Half our time is spent trying to find something to do with the time
we have rushed through life trying to save. Will Rogers

Recently I read about a woman who was so alarmed at her absentmindedness she went to the doctor for neurological tests. She'd misplaced her cellphone, and finally found it in the freezer. The woman was relieved to learn there was nothing wrong - we all get more distracted as we age. If I was her doctor and it was this time of year, I might begin by asking the patient if she was a teacher. Because it seems like we all suffer from trying to do too many things at once in late May.

Researchers have discovered what many of us are realizing the hard way - multitasking doesn't work. If you try to do many tasks at the same time, you only become more efficient at completing them all poorly. Good work requires concentration. Heck, life requires concentration.

The errors I have made by trying to do too many things at once are the stuff of legend in my family. I once drove away from a gas station, only to discover the thumping sound I heard a quarter mile down the road wasn't a flat tire, but the sound of the pump nozzle and hose hanging out of my gas tank. Yep - I'd forgotten to remove it after filling the tank. At that moment, I looked in my rearview mirror in horror, convinced I would see a scene out of an old Arnold Schwarzenegger or Clint Eastwood movie, with gas spewing everywhere and the service station exploding in a massive fireball.

It turns out there is a pressure release valve that causes the hose to pop off without any gas leaking if someone accidentally drives away with it in tow. Who knew? Trust me, you don't want to learn this from experience - gas station owners are under enough stress as it is, and it doesn't endear you to them when you drive off with their equipment stuck to your car. Yet this is what happens when you are reading a map to find a new route to the airport while quieting a child in the backseat while trying to remember if you paid the electric bill before leaving home, all while filling your gas tank...

If multitasking doesn't work, then the only solution is to get better and smarter at the choices we make in how we use our time. Advice that is so easy to write, and so hard to put into practice. I asked Choice Literacy contributors to share one thing they've tried this year that has saved them time professionally, and made their lives easier in the process. I've compiled their suggestions for everything from how to arrange notebooks to keeping track of professional books loaned to colleagues in this week's resource round-up. Plus more as always - enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

From summer gatherings with colleagues to creative backdrops for bulletin boards to refining to-do lists, our Time-Saving Resource Round-Up has suggestions for many different ways to become less stressed by the clock:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/613.cfm

We've also posted a new Quote Collection on Time:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/612.cfm

Here's a nifty tool on the web for checking words and their frequency. Wordcount allows you to plug in any word and find its rank for frequency of use, and it also shows the word in the context of other words and their rankings. It's great for word wall design and making choices about what words beyond the top 100 are worth your efforts in word work instruction. This is a good site to bookmark and return to in the fall:

http://www.wordcount.org/main.php

If you enjoyed our recent feature on using the picture books of Mo Willems throughout your literacy workshops, you might like to listen to his six-minute interview on National Public Radio where he talks about Elephant and Piggie:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90736336

If you're in the Pacific Northwest, you may be interested in the new CAFE in the Classroom summer workshop we've added on August 18th in Federal Way, Washington. This popular workshop with The Sisters is designed to help teachers integrate reading assessment and goal setting into their student conferences and small groups. Participants each receive a copy of the CAFE in the Classroom DVD, a $229 value. You can access more details on the workshop and download a registration form at this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/600.cfm

For Members Only

We've got many resources in the Choice Literacy Archives that expand upon the timesaving tips offered by our contributors for in this week's feature article.

From Gail Boushey, we have a video demonstrating how she sets up her coaching "pensieve" notebook described in the article:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/455.cfm

If you're planning to test out Debbie Miller's advice to write handwritten notes on the way home from events and visits, you'll want to check out our suggestions in "In Praise of the Handwritten Note":

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/437.cfm

If you're looking to save time with better notetaking skills, this article on honing notetaking techniques can get you started in ten minutes a day:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/301.cfm

Finally, if you're a newer member of Choice Literacy, the Annotated Archives are a great place to begin exploring over 400 features we have currently at the site. We add 3-5 new articles and videos each week, and they are all available at this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department27.cfm

That's all for this week!