Setting Priorities; Managing Email; Family/group calendars

[Gloria]

I read this book this summer, since I had been informed by various people that FM would be encouraging parents to do so. I will be the first to admit that we are extremely fortunate to have fairly well organized kids, and that I am also fairly well organized, so I found just a few things of interest. I really enjoyed her discussion about the visibility and language of time (pp. 144-145).

However, I think we as parents might also think about how we teach the kids about setting overall priorities, which is absolutely necessary for time management. For example, a graphic organizer (which one can quickly sketch up on the fly) which consists of two axes, one being important-not important, the other urgent-not urgent, is helpful in getting a student to reflect and organize what needs to get done during that moment/week/day. It also is helpful in terms of having someone reflect on overall priorities in life (which, of course, will change over time; however, I am a huge proponent of building in moments of reflection whenever possible).

Emails: While I don't think the email programs that many of the kids use (e.g. goggle mail, yahoo) have the best folder-ing (is that a word) system, I think teaching people to sort and manage their email is becoming increasingly important. I know some proponents (for example, people following the Getting Things Done method) argue for three folders only since many mail programs now have excellent search capabilities, I think this idea, while not necessarily perfect for everyone, is a good start in thinking about organizing and time management in the email world.

Finally: this may too much, but another issue is having kids recognize that they are part of a group. They may be working on a collaborative project; they are parts of families that have set activities; they themselves may have set activities. I know that this book doesn't even begin to address issues of group organization, but I do know that, at least, my son is getting google-calendar event notifications for his google calendar via email, which is at least forcing him to acknowledge the existence of doctor appts, music lessons, etc.... if that is of any interest, I can show people how to use it.

Gloria

[Gloria]

Oh, I stand corrected by my ever-wise husband who uses Google Mail: Google mail has a system of labels rather than folders. So it is possible to sort particular emails into one virtual location, etc.