I've been doing a lot of thinking about productivity, procrastination and organisation in advance of the new school year due to start in a couple of weeks. I wanted to get my tools in place and set up before I begin so that I can hit the ground running.

Whilst I have dabbled a little at the edges of Getting Things Done methodology, I have never committed to it fully (and the jury is still out on that - I'm not sure I have the patience to go through the initial stages) and I wanted to do a little more research on productivity tools.

I've spent the morning syncing my iPhone todo list (I use ToDo) with a new pro online Toodledo account. Everything is running smoothly and I'm really pleased in particular with the Google Chrome plugin that goes with it.

My next job is to sort out my personal inbox. I am very disciplined about work email and normally achieve inbox zero daily. It feels good and works well for me. However, my personal gmail inbox is an absolute nightmare with 4 different accounts all channelled into one place and no sense of order. There are four thousand odd emails lurking in there that need sorting out in a very big way!

A reminder was called for so I did a little digging around on audio / video materials to support my productivity blitz this morning and found a couple of very handy things.

Firstly, here is Merlin Mann talking to the guys at Google about email productivity back in 2007. It's superb and very simple.

Next up I enjoyed this podcast from Joe and Josh about productivity and GTD on Rumblings from the Man Cave. It helped to clarify some key things for me.

Finally I thought I would share a great article about email from Jeff Attwood's blog 'Coding Horror' which made me smile and is a great piece on how we need to revisit the purpose of email. There are so many channels of communication, yet email tends to be the default setting for so many people. He says:

Stop. Sending. Email.

Instead of abusing email as a "one size fits all" conduit for communication, be smart. Know when to escalate your communication to the right medium for the particular message you're trying to deliver:

• Broad kudos? Post it on a feedback forum or your blog.
• Need an urgent, immediate answer? Pick up the phone and call.
• Got something that needs a lot of touchy feely discussion? Set up a face to face meeting.
• Discussing a particular topic or product? Post it on a public message board.
• Is this more of a friendly, social thing? Try using a social network like Twitter or Facebook.
• Business proposal? Perhaps it would be smart to approach indirectly, through soliciting recommendations of business associates.

The real solution here is to move people beyond email silos wherever and whenever possible. Some amount of email is still inevitable, though. What steps can we take to turn our email from a dangerous variable reinforcement machine to something more … sane? Predictable, even?

• Turn off all notification and interruption features in your email client.
• Only check your email at regular, scheduled intervals.
• Set up your email client to automatically highlight those emails from friends and business associates who are historically known to send you useful email.

Interesting stuff! I will share more as I come across it. In the meantime, I'm going to procrastinate a little before diving into that inbox..... ugh....

EduDemic » How Social Media Can Help Your First Day Of School – Part 1.

The End of Publishing

The Commons Education Select Committee reported this week that teachers "need better qualifications" (read the BBC report here), with at least a 2:2 in their first degree. Poor literacy, numeracy, ICT skills and subject knowledge are clearly a worry; and in a bid to raise standards, the bar is being moved higher for entrants to the profession in line with many other graduate entry-level jobs.

At first glance, it sounds reasonable enough that the distinguished minds shaping the country's future should have come out of university with a decent degree. However, when you consider that between graduation and classroom-qualified there are already a number of hurdles to jump: entry to teacher training course, successful completion of teacher training, passing NQT year, performance management after that...one would hope that these selection procedures would weed out those unable to make the grade. Inspirational teachers aren't just the cleversocks with the redbrick 2:1s either, and I can think of many colleagues past and present who are outstanding in the classroom but would fall short of this requirement.

On top of this, the GTC; desperate for a proper remit, will end up administering a new 'license to practise' for existing staff. They must be rubbing their hands with glee as they see themselves one day having some proper gravitas like their more esteemed neighbours at the General Medical Council, with little concern for the squandering of taxpayers' money that this will entail. Ignoring existing threshold assessments, annual performance management and good old monitoring and evaluation, the license to teach undermines schools' capacity to raise the bar themselves. Another flock of posh-looking folders that will sit and gather dust in schools around the country is too close to becoming reality, for no better reason than to make the Westminster folk feel better about the legacy teachers in post for the next forty years. This is a nonsense in my view and if anything, time would be much better spent reviewing and streamlining the performance management and competency procedures properly to ensure that the good teachers stay and flourish and the struggling ones are properly supported with tailored CPD or allowed to move out of the profession with dignity.

My team is currently developing our vision for what ICT should look like at our school. It's shaping up as follows:

Connectivity

Every learning space has reliable internet and network access.

Interactivity

Enhanced learning technology is available in learning spaces to enable learners to take an interactive role in their learning.

Community

Our school becomes a hub for high quality e-learning in the community.

Capability

Learners and teachers are empowered with skills and understanding to thrive in an interactive and information-rich learning environment.

I am planning an email productivity workshop for staff at my school. I have gathered information and advice from David Allen of GTD fame and Mark Hurst, author of BitLiteracy.

The key points I plan to share are:

Reading and managing

• Put time aside every day for blitzing your inbox
• Read everything straight away
• Don’t use your inbox as a to-do list – run this separately
• File everything in intuitively named folders
• Archive regularly
• Aim to reach ‘inbox zero’ at the end of the day
• Delete clutter and non-evidential email
• Messages that are needed as evidence or information should be saved as text files in your Documents.

Responding and keeping track

• If responding is going to take less than 2 minutes, do it now.
• Keep your emails brief. Most work emails should contain no more than 5 sentences. If your emails are going over 300 words, consider picking up the phone. Use bullet points.
• Save your signature so you don’t have to retype it every time.
• Use Outlook or Google calendar to set reminders and tracking lists to monitor responses to requests.
• Anticipate the questions your email will generate and include the next steps in your initial message. If you are talking about setting up a meeting, give the times you are available and where you would like it to be held.
• Make deadlines for responses clear at the outset, and be overt about what happens if there is no response.
• Be specific about who you are writing to and the reason for writing. Use signposts like “For information:” and “For action”. Only say urgent when it really is urgent! Beware of copying the world in on your mails; it only dilutes the sense of responsibility for response.
• For communication to happen, there has to be a two-way exchange. If information is only flowing one way then you are broadcasting, not communicating!
• Don’t put important information in attachments and expect everyone to open it and read it fully. Most probably won’t because they are as busy as you. Put the key messages in the body text of the email.

I have been working on how to further support staff in school with improving use of ICT in lessons. I run a weekly e-learning clinic where staff can drop in, ask questions and work through problems with support. So far it is going well, and has generated interest from all corners, including experienced confident users who want to move their practice forward (plenty of demand for advanced Excel training, for example) and less confident users who want help with improving the visuals in their presentations. I've also been asked to support staff with email management and storage of online documents and files.

What has really been evident is that staff need someone to ask about this stuff, and they tell me that an open-door approach like this is reassuring. I hope that the good news will keep spreading!

I was recently asked by a friend to share tips and advice on how to approach applying for senior leadership posts in school. Here is the list so far, thanks to kind colleagues for sharing. What would you add?

1. Go through the job spec and person specification and methodically answer every part of it with evidence of what you have done to positively affect outcomes.

2. Use bullet points rather than extensive prose to communicate evidence and factual info.

3. Refer to inspection reports and exams analysis overtly so you can show your capacity to understand and interpret data and how it shapes the school improvement plan.

4. Make the key principles that shape your leadership style clear.

5. K now the issues in school and don't be afraid to tackle them head on (using your in-house advantage if you are an internal candidate)

6. Be prepared for lots of 'what if' scenarios at interview that may be outside of a middle leader's experience, especially things to do with child protection, inspection scenarios, performance management / tackling inadequate or unprofessional teaching

7. Be absolutely clued up about the 'next big things'. Assessment for learning is now 10 years old and should be well embedded (!). Papers on personalising learning were coming out 6 or 7 years ago. Learning styles is now old hat and hemispheric dominance never really hit the big time. Innovative ways of adapting and using learning spaces, 24/7/365 learning, interactivity and communication skills for the 21st century learner are right up there at the moment. Politically so is safeguarding, e-safety, making learning budgets go further in a sustainable way and investing in technology appropriately.

Image credit: Terry Hart