Time to Get Organized

05/09/2008

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.
Stephen Covey

"Simplicity is the art of doing less of what doesn't matter and focusing more on what does matter." This sage advice comes from Paula Jorde Bloom in her book, Leadership in Action: How Effective Directors Get Things Done (Lake Forest, IL: New Horizons, 2005). Jorde Bloom offers these steps to simplify your work life:

Meet with your office staff to think of ways you can reduce the amount of paper generated and routed to others.
Ask your team, "What things are we doing today that, if we were not doing them, we would not start doing?
Keep paper communications lean to reduce the amount of mental clutter that people have to wade through to get to the essence of your message.
Cut red tape for your teachers. Eliminate the obstacles to their success.
Don't allow things to accumulate that no longer have a real function. This means being selective about using your storage space.

More Tools for Being an Effective Manager

Exchange has packaged six of its practical management resources into a single “Center Manager’s Tool Kit” and is offering the entire set at a 33% discount. Resources in the kit include:

• The Art of Leadership: Managing Early Childhood Organizations
• Managing Money: A Center Director’s Guidebook
• Stick Your Neck Out — A Street-Smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond
• 250 Management Success Stories from Child Care Directors
• Exchange Article CD Collection #4: Avoiding Burnout
• Exchange Article CD Collection #5: Supervising Staff

GOOGLE HIRING EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATORS: Google has expanded its employee child development program by opening a world-class children's center in Mountain View, California and is now hiring teachers.

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.