I confess, I struggle a bit with to do lists and, well… getting things done. And I’ve read David Allen. My problem isn’t with writing a to do list. That’s fine. It’s just that then I have a big list of tasks staring me in the face. No, actually, they’re more like a small crowd of noisy people jostling for attention who keep moving around so I can’t focus on any of them. Trying to get them to organise themselves into what’s the top priority for right now sometimes seems almost impossible.

The thing is, what’s most important changes from day to day. Planning to speak at a church in two Sundays time is suddenly very important today because I’m behind with letting them know what I’ll speak on. But now that I’ve had that conversation with the service leader the priority of this task drops back because I’ve got a Trustees half-day meeting on Saturday and we’ve got some exciting and important stuff to discuss and decide on. So that’s now my main priority.

One of my favourite bloggers is Michael Hyatt, whose inspirational posts pop into my inbox each day. And today’s post, when you feel overwhelmed by your workload pulled some threads together for me that may help.

Whilst I write tasks down in a notebook, it’s not very dynamic. If I’m doing things properly I need to evaluate and then re-write my task list fairly regularly. Being a Myers Briggs N rather than an S I’m not so good at this. I’d also rather have a task list that syncs effortlessly between my MacBook Pro and my iPhone. If the threshold of effort required to maintain the list is too high (and that’s not very high at all) the whole system becomes moribund. I’ve tried some very good apps, but none has quite worked for me.

So I was pleased when Apple introduced “reminders” with iOS5 – here was a simple way to list the tasks I need to remember. But it still wasn’t helping me function effectively the way I’d hoped. What I’d missed, and Michael’s blog post caused me to see for the first time, was that I need to prioritise my tasks according to Covey’s hierarchy of:
A—urgent and important
B—important but not urgent
C—urgent but not important
D—not urgent or important

iCal reminders allows me to do this (Priority: High, Medium, Low, None) but I also realised (duuhhh!!) that I can review these priorities dynamically throughout the day. I don’t have to re-write a list, I can just change the priority and by setting iCal to sort by priority my most important tasks are always at the top. Now, when I feel either flooded (too many things to do) or becalmed (I’m sure there must be something I should be working on) iCal reminders can help get back on task.

We’re currently running a two lesson series on Money Management for Year 11 students in one of the schools we work with. It covers things like budgeting, planning savings, avoiding bad debt, the pressure to buy and generosity, all through a mixture of information, interaction and sometimes hilarious discussion.

Moneysavingexpert.com have been campaigning for a while to get finance education into schools as a compulsory part of the PSHE curriculum, including penning an open letter to David Cameron.

The response from the Prime Minister is here.

Why it matters to those of us in the UK (and the rest of the world)

Wikipedia - SOPA and PIPA – Learn more

Google – End Piracy, Not Liberty

69. A curriculum with breadth and balance in maintained schools is likely to consist of the National Curriculum subjects, religious education (RE) and a variety of other courses and programmes, including extra-curricular and enhancement activities put on by the school and its partners. Where a school does not provide the National Curriculum and RE, inspectors will need to fully explore the school’s reasons.

In the light of concerns about the sidelining of RE this may be an encouragement.

84 An important aspect of the overall effectiveness judgement is a consideration of how well the school contributes to the promotion of the pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

SMSC gets several mentions, reaffirming it’s place in the ethos of a school, and there’s a restatement of the basic evaluation criteria, “Pupils ~ development is shown by:…”

64 Check that the school takes reasonable steps to ensure that pupils are safe on the school site, for example by monitoring visitors or volunteers or those using the premises during school time.

If you’re a visitor/volunteer, expect to be monitored – you know it’s right!

You can view and download the video here

Over the last few years there’s been a dramatic increase in the number of people working in schools under the title of ‘chaplaincy’. Broadly speaking this work usually involves aspects of pastoral support and spiritual development. Here in Colchester we’ve been doing this for over three years now and are always glad of the opportunity to share our story and hear from others doing similar work. There’s a real excitement about the way chaplaincy in schools has emerged as a movement and is connecting schools with Christian youth and schools workers.

“Chaplaincy in Education” is a day conference for any involved, or interested in, the emerging opportunities for chaplaincy in schools and colleges. Within the programme for the day will be a number of curated conversations allowing participants to share their stories, wisdom and questions with others around six key areas. There will also be sessions on specific issues such as one to one mentoring, multi-faith issues and resources for spiritual development.

You can download the flyer here (pdf)

Booking info is here

The day was a co-creation of Gill Marchant from SU, Bob Molton and the team from CYM in Ipswich and Amy and me from CYO. Our aim was to create a day that gave people a chance not only to meet each other socially, but also to learn from one another without making it feel too much like a conference – a delicate balancing act. We kicked off with with some devotional thoughts about being learners from Bob and I led a reflective worship time around the theme of ‘limits’ and about being real about how God has made us and what he’s called us to be.

Three sessions through the day provided some basic input coupled with lots of opportunity for discussion.

Steve Whyatt of Genr8 opened up a valuable discussion about Chaplaincy in schools based on his research and experience in Australia and now with SU’s pilot Chaplaincy project. Among us were those who had been working in a chaplaincy role for a number of years (including us in Colchester), some who were in a kind of transition phase and others who had exactly this kind of opportunity opening up and wanted to find out more about what it could look like.

Amy spoke about teenage girls and self-esteem based on ‘Beloved’, a project she runs in Colchester schools. This wasn’t about how to run a ‘Beloved’ project, but more about how we live out and support positive self esteem among young people in schools. Again there was much valuable discussion drawing on the experience of many in the room. We all identified the need for a similar project for boys and one of the positive outcomes of the day was that three of us plan to meet to begin thinking of ways we could develop this.

Finally Simon Barker of SU spoke about resources for running a sports themed day in primary schools linking with More than Gold, the project to help churches link with the Olympic Games this year.

As with all good gatherings of schools workers there was a plentiful supply of tea and coffee as well as a most excellent lunch. There were also resources and info from a range of schools work ministries. Did the day work? Well, I chatted to quite a few people who said they wished they could get to meet up with others more often, so that’s promising. There are so many people doing such excellent and often pioneering schools work in this region that I’m convinced there’s loads we can learn from one another. So I hope we can do this again.