How to Have a More Productive Summer

104 Days

            When I was in grade school, there was this show called “Phineas and Ferb”. The theme song for the show went like this, “There's 104 days of summer vacation and school comes along just to end it. So the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it. Like maybe….” The song then goes on to list all the crazy machines, inventions, and adventures the brothers make and experience during the episodes. While I’m no longer in grade school, I still have the problem of what to do over the summer. Even when I graduate and become a full time teacher, I still will need to keep my summers productive.

Goals, goals, goals

            One way to do this is to be employed in part time jobs, like I work at the dining commons and recently was interviewed and hired for a retail job. Nevertheless, as I have made long term goals for my life, such as becoming an author, my summer can’t simply consist of working part-time. Like I said in my Spring cleaning post, I need to have definitive goals set out for what I want to accomplish, and this includes over the summer. Last summer I did this by creating new habits that I hoped I could continue even after the summer ended. While some of those habits stuck more than others, this summer I am using almost the same strategy to make this summer productive. I have continued my writing 15minutes every day, and have also started reading a psalm everyday and then praying for it was 5 and now has grown to 7 minutes everyday (link to come).

Small Goals

How am I keeping all of these habits? Well I am using those same techniques I talked about learning from JordanPeterson’s 12 Rules for Life book. I need to set  definitive goals and keep them so small that I feel insulted by them. Then as I succeed at them, I slowly can raise the bar for my goals. Of course, some of this is easier said than done. Though it has been three weeks since that writing 15 minutes every day post, I still haven’t increased the amount of time. However, I also have been keeping that 86% success rate that I originally reported. In fact, now that I am thinking about it, my success rate might have even improved in the time since that post. I would increase the time, but as my hours for my two part time jobs are about to skyrocket, I don’t want to push myself too much. If after this coming week I still am able to keep writing 15 minutes everyday with ease, then I will move to 20 minutes per day.

Long Goals        

The other way I am keeping productive is making sure I also set definitive goals for each day that help me achieve my long-term summer goals. Some of these are obvious like in order to maintain the daily habits I have to write, read, pray, and practice yoga every day. Others like my goal to prepare for student teaching are less concrete and more of a process. So each day I have to set a small goal for myself that over time compound so that by the end of the summer I am completely prepared for student teaching.

Anything In Between        

You don’t have to be a reader, writer, or teacher to apply these tips either. They work with nearly any combination you can come up with or short and long term goals.

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Image Credit: "A Summer Garden" by Don LaVange