The One Word: Disconnect

Not big on the whole 'New Year Resolution' thing, I started participating in the 'One Word'  challenge a few years back. You see, I'm not about to give up my morning coffee or eating whatever I want to eat. Those are the kind of things that make life enjoyable, am I right here? Nonetheless, I'll concede one point: I have started to 'exercise'. I put that in quotes because I am not really working up too much of a sweat. My exercise consists of walking and an honest attempt at 10,000 steps daily. When the weather cooperates, many days I am able to walk to and from work. During these cold winter months, getting out of my office and seeing what is happening in our schools is a great way to get in a few extra steps. Although I'll admit my step count pales in comparison to what most teachers are getting in their daily work!  

But yes, the 'One Word'. In the intervening years I have enjoyed seeing people at games and other school events who have come up to me and shared what their one word was. As a recap, my word last year was 'Opportunity'. In a nutshell, the theme here was to look forward each day for opportunities to make a difference in our school district. I also invited our students and teachers to take advantage of the long stretch of uninterrupted instructional time that occurs between January and spring break each year. Indeed the gains in student learning are staggering! From that vantage point, I believe they were successful.

This year however, I want to use the word disconnect. Now, I don't mean to disconnect from society or anything quite so drastic as that. Quite the opposite actually. I intend to disconnect from my device when not at work or needing to work. Last spring I discovered an add on computer software that enables a user to physically shut off, or pause their email. While the email is shut off, it means that your inbox appears empty. Once the user turns it back on or unpause it, all the email flows into the inbox. So, on Friday afternoon when I leave work for the weekend, I have been turning off my email. I have found it to be quite liberating! So liberating in fact that I have decided to expand this practice to evenings as well. Pausing, or turning off the flow of email completely eliminates the urge to check email! 

For those of you that know me well are aware that my work day isn't complete until my inbox is empty. So once I get home in the evening, I was constantly checking and returning email messages so I didn't fall behind. You want to know what I have realized? There isn't one email that I receive between 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. that needs to be addressed right then. So here is how I proposed to disconnect.

When I leave work at 5:30, I'll turn off my email. If I drive to work that means I'll be home around 5:33. If I walk, I'll be home around 5:50. Then I'll put my bag and my phone in my office and walk away. Believe me, if someone needs to reach me (they know who they are); they know how to get to me! So there it is: disconnect! I hope you can find a way to disconnect from your devices too. I am sure that I will find it much more exciting to be in the moment and enjoy what is going on around me! I sincerely hope you have a great 2019. Stay warm and buckle up, the winter we have been looking for has finally arrived!