What Have You Done Today?

I am big on lists. I keep close track of an overall to-do list on my computer as well as create a daily to-do list for myself. I have done this for a few years now, but this year, there were days where I would leave school and feel like I was not accomplishing enough. I started tracking a second list, a “finished tasks” list. Although this helped me track what I was accomplishing during the day, the feeling of not doing enough was still creeping into my mind. Recently, I took my “finished tasks” list and put it in a wordle. You can see the wordle below.



This visual of my completed tasks helped me to analyze what I was spending much of my day on. The results were not pretty, and helped to explain why I was feeling the way I was. When words like “meeting” and “email” are the first words you see, I realized I was prioritizing the wrong things during the day. What I hope to see the next time I make a wordle like this are words that show more interactions with students and teachers like “observation”, “classrooms”, “walk-throughs”, and “conversations.” I want to strive to be more intentional about making an impact.

APPLICATION FOR ADMINISTRATORS: Track your completed tasks each day for a month in a Word document or a Google Doc. After one month, copy the entire document and throw it into a wordle. Think about what words you want to appear larger in the wordle.