007 - Don’t work so hard
Hi,
In 1896, an Italian man went into his garden and noticed that some pea pods had a lot more peas in them than others. Whilst not that unusual he noticed the same correlation with wealth distribution in Italy. And France. And the United Kingdom.
That man was Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist and within his garden roughly 80% of peas came from 20% of the pea pods.
After a particularly tough week in school, I remembered something that I was told during teacher training “Good enough is good enough.” and whilst the rule doesn’t always work out precisely to 80/20 it is true that there will be a few key areas that have most of the impact on pupils. To reduce workload realise that 80% of pupil achievement will be the result of 20% of the things you do with them.
The liberating power of this rule comes from once we discover the 20% or so that yields the vast majority of our impact, we can be released of the pressure of 80% of things do that don't matter a whole lot.
For example, you have to reply to emails - but often this has very little impact on the children in your class. If you are the type of person who always replies on the same day - people get upset when their expectations are broken. If you make it clear that you will only check emails twice a week and never at weekends - you have got rid of the need to always be contactable. If it’s something that needs doing urgently - people will often choose a different way to communicate with you.
Being a perfect teacher isn’t achievable - but by being mindful and focusing on what really matters you can work less and be more effective.
Three things
One interesting article. – Funny homophones
Listen to - 🎧 - Richard Koch explain how he made £100 million using the 80:20 principle
Strangely satisfying – The lock picking lawyer
I hope there is something of value for you here. If you have anything to add, please contact me, I’d love to hear from you.
Mr T
