Together Friends,
Well, here we are deep in February. It’s been a . . . year? Month? In brighter news, more daylight comes our way soon, and unrelated to anything Togetherness, here a few things I’m enjoying this month. Am I an influencer now?!
- Reading: I’ve had this book on pre-order forever, and it will magically appear on my Kindle on Feb. 24. I loved her other books so far.
- Watching: Aside from the Olympics, sort-of on the Super Bowl, and deep on the UCLA Bruins, this movie made for a fun date night with Dr. Together.
- Cooking: We made some pies for Kid #4’s thirteenth birthday party, and these have been a huge hit (gift link) for our Big Blended Family’s Island Dinners. What are Island Dinners? They are meals that can sit on the kitchen island from 5 – 9 PM as humans cycle in and out. I add tons of pita bread and pickled onions.
I’m wishing our entire Together Community much love. I hope you enjoy the Together Tour below. It was a treat to write!
Note: We are looking to feature some additional folks in supporting and operations roles in Together Tours later this year, so nominate someone or nominate yourself here. Please submit at least 3-5 artifacts with your nomination.
Together Tour: Nathan Olmeda-Lopez
This month’s Together Tour features Nathan Olmeda-Lopez, the Director of College and Alumni Support for Ednovate. Nathan joined us for a recent Together Leader class, and of course, I’m obsessed with his role in working on college readiness and persistence (#togetherforcollege!). Nathan has a background in higher education, and he got pulled over to the world of K-12 because his now-husband was a teacher at Ednovate! As soon as I learned he was the first person in his role ever, I wanted to hear how he plans and manages his work.
Tell us about your Weekly Worksheet.
I looked at all the example Weekly Worksheets on our class website and was really drawn to JoDee’s! She talked about moving her worksheet to a spreadsheet and I liked that even more! I spent some time pausing the video and editing my own worksheet in Google Sheets.
I love that your Weekly Worksheet has distinct segments, with color coding to set each segment apart. Can you tell us more about the components of your Weekly Worksheet?
- Leadership Philosophy. I’m really grounding myself in my leadership philosophy by having it top and center.
- Professional Goals. These were initially geared toward my Togetherness, but I will edit them to be more role-focused and add personal goals up top for focus.
- Current Priorities. Priorities are listed and color-coded along with helpful resources so that tasks can be done easily without needing to keep a billion tabs open! This also includes a reminder to reflect priorities in the calendar.
- Action Items. These are split into “Urgent” and “Very Soon.”
- Thought Catcher. This takes the place of the post-its that surrounded my desk. (Editor’s Note: This is beautiful, though we do still love a post-it!)
Let’s move on to your calendar. How do you keep your calendar Together?
- I turned my priorities into sub-calendars in my Google Calendar. It chooses colors for you! Those colors match the ones in my Weekly Worksheet.
- I added my priorities as all-day events at the top of the calendar for as long as they will be priorities according to our Playbook (more on that later).
- I enter specific work times for each priority throughout the week and assign to the corresponding priority sub-calendar so they are color-coded correctly. This makes it easy to check that my calendar accurately reflects my priorities!
- Every day, I schedule a 30-minute End-of-Day (EOD) Wrap Up appointment to make sure that my urgent tasks have been taken care of or reconfigured.
- I also plan a weekly 60-minute Meeting with Myself called Nothing but Nathan! (Editor’s Note: Check out Alison’s Together Tour for another great example of a Meeting with Myself!)
Creating this kind of Weekly Worksheet and Calendar takes some work. How do you make time to do this?
I have an agenda I borrowed from various examples in our class, and I have checkboxes for each step of my Nothing but Nathan Weekly Agenda.
Tell me about the agenda item, Gratitude.
I was learning so much from so many people when I first transitioned into my role. I feel like I didn’t tell them that they taught me something. I needed to block time to do that regularly. Especially when I moved from a school-based role to a hybrid role, I wanted to make sure I had a human opportunity to connect with people.
What led you to add the personal stuff to your Nothing But Nathan agenda?
I was frustrated about things I was forgetting – things that needed to get done and are central to who I am. I consider myself a good gift-giver, but because I wasn’t taking time to plan for gifts, every time birthdays or holidays would come around, I would be disappointed in myself. I was raised by a bunch of women, and my goal is to make my gifts for Mother’s Day so good that they would cry! I knew I could prevent forgetting from happening by adding these personal tasks to my Meeting with Myself.
I also wanted to work out more. . . It’s not cheap, and I want to make sure I get my money’s worth, so I have to be sure that I make time to schedule my workouts ahead of time. As for lunch, since we transitioned from a bell schedule to a flexible schedule, I would forget to eat. So I need to be deliberate in finding time for my lunch.
How do you juggle last minute things in a busy season?
Staying true to my Beast Mode times has been a game changer. Even in my busiest seasons, my Beast Mode time blocks give me the opportunity to pivot if necessary, and having distinct priorities helps me avoid dropping the ball on anything major while I pivot. It also helps me decide whether something that comes up last minute should be given more time than something I already prioritized. “Does this matter more than my priorities right now?” The answer is so much easier to find when my priorities are updated and distinct.
How do you track your Later List items?
I realized that my organization already has team-level Later Lists in the form of Playbooks. The Playbook includes a slide for each month, which details the action items necessary for those priorities. Because I was the first person in my role, I had to build the plane while flying. Now that I have it all documented, we can use it to guide our work.
How much flex do you leave and why?
I’m working on being a quarter ahead or more. It’s definitely a work in progress, but previewing next quarter’s priorities during my weekly Meeting with Myself helps to leave myself some flex time. It’s also an important part of my leadership philosophy to have strong foresight, which creates the ability for my team to be in the weeds / on the ground.
Thank you, Nathan, for giving us such a full picture of how you stay Together – and help others stay Together! Thanks for all you do for students!
- Don’t forget to close your loops! Many of us are pros at initiating tasks, but it’s sometimes harder to remember to see all the steps through to completion. Be sure to close your loops and keep everyone updated on the process.
- How do you plan your year? I shared my new annual planning tool with you all last month, and so many of you chimed in to share your own processes for yearly forecasting. Thanks Jenn, Shelby, and JoAnn!
- Triage Togetherness in stressful times. Snowcrete + more than a week of school closures and delays had me in Together Triage mode this month. Luckily I had my Sloppy Lists ready to go so I could focus on the most important tasks.
