ON BEING PRODUCTIVE

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort.” A quote from Paul J. Meyer, one of the world’s foremost authorities in the fields of goal setting, motivation and personal development.

Productivity is the ability to generate, create and enhance or it is the quality of yielding positive results.

Becoming productive as teachers or as school leaders doesn’t just happen and it doesn’t happen overnight. It is something we need to work on and working on productivity needs commitment, not just mere commitment but commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort. These are the ingredients to become productive according to Meyer.

First, commitment to excellence- Once a commitment is made, in decision is eliminated. Our commitment to excellence inspires us to take positive actions and overcome obstacles and pushes as on until we make it happen. As educators parts of this commitment to excellence are our willingness to adapt with changes with the new curriculum and retooling ourselves with new knowledge and skills through attending seminars. Let’s step out from our comfort zones.

Second, intelligent planning- Why do we need to add the adjective intelligent in planning? Planning is the heart of decision making in the reason why we need to plan intelligently. We need to do deep thinking about out different school activities that will benefit our clientele and the whole school as well. All of these are reflected SIP, AIP and teachers’ work plan.

Part of productive planning is setting of goals and deadlines for each school project and activity. During the intelligent planning, we can look at what’s going right so we can continue it and what’s going wrong so we can fix it.

Third, the last ingredient is the focused effort- Some of us complain that they do not get what they want despite of their efforts. Some have all gotten excited and been motivated to achieved a goal but most of the time, they run out of steam after the initial surged of adrenaline and never achieved the goal. Focused effort must be in right direction, towards our common goal. Without focus effort we cannot hope to reap. That’s why we really need to inspire one another in achieving our common goal as stated in our DepEd Vision and Mission.

--oOo-The author is Master Teacher I (Science) at Senior High School in Nicanor David Vergara Highschool, Anao, Mexico, Pampanga

--oOo— The author is Master Teacher I (English) at Sta. Ana National High School