The One Habit that Will Immediately Reduce Your Stress

One of the most unbelievably annoying things in my house is to run out of cat food. We have two cats and they just go crazy.

"Good morning, Boots."

"Meow."

"Morning, Crispy."

"Reow" (Yes, he has an "r" sound instead of the "m")

Then all I hear is

"Meow. Reow. Meow. Reow."

It escalates until it is is unbelievable.

You can't get anything done. Don't pass Go. Don't collect $200. Don't even breathe.

GET CAT FOOD, STAT.

This Saturday I jumped up out of bed at 7am ready to write and there they were with eager paws and whiskers twitching.

They descended in feline fury upon me and, you guessed it, I ended up going to Wal-Mart before being able to fire up my computer and start writing. Then, I saw I needed toothpaste and Cascade and several other things. I went ahead and started laundry while I was at it. So, I started at 9:30 am after one thing that led to another.

That is what happens when a little thing is allowed to slip until it becomes a big thing. The cats will nag when they aren't fed. It is a law of nature. Then, you will lose focus. It is a habit of humans who have let the urgent usurp the important.

Avoiding the Cat Nag
This is what we call the "cat nag" in my house.

It means that we haven't taken care of business and have let something get to a critical state so that everything else comes to a stand still until that one need is met.

Paper in the printer. Ink in the printer. Getting behind on grading. Running out of Milk.

I"ve blogged about these things before when I talked about applying the Pareto principle to your life but this is sort of different.

What are the things that bring your life to a standstill? Index cards for the kids? Pens. Pencils?

What about in your classroom? Dry erase markers? An eraser? What are the things that bring your life to a halt?

These things should go on a checklist.

Step 1: Prepare Your Punchlist
Sit down at your table now and make two lists. Make a list at home of the things that "bring the cats running."

What things bring everything to a standstill forcing you to go to the store or interrupt your schedule?

Do the same for your classroom. What are the things that bring the classroom to a standstill and force you to attend to that problem? (And we know what happens when the students know you're distracted or you have to go to the copy room to get more paper!)


It is tough enough to teach but when a small thing keeps you from teaching, that small thing is a big thing.

Look at your two lists and work to figure out how much of those things you need a week. If you're not sure (like dry erase markers) then your list would say:

"Clean board. Check dry erase supplies."

Step 2: Make a Weekly Appointment to Punch Out Your Punchlist
Now, make an appointment with yourself where you will do the items on your punchlist. For me, at school I do my list every Wednesday at 11 am and at home, I do it every Saturday morning. My goal is to handle those items once a week.

So, at school this punchlist looks sort of like this:

• Check ink in printers (If I'm below 50% in ink, I go ahead and order more.)
• Get paper from copy room (I keep 4 reams of paper which is more than enough now that my student work doesn't require paper.)
• Wash and clean board. (I throw away dry erase markers that don't work as I find duds and keep a certain number at my board.)
• Check my dropbox and make a list of all things I have to have graded by Friday (Grades are due Monday and my goal is to not grade on the weekends)