The 3 P’s

Wow, where did January go? That first month of the year has flown by and pinch, punch I’ve already missed the first day of the month! So with time passing by so quickly I wanted to share a great exercise that I learnt a while ago that I have shared with staff and students.  Every now and then have to remind myself to use this approach, it’s called the three P’s and they are:

• Priorities

• Progress

• Proud

So this approach works when planning a task, a week, a day or even a session. I will model this in the form of a day.

Priorities, think of three priorities for your day, it could be that task you have been putting off that email you need to carefully write or that pile of marking that needs to be attacked.

I am a list maker so I would write them down, post it notes are great here, a whiteboard in your office works too.

Progress, at the halfway point of your day, check your progress, how are you doing? Have you started your tasks, maybe even finished one? What do you have to do next, look back and look forward plan your time accordingly.

Proud- so it’s the end of the day, how did you do? Celebrate what you have done, be pleased with where you got to. It’s easier perhaps at this point to see all you have not accomplished or completed but, that’s glass half full thinking, so review what you are proud of, have you done two out of three of your priorities that’s great! It’s all too easy to see what has not been done rather than what has been. I like this model, it helps me plan my day, measure my progress and be proud of what I have done.

For students this is a great way of setting session focused goals and developing reflection skills, of what to set out to accomplish but also how to measure progress and celebrate work completed. I used to get students to write these on a Post It note, so together we could look at their set session priorities and check their progress. That is what’s great about this process (another P) is that each student is personalising their own goals.

So try this out, in the car on the way to work, with your team in a staff meeting, or with your students… most of all be pleased with where you get to, celebrate your progress this month.

This was a blog originally posted on my previous blogging platform