Sharpening Your Saw or Personal Composting!

(It could be a new activity.)

Howdy Folks!
I hope you are getting to enjoy the holiday season and perhaps getting a little break in running programs. With this seasonal lull in professional activity, remember to Sharpen Your Saw. Now last time we went through our BOT and hopefully you did a little cleaning and added a few things to your bag. And hey, maybe if you're really good you will get a new bag for the holidays! But just re-organizing and cleaning out your BOT is not really sharpening your saw. It is more like gathering the tools.


Regardless if you spend most of your time running teambuilding/ ropes course programs or you are an environmental educator/ naturalist, you need to take care of your self as well as your participants. In Steven Covey's classic book on personal and professional development, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the 7th habit is called "Sharpen the Saw". Covey uses the metaphor of a woodcutter who is sawing for several days straight and is becoming less and less productive. The process of cutting dulls the blade. So the solution is to periodically sharpen the saw. The same goes for ourselves. We need to keep ourselves, our greatest tool, sharp and ready to serve. In Ecological terms, sharpening the saw is similar to composting leftover food. You are giving back to the soil which produces food for you. You are giving back nutrients to the Earth. You need to give back to yourself as well.


I’ve found that in practice, many people, including myself, are not always clear on what sharpening the saw really means. If you’re overworking yourself and your productivity begins to fall off, common wisdom says to take a break, maybe even go on vacation. However, that isn’t sharpening the saw — that’s putting the saw down. When you put down a dull blade for a while, the blade will still be dull when you pick it up again. Now don't get me wrong. A vacation can be a component of Sharpening your Saw, but it is not the only one. 

Sharpening the Saw is actually an activity, just as the metaphor suggests. Think about what it would mean to sharpen the saw of your life. Here are some saw-sharpening ideas:

1. Exercise
2. Improve your diet
3. Educate yourself (read, listen to audio programs, attend a seminar)
4. Learn a new skill
5. Join a club, or start a club!
6. Meditate, or attend a religious service.
7. Write in your journal-Or get yourself one!
8. Have a deep conversation with someone
9. Set some new goals or review/update your old goals
10. Organize your home or office- Or your BOT if you haven't already!
11. Go out on a date
12. Go and do some of the activities you teach. When was the last time you road a Zip Line or went on your own Night Hike? 

You get the idea.  In addition to cleaning out your BOT, I encourage you during this period of time when many of us are not at peak programming levels to choose a single activity that you do all the time. It could be a game, an initiative, a certain way you teach about photosynthesis, your night hike sequence, or something else, and really look at how you do it. Are there areas you could change? More information you could provide? Does it fit in well in your schedule of events? Please do not attack ALL of your activities at once! That might get a little overwhelming! Start small, and work your way through your collection of activities. 


You can also consider making this a community activity. Gather some of the folks you work with, and as a group work on refining some activities or facilitation skills. You could also create a Mastermind group or partnership. A mastermind group or partnership is a connection and agreement that you make with other people to meet at a set time and do some growth work. It could be a session of sharing ideas, new books, great experiences, or not so great experiences. It can be more effective if you have mastermind connections that are outside of your daily life. By brining in outside resources or inputs, you can help build your own "biodiversity" and make yourself stronger and more resistant to stagnation. Have fun with the creative process!

Some books to consider:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. 

Sharing Nature With Children by Joseph Cornell.

Processing the Adventure Experience by Reldan Nadler and John Luckner.

Nature's Revenge ( A book about Poison Ivy, Sumac, and Oak) by Susan Carol Hauser.

NEXT TIME:

The Group process and one activity for Teambuilding and one for Environmental Education to start the new year!

Please send me your ideas for topics to explore and any feedback!

You can leave a comment here or email me at:

asinglefootstep@gmail.com

Your Bag O Tricks!

(Some days the mug of motivation needs to be this big!)

So here we go with the first posting for the Ropes of Ecology. Before we get into the first posting, I want to give you a little background to this blog. I have been working in the field of experiential education for 21 years, and the field of residential camping and outdoor education for 25 years. I think that working with kids and adults in an experiential manner is perhaps the best job in the whole world. It gives us an opportunity to be creative, provide challenges and adventures to people, and help people learn and develop both personally and professionally. I know students might not be developing professionally, but we are helping to build their future.

Anyway, this blog will be addressing two areas that can be integrated with great results. I will be writing about experiential/ adventure education and environmental education and ecological literacy. Sometimes the topics will be combined, sometimes there will be separate musings. The age focus for this blog will be fairly broad. Many of the activities or concepts can be applied to any age group, while some will be specifically for a certain age group.

My goal is to provide you the reader with tools that you can use in your work. And as a challenge to you, this blog will be better if it is injected with ideas and question from you. So subscribe and write comments frequently. So away we go!

YOUR BAG O TRICKS!

In the experiential education world the term Bag O Tricks is often mentioned as something we should all carry for our work. In fact Karl Rohnke even had a newsletter and a couple of books with this title. Now in some cases the bag is a physical thing: a backpack, duffle bag, or brightly colored sac. It is the sacred object we use to carry around our toys, props, and mobile initiatives. My friend Tom carries what he calls his "Captain Fun" bag.

On the other side is our metaphorical bag that we carry in our head. It contains the metaphors we use with groups, list of activities and initiatives, sayings, debriefing models, ecological concepts, and other random things we pull out at random times to help us facilitate and guide our groups. Both Bags O Tricks can be invaluable in our work.

If you do not have a physical bag that you bring with you to your programs, get yourself one. It does not have to be spectacular, but it should be functional for you. I have a large duffle that fits most of my portable gear, and then I have a smaller backpack that allows me to take what I need with me during a program. I suggest that your bag have at least a few small pockets to hold smaller items like markers, cards, and things that would get buried at the bottom of your bag.

If you already have a Bag-O-Tricks (BOT), take it out and go through it. Clean it out and restock some items. If your throwables are dirty and nasty, wash them or get some new ones. If your raccoon circles are looking like they could not hold a rubber chicken safely, replace them. You get the idea. Also I would challenge you to put at least one new item in your bag. You know that cool thing you heard about at a conference last year or read about in a teambuilding book, or a piece of writing that inspires you. Keep the BOT fresh and relevant.

Now do the same for your VBOT-(Virtual Bag-O-Tricks). You know the gray mass between your ears. When was the last time you tried a new debriefing method? Have you been using the same intro speech for EVERY SINGLE ONE of your activities? If so, change them up!

Now this is not only for those of you who work outdoors. Those of you who work in a classroom or in an office, do the same! Look at what you are using both in your BOT and VBOT and clean them up and add something fresh!

Here is your challenge:

My friend Case McCrea gave me this idea years ago and I still use it. Sit down with a piece of paper, or computer, and get ready for a brain dump. First create some categories. For example: games, trust, songs, skits, portable initiatives, closing activities, topics to cover, debriefing tools, etc. Then write out all of the items you can think of for each category. If you have resources such as books or internet sites, use them. Now do not get ridiculous, unless you want to. After all, as Karl Rohnke says,"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing".

The idea is to make yourself a usable, portable list you can carry around with you during a program so you can refer to it when ever you need it. If you can, laminate your list so it will last longer. Perhaps keep it in a small note book-which you should have anyway- so you can add to it when the ideas come rolling out of your brain.

I have found that when I do this process, and I do it at least once a year, I remember some great activities or tools that I used to use and had stopped for some reason. It is also a good refresher to keep me on my toes and to remember to keep things fresh.

Tools to use:

Here are some websites to help you out: Next time even more links!

http://www.mcphee.com/shop/ Where else can you find an inflatable fruitcake?

http://www.karlrohnke.com/ Karl's website, and a list of his books.

Remember, send me your ideas, favorite websites, activity ideas, comments,

and ideas for future topics!

asinglefootstep@gmail.com

visit our website:
www.asinglefootstep.com