Keeping the Momentum Going: Week 2 of the Productivity & Accountability

Last week, I shared insights from a full-day professional development (PD) session on Productivity & Accountability and introduced a 10-week newsletter series to help educators take small, meaningful steps toward improving both their own and their students’ productivity. If you missed the first post, you can catch up here: Bringing Productivity & Accountability to Life and Education: A Full-Day PD & Ongoing Support.

I wanted to continue to share the weekly newsletter I am sharing with this district in case you wanted to follow along and try for yourself. This week we move into Week 2: Purposeful Planning & First Steps.

Why Week 2 Matters

The first week was all about observation—taking a step back to study productivity patterns, identify roadblocks, and gain clarity on what’s actually happening in our classrooms.

This week, we shift from awareness to intentional action.

Rather than making overwhelming, massive changes, we embrace the power of tiny experiments and purpose-driven shifts in our teaching practice. The key is to identify one small but impactful change that aligns with your PACT plan and helps move the needle toward greater accountability and productivity.

What’s Next?

As we continue through the 10-week Productivity & Accountability journey, each week builds on the last. If you’re following along or trying this out on your own, I’d love to hear how it’s going!

• What small shift did you implement this week?
• What are you noticing so far?
• What challenges are you facing?

———-

Here is the newsletter for the week:

Week 2 Newsletter: Purposeful Planning & First Steps

Subject: Small, Purposeful Changes Lead to Big Impact

Focus:

• Based on last week’s observations, begin to defineor redefine one purposeful shift for yourself or your students.
• Align it to your PACT Plan under the Purposeful section.
• Shift from general awareness to intentional planning and experimentation.

Activity:

• Identify one classroom habit that could benefit from intentional change (e.g., student self-monitoring, workflow efficiency, peer accountability). Most of you have already done this during the PD session, but in case your week of observations brough awareness to anything new and you would like to update please do so.
• Use the 80/20 Rule: Identify the 20% of changes that could create 80% of the impact. This is for frame of reference that we are looking at tiny experiments and not a huge overhaul.
• Key Questions:
  • What’s one small adjustment you can test this week?
  • What’s the minimum viable version of your productivity experiment?
  • How can you track whether it’s working?

Action: Update your PACT Document with the identified shift and plan for implementation.

Quote for the Week:

“Identify the most valuable thing you do in your job, and then figure out what actually helps you do it better.” – Cal Newport

Further Reading: For more insights on refining productivity experiments, explore this resource from Ness Labs: Turning Big Fears into Tiny Experiments