this aisle or that aisle? And I choose this aisle, and now that aisle seems to be moving faster and it’s like, okay, that version of me, which doesn’t exist, at least in this reality, he’s winning. And I don’t like that I’m waiting here and that line’s moving forward. So that relates to what you’re saying. There are goals, you make a plan, but then reality arrives.  So you gotta just adjust things. And it’s not a helpful mindset to think that you’re now digging out of a hole and that kind of stuff. But it’s more, today’s a new day, I have a plan, I know what’s most important. So if things need to be moved around and adjusted, that’s where getting really clear on priority.What is most important today, you know?

39:19
Ryan
Yeah. And it’s funny you mentioned that because I still got a bunch of emails in my inbox. I still have a bunch of things I need to do, but I need to get in classrooms. Yeah, I need to see what’s going on. I need to know what the culture is, where we are, where our students are, where staff are. And I mean I just told some people in the front of my case, there’s 911 discipline issues and my assistant principal, he’s on a field trip with another group of students right now. I’m not going to be able to make time for this. But I have, I’ve been able to make time to get into classes and see some things going on, meet with teachers and all those emails I haven’t gotten to, I haven’t got any parent complaints yet or staff complaints on them. So I like that inbox zero. That makes me feel good. But hey, if I have to live with a few emails in there right now, that’s fine.

40:10
Danny
But I wrote a recent post on LinkedIn and the gist was like I saw that inbox zero. I accepted that framework ages ago, right? I’ve changed my mind. My mind’s changed since then. I think it’s really bad teaching and it’s a bad target to try to achieve because the thing that happens with Inbox zero and for the ruckus maker listening, if you’re not familiar with it just means you have no more email, right? It’s like, okay, the inbox is clear. The problem with Inbox zero is that email typically is sort of like low level tasks that don’t create the most value for school. Now communication with parents is important, okay? But if you get super good at processing email, especially if you don’t use the schedule function right, and you respond in the moment, what you train people who send you email is that I’m Very responsive. Right. I get back to you super fast and therefore, please send me your email. And it actually creates a cycle that eventually just gets too big for you to be able to process. You know what I mean? So you’re actually creating more of a problem for yourself by getting good and clearing it all out. Because now you have the space for new email to arrive and you’re training people that you’re. You’re very responsive and quick to reply to emails. So it’s again, the priorities and weighing the options of all the finite amount of mental energy you have each day. Is it classrooms or is it processing email?

41:41
Danny
And these are choices. Leadership is a trade off. Life has trade offs. And so I have a. I have a bunch of emails, and sometimes it takes a very long time for me to get back to you, depending on sort of where you fall in my world because I scan for that.  You could do that quite easily. And then some stuff I see, I don’t know if I open it up now. The oldest email I have, it’s not super duper old, but it’s like August 29th.  That is something I need to respond to because it’s somebody that wants to meet with me and we have something on the books and I need to change it. I will get back to that person. But typically, like, in this day and age, because responses are so fast and people are trained that way, if an email is like a week or so old, it’s kind of like not even in existence anymore. And a lot of times I just delete it and move on. Cause everybody else has moved on too, right? You gotta know it depends on who sent it. Superintendent. Okay, we’re getting back to that person,

42:41
Ryan
That’s funny because I have. I’ve lived in that world of trying to. I mean, maintaining inbox zero. And then everything goes to a task manager, Microsoft to do. And it’s easy to push it there.  I’m like, oh, my gosh, I got inbox zero now. My to-do list is crazy big right now. And then as I’m going through looking at some of the TO do, What the heck? I didn’t even need to put this into me because nobody cares. They’ve already taken care of.

43:13
Danny
So that’s the wisdom. That’s the wisdom, Ryan. I had to jump a lot of times, and I’ve even done this because at the moment it’s like, I’m having an emergency, a problem. Maybe it’s with the Ruckus Maker club that I built and I have tech support around that from a team. I might send them something and then the problem resolves itself. It’s okay to let some fires burn. Really the leadership lesson there. And it just takes time and wisdom to figure out which ones are which. But it’s also training your team too. Like if they’re sending you stuff that clearly is like this is figure outable and by you I don’t need like there was a principal that I supported for a while, he’s up in central office now.

43:52
Danny
But he was really good in his New York personality to tell somebody very directly, do not waste my time with this kind of email. If you ever send one like this again, we’re going to have big trouble. Right. But being direct in that way and being able to clearly articulate why this is out of bounds versus emails he should be sent. He got emails that he should be getting and was able to eliminate emails that really weren’t worth his time.

44:21
Ryan
I used to continually tell Microsoft Teams that’s like keeping that in the day to day world. If you got questions, throw it out to the group if you got, I mean just general conversations. But if you want tasks like that is email like you need things done or big questions.I need to get back to revisit that too.

44:45
Danny
Yeah, it’s back to the point I tell everybody a lot of tasks.

44:48
Ryan
I just click through because I’m like, don’t matter, don’t matter.

44:51
Danny
Yeah, so and that’s ok. I mean there’s a thing called the focus funnel and basically when you get a task in front of you, I don’t know if I’ll get the order right, but can I eliminate this off the bat? Can I automate it? Can I delegate it? Can I procrastinate on it? And then after procrastinating, if I can’t wait for it, do I have to concentrate on it? . And if it gets to the procrastinate piece and then goes back to the top of the funnel again, eliminate automate, delegate, procrastinate. And you procrastinate for a few cycles. You really should have just eliminated it because it never was something that was a task worth your time. And it sounds like you’re kind of naturally doing that.

45:34
Ryan
I know that Focus funnel might be a nice little thing to post here as I go through things.

45:40
Danny
I used to teach that and have it on my whiteboard when I was a school leader and show people like, what’s funny is my supervisor didn’t like that very much. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of stuff, so it’s all good.

45:52
Ryan
Trying to look for a quick little read on that.

45:55
Danny
Comes from a book called. Comes from a book called Procrastinate on Purpose by Rory Vaden.

46:01
Ryan
I was going to say Rory Vaden. You the guy? 

46:05
Ryan
Get more done with Rory Vaden’s Focus Funnel, Forbes six minute read and then I’ll put that in. I’m gonna put that in my task manager.

46:13
Danny
There you go. But honestly, If you just Google like you could read that for six minutes. You could also google the image of a focus funnel. And I’ve already taught you the concept. Cause it’s just, I have a task. Instead of doing it right away, I’m gonna ask myself those questions. Can I kill it, eliminate it? Can I automate it through technology? Can I delegate it like automation? Example. My friend Colin has a research project. He needs participants. So I emailed a bunch of people to see if they’d be willing to do it. And I’m going to gift them some free months in the Ruckus Maker club. Well, when people respond, yes, I’m willing to do that trade and help Colin, I give them the same, let’s say 75 word short email, right?

46:56
Danny
But instead of writing it over and over, instead of putting it in a Google Doc and copying and pasting, I use an app that costs just a few dollars a month. It’s called Text Expander. And I literally put a slash and then I write Colin because I know it’s Colin study. And if you had sent me that email, then I just write Ryan for your name and the rest of the email is written the body. So if there’s for example, stuff that you have to tell parents or staff or students over and over again. And really you don’t have to change very much of the body of the email, then that’s an example of automation where you can just have a code and it spits out, boom, it could spit out a very long email. Mine just it’s short.

47:38
Danny
So eliminate Automate, delegate to your AP or key leaders. Procrastinate. Concentrate. All I’m saying is just you don’t need to. You can read it. I’ve taught it to you. So just print out the picture and you’ll remember it all.

47:52
Ryan 
I’m going to print out the picture.

47:54
Danny 
I just saved you six minutes of your life.

47:56
Ryan  
You did, you did. And I just get to get in my task list now and click it.

48:00
Danny 
You can do so many push ups and sit ups in six minutes.

48:04
Ryan
Well that’s funny because I did. I gotta, I gotta wait down here right now. And I’m just like, oh man, I’ve just lift this weight a few times. I haven’t yet. And then after this I got people popping in, looking in my window right now. Are you done? Are you done?

48:19
Danny
And I do want to say the ruckus maker is listening. I admire that about you. Like there was a call and you. We paused the recording. You asked about identifying the level of emergency. It wasn’t something that needed attention right now. The thing that I admire is that you’re blocking off time and protecting it even though other people need it for some coaching. Right. You’re worth it. This time is valuable. I appreciate that about you. But that is a challenge to the listener because they probably have the open door policy always available and therefore they never get anything done or not everything they want to do, they’re working way too long. They don’t see their family. They have a, like anger level that’s sort of on a simmer and it’s all because of a game that they’ve invented the rules to and it’s not very fun to play. So if you don’t like that relationship with work, then protect time for yourself. Like Ryan’s doing with me right now.

49:16
Ryan
No, you got to be intentional.

49:17
Danny
Anything else that you want to dig into?

49:22
Ryan
No,  I mean you’ll probably think of something tomorrow, but you’ll be gone.

49:26
Danny
Well, text me. You have my number. So what was most helpful today?

49:31
Ryan
Honestly, I think that helped. Just, just the healthy ideas there of is kind of gamifying it. I mean making it feel like a whole family thing too. If my kids are, they have a short list too. There’s nothing wrong with seeing dad completing that stuff too. Then just with the whole wind situation and the building wide intervention piece just that mindset, hey, it’s new but we’re going to get through it. We’re going to get through it and we could look at all the negatives and all the roadblocks but let’s just get in. Let’s try it. I mean, I got a few things I obviously took away from communication. I think that the department meetings, it’ll be nice.

50:13
Ryan
It’ll be easier to communicate visions through department leaders now that we got foundations rocking and rolling, sending them out to give out the bigger message too. And I was going to say with that health too, just that future me in five years is that future meeting. I’m going to say, dude, why did you lift that weight a few times? It’s right by your foot, dude.

50:38
Danny
Awesome. It’s always a pleasure to connect and we’ll get another one on the schedule for sure. Thanks for listening to the Better Leaders, Better Schools podcast. Ruckus Maker. How would you like to lead with confidence, swap exhaustion for energy, turn your critics into cheerleaders, and so much more? The Ruckus Maker Mastermind is a world class leadership program designed for growth minded school leaders just like you. Go to betterleadersbetterschools.com/mastermind. Learn more about our program and fill out the application. We’ll be in touch within 48 hours to talk about how we can help you be even more effective. And by the way, we have cohorts that are diverse and mixed up. We also have cohorts just for women in leadership and a BIPOC only cohort is. Well, when you’re ready to level up, go to betterleadersbetterschools.com/mastermind and fill out the application. Thanks again for listening to the show. Bye for now and go make a ruckus.