The Together Teacher: Chapter 4 Never Forget! Capture Your Thoughts

Today I am hosting the Together Teacher book study. If you have missed the first four chapters you can easily catch up and join the party! Chapter one Rules Over Tools  was all about creating our ideal week and showing us how the right tools can help us reach those ideals. Chapter two: No More Missed Deadlines gave reasons and tips for how to make a comprehensive calendar. (I've now done that and I can't tell you how freeing it is!!) Chapter three: Coral the To-Dos gave me tools to actually write my to-dos down and keep them organized according to when I plan on doing them. I like having everything in one place. I just have to get in the habit of carrying my system with me!

Now it is my turn! Chapter four: Capture Your Thoughts
I get some wild and crazy thoughts some times. Some of them are actually pretty good, but get lost in the lint cluttering my brain. You know what I'm talking about...ideas for a blog post, ideas to bounce off another teacher, ideas for a new craft project, ideas, ideas ideas...There are many ways to catch your thoughts, but I'll show you what I'm going to try.

I can quickly write who the thought is directed towards and even go back and add more!

Now I can easily write down my musings on the run. Later I can sit down and look over my ideas and decide which ones need to be scratched and which ones need to be added to my To-Dos or put into an e-mail to a colleague for discussion. There are many ways that you may want to organize your own thought catchers. These are the tricks Maia has for making your Thought Catchers work:

1. They must not be time sensitive.

2. They must have a trigger.

3. You should choose Thought Catchers over e-mail.

4. Take advantage of extra minutes in each day. 

You can take as much time as you need later to develop your thoughts. Thought Catchers are for catching thoughts in the midst of our busy days. It captures the thought for later reflection and careful attention.

So often during the day I have these great or crazy thoughts. I either forget them or send out an e-mail to share my latest inspiration. Sometimes I jump into things without having given my idea some thoughtful consideration. Sometimes that gets me in trouble. Thought Catchers are helping me to slow down and think about my ideas carefully before jumping into an empty swimming pool head first!

It wasn't until after I started making these elephants that I realized that the chapter I signed up to host was called "Never Forget"! I'm making these elephants for each of my students to help them remember to read. I've penned an acrostic poem to go along with each of the elephants that will be part of our first day of school. Would you like your own never forget to read elephant? Maybe you'd rather have an Amazon giftcard? Be sure to enter for a chance for one of these awesome prizes below! Everyone gets a set of the binder cover/mini-posters I designed by clicking on the picture below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up