Are you a paperwork warrior or a prisoner of paperwork? The golden rule of many time management experts is “only handle a piece of paper one time.” Once you lay your hands on a piece of paper, you must quickly decide right then and there whether to toss that paper, file it, or pass it off to someone else.
This rule has always been a challenge for me. First, when I do make a quick decision in regards to paperwork, I usually wind up rifling through my wastebasket. Secondly, I’ve never been able to figure out to whom I’m suppose to be passing my paperwork. None of my colleagues want it. They have their own!
So how about you? What are your best tips for dealing with paperwork? I’m guessing you’ll see lots more paperwork before the school year ends!
Thinking of you!
Diane
Our teachers use our Grading tool which digitizes assessments, so multiple choice (T/F, surveys) are auto-graded while open response are able to be graded online. Our users no longer have stacks of papers because it’s all online. Best of all, all that digitized work gets loaded into our system of analytics and digital portfolios for each student.
I have a 1 page form for scissor skills that list every developemntal stage and when the class is working on a cutting project I walk with it. I do this once a month to check. I use one page skill lists for patterning skills, number checks and so forth. Whatever they are working on I just decide that am what skill am I going to access and pull the sheet and write it on there, It makes fast work of access and everything is there in one place. It alos helps me stay on task with each skill as I can tell at a glance which skill I have not accessed lately.
Even though I have an electronic grade book, I still purchase a paper one from the dollar store or Target’s Dollar Aisle. I record things that I want to know later: students’ parents’ names and phone numbers; students’ weights and heights from September, January, and June; who gave me what for Christmas and my birthday; which parents helped at various events and field trips; who donated what for those special events at school. I even record grades in it so I can make corrections to the electronic grade book after my pinkie changes a grade.