Frank Buck's 2010 book Organization Made Easy! Tools for Today’s Teachers offers all educators useful tips about keeping track of things with the signature tool, the calendar, the task list, and documentation.
Buck’s Chapter 4: Your Signature Tool: Organizing With Paper
A “signature tool,” either paper or digital should have 5
functions.
1.
Remind one about appointments.
2.
Show our “to-do” items.
3.
Remind one about tasks that have been delegated
to other people.
4.
Allow one to record and find communication.
5.
Assist one to manage goals.
A “signature tool,” either paper or digital should have 5 guiding
principles.
1.
Make use of just one system.
2.
The system should be portable.
3.
One must keep the system nearby.
4.
One must never use “scraps of paper.”
5.
One must allow the system to remind him/her of
things – or “do the remembering.”
The paper signature tool has 3 functions:
1.
Calendar
2.
Task List
3.
Daily documentation.
On the calendar, put just 3 types of things:
1.
Appointments
2.
Things that HAVE to completed that day
3.
Things one must know about that day.
Task list
1.
Word tasks clearly.
2.
Group similar items.
3.
Compile the list once a week.
4.
Complete tasks ahead of deadlines.
5.
Use the “Fab 5” approach to focus on important
tasks each day.
To keep up with delegated tasks, immediately put the task in
the signature tool and deal with it as follows:
1.
Record the date due.
2.
If it should be completed in 1 week, group the
items together, perhaps to be checked on a Friday.
3.
For tasks to be completed in one month, perhaps
reserve the page right past the last day of the month to write down delegated
tasks.
For quick documentation, keep a page for each day where you
write down whatever occurred. Review the
page at the end of each day.
At the end of the month, compose a “table of contents” to
aid in future reference to the documentation, as needed. (An electronic one is
preferable, as it can be “searched.”)
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