There really aren't many better feelings than crossing everything off your 'to-do' list are there?! I know it may sound a tad sad, but I get so much enjoyment from seeing a list of goals and being able to cross them off, one by one!! I also have the memory of a goldfish... so if it doesn't go on my to do list... it will most likely never happen!!

And yes - like the young lad in our meme here - I will add items to my daily to do list and automatically cross them off if they weren't on there from the beginning of the day!

I have always been someone who is a big fan of to do lists. I actually still have a book full of old lists somewhere in my office! Any kind of stationery that offers a different way of creating a to do list usually finds it way into my shopping basket and I have 2 to do list apps currently on the go - mostly because one of them is being phased out soon :(

I have multiple to do lists... probably too many, but they help me to prioritise different facets of my life and my job. I have my yearly to do list, which I have then broken down into a monthly to do list that sits above my work desk on a whiteboard. These are probably the only lists that cross both life and work. They are pretty big 'to dos' - they are actually my yearly goals... but still the same thing!! 

I then have two apps that I use for lists - Wunderlist and Trello. Unfortunately, Wunderlist is the one that is being phased out later this year, so I am making the transition to Trello. Both apps definitely have their pros and cons and I am enjoying getting to know the finer details of Trello and I love the fact that our teams can work privately, but also collaboratively with our boards. 

I will be really sad to see Wunderlist go. It has been a great tool that I have used since joining EP. I have a few boards for different parts of my role and I have boards that I am able to share with others. My husband and I even had a Groceries board that we would add to if we realised we were out of something so if the other was at the supermarket they would know what we needed! The feature I love about Wunderlist the most is the ability to set your own specific reminder dates for tasks that are due, even down to the exact minute the reminder will go off. It is also linked to my phone and watch, so there's no escaping those reminders!

I have really only started to explore Trello in the last fortnight. Our team at work was looking for a way that we could all have our own individual boards, but still have complete visibility over each other. We also wanted a space where we could have a highly visible collaborative board for tasks that were across all of our domains. I have set up my various 'lists' of 'cards' and have been able to include a range of automated features. One advantage of Trello over Wunderlist is that I can see all of my lists at once by just scrolling across, rather than having to click into each board. I can also add visual cues to Trello, a feature that wasn't quite as easy on Wunderlist. I have the Trello app on my phone, but I am yet to find out whether it is compatible with my Apple Watch - something to look into!! I also took part in a really awesome and succinct SkillShare unit on how to maximise your productivity with Trello. I plan on going back and watching it again to make sure I'm getting the most out of the platform!

Lastly - I then ALSO have hand written to do lists... usually for the BIG jobs of the day that MUST get done! It's so awesome being able to physically pick up a pen and scribble a line through a task that you spent hours on once it's done! I have some pretty good to do list stationery, but I'm about to head to Typo and buy a weekly one as I find I waste too much paper on just a daily to do list!! 

Here are some benefits for writing to do lists:

• ​most people can only hold 4 things in their mind. Making lists helps to reduce the mind-juggling and actually helps you to remember more things!
• they can reduce stress as it allows you to visualise what you need to achieve without wasting time of figuring out what to tackle next
• they give us structure!
• they help us to gain a sense of achievement

And a few tips to be a good 'lister':

• ensure your lists have detailed information so you don't need to think too hard to start the next job
• create a system for categorising tasks - use colours or symbols for example
• provide yourself with suitable timelines to complete jobs
• re-evaluate your lists often - don't be afraid to start again with a new list!!

My number one tip comes AFTER you have written your list though and that is... ALWAYS START WITH YOUR LEAST FAVOURITE JOB FIRST!!!!! 

I would love to hear about other people's to do list strategies :) I'm sure I could streamline more a bit better, but I'm just not sure how!!

Upon checking Twitter tonight I noticed quite a few more posts than usual about 'back to school anxiety'. Teachers across Australia are either back at work this week or preparing to return to school over the coming days. After just over 4 weeks off, this can be an extremely daunting feeling for a teacher and even more so this year when the Christmas break was so disrupted with highly unusual weather conditions around Australia.

Although this is my 3rd year of not having to deal with the whole 'back to school' thing, I can still remember the sweaty palms and the increasing heart rate that used to creep in when you saw the 4th ad for school shoes or you were walking through the aisles of Woolworths and were surrounded by those dreaded three words! You would think it would get easier to deal with, but with the ever growing demands on teachers... unfortunately this isn't necessarily the case. 

The greatest thing that you can do for yourself in the lead up to that first day back is ensure that you are as prepared as you can be. I used to spend quite a bit of time in the last week or so of the holidays readying myself and my classroom for the return of the academic year. Putting processes in place also helped me to ensure that mornings were not stressful and I knew exactly what I needed to do and when in order to get through the first week!

Here are some tips that you can implement in order to make your transition back into 'teacher mode' a little smoother:

• plan your meals for the week and make sure you are getting good, wholesome food each day. Doing a bit of meal prep on the weekend will also help you when you are tired to not rely on the quickest delivery service to bring you fast food!!
• have your outfits planned and lay them out the night before
• set aside some time for exercise - at least 30 minutes a day - to get the blood flowing and the oxygen moving through your body. The first week back can involve a lot of sitting in meetings
• let your colleagues know your feelings - they are most likely feeling somewhat the same. Be careful though, you want to make sure you are surrounding yourself with positive people who are going to help lift your mood and make your day brighter!
• get a good night's sleep. This is a given for any night. We should be getting between 7-9 hours sleep each night. This may seem like a bit of a pipe dream, but use the Bedtime feature on your iPhone to remind you when you should be going to bed each night to achieve this. Not using your devices for at least 20-30 minutes before bed will also help you sleep better!
• make sure you have a friend or family member on hand to possibly 'vent' to who is not a teacher! You may want to be able to 'get it all out' without having to continue a conversation that revolves around school or teaching! 

Lastly - remember that a new school year is a new opportunity to start fresh. You are going to get a brand new bunch of students that you can help mould into amazing young adults. You have another year's worth of memories to create for them! Seize the opportunity to get to know the students first before you try to 'teach' them anything related to your subject. Relationships are so important when it comes to teaching and can mean the difference between an amazing year and one that is not so great!

I wish you the best of luck as you embark on the 2020 academic year. I look forward to continuing to follow my PLN on various social media platforms and seeing the amazing things that they do with their students as the year progresses! 

As I pulled into the station after my flight home from Dunedin on Friday night I finished my 3rd book for 2020, 'Life After Life'. This was another recommendation from a colleague, Sophie and again it was a 10/10 read.

I started reading it as we were taxiing out of Sydney on Sunday morning with the plan to read a bit before watching a movie I was keen to see for part of the trip to Auckland. Before I knew it I was too far into the flight to have time to watch it all, so I just kept reading... and reading and reading! I read the whole of the flight from Sydney to Auckland and then again from Auckland to Dunedin. I simply didn't want to stop. Each night I read a bit more before going to bed, being totally sucked into the story of Ursula and her life - or should I say, lives. The two flights home were a similar scene to the flights to NZ - page after page - before using the 45 minute train trip from the airport to finish off the last few chapters. 

I was never one to be into history as a student. I was very much focused on the sciences, but as I have grown and traveled different parts of the world I have become much more interested in the subject. I loved how this book incorporated a whole range of different moments in time and it was packaged in such a unique way. 

The story jumps back and forth a little, but that's the beauty of it. What if you could start over and change the path of history? With each fall of the darkness, you wonder how Ursula is going to ensure that she does not suffer the same fate the next time around. Sometime her choices are not much better and result in a fate much worse in the end - don't even get me started on Derek - whilst other decisions result in positive outcomes for not just herself, but a potentially the whole world. 

If you get the chance, this is a must read. I haven't read many books of this size in the short time frame that I did. It was simply stunning from cover to cover, drawing you in deeper and deeper with each chapter. 

Towards the end of 2019 I read 'Atomic Habits' after seeing a number of people reading it on my Instagram feed. It was one of those books that was just what I needed at the time and I had it read within a few days.

James Clear is an author who writes about habits, decision-making and continuous improvement. In his book, he provides a range of different methods for incorporating daily habits into your life that will help to lead to bigger changes. 

The thing I really loved about this book was that it was all about making small changes, not going 'all in' and allowing the compound effect to take place. I have found the process of habit-stacking to be extremely useful for me. This method gets you to find things that are already habitual to you and adding another layer to it to help bring a new habit into your life.

Being 1% better every day is going to lead to a huge change 5, 10, 100 days down the track... as long as you are consistently 1% better every day. If you have a day where you slip and miss a day, don't make it two in a row. You need to make sure you get back on track as quickly as possible in order to ensure that the habit doesn't slip by the wayside again.

Throughout the book he also explores some other extremely easy ways to build habits including priming your environment and using the two-minute rule. Having your habits visually present in your environment as well as ensuring that your environment doesn't lead you astray from them is an important tip he explores in the book. The two-minute rule is one that is quite straight forward... change your habits so that you can achieve them in 2 minutes or less - tying back in with those points about making it as easy as possible for you to develop these good habits. 

James also has a great blog and newsletter that you can sign up to through his website - www.jamesclear.com. Through this newsletter he regularly sends 3 idea, 2 quotes and one question for you to ponder. I have really enjoyed receiving these emails and working out how they can be incorporated into my life as they arrive. 

As well as visiting James's blog, you can also find him on Instagram and Twitter - where he shares regular nuggets of wisdom! 

Today's instalment of 'On this day' is a little bit of a funny one! No long winded rant like my last one, which ended up going much deeper than I had originally planned...

It's been a long week and my brain is exhausted... so here's a little bit of fun trivia for you!

Paul McCartney was arrested at Tokyo International Airport on January 16th, 1980 for possession of marijuana. On January 16th, 1984 Paul McCartney was arrested in Barbados for... you guessed it... the possession of marijuana!!

He didn't quite learn his lesson the first time did he?! 

That's really all I have for today... just a fun bit of trivia for you :) 

A blog prompt I found suggested that I explore the 'Action for Happiness' self-care calendar and use the 'challenge' of the day as inspiration for a blog. So... without much other inspiration today (will explain why in this blog!)... off I went!

Action for Happiness is a movement of people committed to building a happier and more caring society. Their goal is to get people to see a fundamentally different way of life - where they care less about what they can get just for themselves and more about the happiness of others.

Every month they produce a 'self-care calendar' that provides you with challenges each day in order to do just this. Today being the 15th of January means that the red box above is today's challenge. You can see the full calendar at the bottom of this post! 

And it couldn't have come at a better time!!

I am currently in Dunedin, at our head office with the other Global Heads of the different subjects that we offer. There are the four of us working together with our direct line manager and our agenda this week has revolved around sessions to nut out how we are going to meet the goals that the company and ourselves have set for us this year. We have been speaking about things like content marketing, social media presence, product management and how to gather feedback in order to meet the needs of our users. 

While here this week, I have also felt extremely 'off' in regards to my gut. I have been feeling bloated and heavy and just a general sense of 'blah'. I have been trying to stay on track with my eating and other health-related goals - all of which I have been quite successful with, but I just can't shake this feeling. When I really thought about it today, it was like a light bulb went off in my head and I had been struck by a bus... it's a heightened level stress and a twinge of anxiety!

I'm usually not one to stress or get overly anxious. I usually feel in control of what I am doing and how I am going to do it. This hasn't always been the case, I have been working hard at this for a while now. However, this week I have been having moments where I have simply thought that I can't do this and those 'imposter syndrome' vibes began to creep back in. So, as  said, today's 'challenge' from Action for Happiness could not have come at a better time. It was just what I needed to give me the kick in the pants to stop worrying.

We are all in this together. I am not alone in this journey. We are all venturing into the unknown as a team. Yes, we each have slightly different goals for our subjects - but the overall goal is the same - to make our subject's resources the most sought after online teaching and learning resources for teachers and students - globally!! We are the first ones in our company to forge this path. There is really no 'right or wrong' way to go about it. We are all going to be learning together and if we fail... it will be a F.A.I.L - a 'first attempt in learning'. 

Tomorrow will be a little bit of a slower pace. I plan on finding myself some space to just take stock of what we have covered so that I can ask any clarifying questions before heading back to Sydney on Friday. My goal is to leave here with a clear vision of what needs to be done and what it will look like for ME to get it done. 

Do you have a 'worry' that you could put into perspective today and just try to let go of today? 

#aussieED started when a group of like minded teachers met 'in real life' for the first time in February 2014 at a TeachMeet held at the Google Offices in Sydney. They had all been communicating with each other via Twitter, however, this was the first time they were all in the same room together.

Most of these teachers were primary teachers and one was a secondary teacher. The primary teachers in the group included the amazing Brett Salakas, Zeina Chalich, Maggie Mattson and Rob McTaggart and the lone secondary teacher was me. Each of us were passionate about effective pedagogy and ensuring that teachers have access to solid professional development experiences, no matter where they lived. 

From this evening sprung the weekly Twitter chat. Each Sunday night, from 8.30pm (AEST), teachers 'chat' about a topic that is relevant to educators worldwide. The chat is led by a host (and sometimes with special guest co-hosts) who poses a series of questions. These questions were then answered by those taking part and deep conversation usually follows.

Since 2014, #aussieED has grown into one of the most popular education chats in Australia (and if I'm honest, it's probably up there worldwide as well). By being involved, I have been able to develop a global PLN of educators - some of who I have been lucky to meet in person and will be showcased in upcoming Feature Fridays!  Along with the online chats, the team also put together a series of 'live events' for teachers to attend, including TeachMeets, mini-conferences and an afternoon at the Easter Show in Sydney!

Due to my recent change in roles I will admit I have not been as active in these chats as I have in the past. Brett and Zeina have done a stellar job in ensuring that the #aussieED name is still in the forefront of people's minds when they think of education in Australia. Both of them have blossomed into phenomenal educators, doing AMAZING things in their respective fields and I am blessed to call them both friends.

If you have not explored the #aussieED hashtag, visit Twitter and have a look. The hashtag is now filled with tweets that are posted around the clock. It is a place of ongoing discussion and sharing, no longer just pigeon-holed to the original 8.30pm time slot. 

Consistently getting a good night's sleep has done wonders for my health - both physically and mentally. For the last 12 months, I have made an effort to get between 7-9 hours of sleep every night. Most nights, I usually manage to get 8 hours of solid sleep. This means I am able to wake up early and ready to tackle the gym before taking on the rest of my day.

I attribute my consistency to developing a good routine... habits if you will! I use the 'Bedtime' function on my iPhone that has an alarm to remind me to go to bed 30 minutes before the time I need to be asleep to achieve my goal. Once that alarm goes off, if I haven't already had it, I drink a combination of True Protein ZMA and creatine mixed with about 250-300mL of water. ZMA is a combination of zinc, magnesium and Vitamin B6. These ingredients help to enhance sleep, aid in recovery and to support your nervous system. Creatine is a supplement that aids in muscle growth and is found to help you perform better in the gym.

Depending on whether my husband is at work or not, I will send him a good night message so that he has time to reply before I decide to get into bed. Then it's time to take the puppy outside for 'toilet' time and to lock up the house. Before finally climbing into bed, I wash my face, go to the bathroom and turn the main bedroom light off.

I now have purchased a lamp, so that is turned on while I finish the last tasks of ensuring that my alarm is set, put my Apple Watch on charge and if I haven't done my 20 minutes of reading for the day, do that - without looking at my phone again before turning my lamp off and rolling over to enjoy a good night's sleep :) 

I love hearing how other people organise themselves and what other habits I could add to my routine to make my life more relaxing!! On that note - I'm off to bed!!

One of my goals for 2020 is to read more books. I have set myself a goal of 12 books in 12 months, which should be more than achievable. I have set myself this goal in the past, however, I have failed to meet it as other things 'got in the way' and I didn't follow through. 

This year I have invested in a lamp for my bedside table and set myself a daily habit goal of reading for at least 20 minutes before I go to sleep - no phone, just a book and my lamp. My husband is still trying to come to terms with this ... lol! I also reignited my Good Reads account and have created a 'Want to Read' list and am following a stack of people who I am connected with on various forms of social media.

At the end of 2019 one of my colleagues created a channel on our company Slack called #2020readingchallenge and provided a list of 'themes' that we are encouraged to explore while we are reading this year. Thankfully, another colleague provided some recommendations around books that she has enjoyed that meet some of the various criteria, because... if I'm honest, I had no idea where to start with some of them!

One of the books that was recommended by Sophie was 'Station Eleven' by Emily St. John Mandel. When I read the blurb I was automatically drawn to this book. Matthew Reilly is one of my favourite authors and his last book, 'The Secret Runners of New York' I read in a couple of days because I simply couldn't put it down. This book seemed to have a very similar vibe... and I wasn't wrong!

The book follows a series of inter-linked characters leading up to and beyond the 'Georgia Flu' outbreak. The story jumps backwards and forwards a bit and in some points I was confused as to why... but then it just hits you in the last 50 or so pages. The twist in the second last section was one that I did not see coming! 

I enjoyed the escapism that this book allowed, getting me to picture a world that has been completely devastated by a pandemic that wiped out basically 99% of the total population. You grow to love some of the main characters as they develop strong personalities as they deal with the hardships of being left behind. The imagery is wonderful and you really feel transported to the wintery streets of Toronto or the desolate forests that the characters traverse, simply trying to stay alive. 

If you enjoy a bit of apocalyptic drama - I suggest you give it a go! An easy read and really tricky to put down once you get caught up in it all.