Bioscience High School Internships: A second serving of frog

As you might realize, I’ve been asking you to start looking differently at your life along with the path you are hoping to be on. I’ve been asking you to organize yourselves in new ways, examine how you use time and analyze how you view time (is time money?). I’ve asked you to identify personal goals for your internship, explore your values, strengths and weaknesses along with ways to begin capitalizing on your unique qualities and shore up areas in which you feel you can improve. Some of you move easily into the requests, wondering why they are coming your way since it is second nature. Perhaps you’re finding little difference in respect to your routine. This is how you operate normally. The more organized you are the easier it will be for you to accomplish the goals you have set for yourself. For others, it remains a work in progress.

Task for today - Always work from a list. You’ll be amazed at how much more productive you become and how much easier it is to eat your frog / s. Lay out each of your 5 major goals, projects, or tasks by priority. In other words what is most important first. Next, sequence what has to be done first, second, and so forth for each one

Beginning today, try to plan every day, week, and month in advance. Start by making a list of everything you have to do within the next 24 hours. Some are routine (get up, hopefully shower and get yourself ready for school, etc) while others change fairly often (assignments are added to your list of tasks, home duties, etc). Add to your list as new things come up. Remove as you complete others. I want you to make a list of all your upcoming projects, academic, internship related and personal. Take special note of the big multitask jobs that are important to your future.

Apply the 80/20 Rule to everything: Twenty percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results. Always concentrate your efforts on that top 20 percent. Tell me what you think this means for what you have to accomplish.

Ideas: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Consider the Consequences: Your most important tasks and priorities are those that can have the most serious consequences, positive or negative, on your life or work. Focus on these above all else.

Exercise: Think about your list of goals, projects and tasks. Which goals/tasks have the most serious consequences? Explain whether this is a negative or a positive. Put a *N* or a *P* next to each indicating what you believe will be the consequence. Easy example? Graduation – N or P? Since I now gave it to you as an example, it is not one you can use.

Learning to use “creative procrastination”: Since you can’t do everything, you must learn to deliberately put off those tasks that are of low value so that you have enough time to do the few things that really count. Think about your responses to me earlier where each of you identified areas where you can improve upon your own behavior and time management. List below the things you do in class which really could be done at another time (i.e. what takes time from you accomplishing what you should be doing in class and will be there later for you to do when you are not in class). A great indicator for me today was the number of you who either came into class “exhausted, drained, wiped out, tired or dead” versus those who came in like nothing unusual was occurring. Just another day.

What I will do outside of class to procrastinate, creatively: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6. Use the ABCDE Method: Before you begin work on your list, take a few minutes to organize by value and priority, so you can be sure of working on your most important activities first. Not sure what the ABCDE method is?

Assessment - clearly stating the problem itself.
Brainstorming - for possible solutions.
Consequences - evaluate the likely consequences of putting your ideas into practice.
Do List – break your best strategy down into a logical list of steps to do.
Evaluation - did the process work?
(This strategy is taken from the book “Succesful Problem Solving” by Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning.)

Exercise: Think back to the goals you’ve set for yourselves. I still have them if you need to “find them”. Use the ABCDE Method to prioritize your long term goals (where you are going)[ I want to go to college] and short term tasks (what it takes to get there) [what do I need to do first{besides graduate from high school}in order to get into college].

Focus on key result areas: Identify and determine those results that you absolutely, positively have to focus on, and work on them all day long. Example? See what follows

Question: Why do I struggling to meet my goals or complete what is given to me?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ideas I can use to change this dilemma: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Law of Three: Identify the three things you do in your work that account for 90% of your contribution, and focus on getting them done before anything else. You will then have more time for your family and personal life.

List your three key functions:

1.
2.
3.

Prepare thoroughly before you begin: Have everything you need at hand before you start. Assemble all the papers, information, tools, work materials, and food you might require so that you can get started and keep going. Example – do you find yourself continuing to move away from the task at hand” to get stuff” to complete the task at hand? Ideas: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Take it one oil barrel at a time: You can accomplish the biggest and most complicated job if you just complete it one step at a time.

Leverage your special talents: Determine exactly what it is that you are very good at doing, or could be very good at, and throw your whole heart into doing those specific things very, very well. Example? See what follows:

Exercise: What are you passionate about? How does this permeate the work you do?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Identify your key constraints: Determine the bottlenecks or chokepoints, internal or external that set the speed at which you achieve your most important goals, and focus on alleviating them.

Self Reflection:

Put the pressure on yourself: Raise the bar for yourself, and be your own motivator to reach it. Imagine that you have to leave town for a month and work as if you had to get all your major tasks completed before you left. What would you do first?

Maximize your personal power: Identify your periods of highest mental and physical energy each day, and structure your most important and demanding tasks around these times. Get lots of rest so you can perform at your best. Hint: Avoid late night detours.

Motivate yourself into action: Be your own cheerleader. Look for the good in every situation. Focus on the solution rather than the problem. Always be optimistic and constructive.

Get out of the technological time sinks: Use technology to improve the quality of your communications, but do not allow yourself to become a slave to it. Learn to occasionally turn things off and leave them off. What can you avoid doing that eats time?

Slice and dice the task: Break large, complex task down into bite-sized pieces, and then do just one small part of the task to get started.

Create large chunks of time: Organize your days around large blocks of time where you can concentrate for extended periods on your most important tasks.

Develop a sense of urgency: Make a habit of moving fast on your key tasks. Become known as a person that does things quickly and well.

Single handle every task: Set clear priorities, start immediately on your most important task and then work without stopping, until the job is 100 percent complete. This is the real key to high performance and maximum personal productivity.

Make a decision to practice these strategies every day until they become second nature to you. With these habits of personal management as a permanent part of your personality, your future success will be unlimited. Just do it! Eat That Frog!

Email these completed servings of frog to bhsinternships@gmail.com

Bioscience High School Internships

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A second serving of frog - only bigger this time due Dec. 9

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