The Paradox of Possibilities

Time. Counting down. #

2014 begins with me, as I do every year, reevaluating a bit of what I’ve been up to, a bit of what I’m planning to do, and a bit of what I’d like to do. And I’m a lucky guy, as I’ve never had a longer list of all three types of things when I sat down to start a year. #

As I write my way into 2014, I’m stuck by all the things I could choose to do. How will I spend the minutes of this year? My brain of late is rushing with all the different things that I could be doing. Here, in no particular order, is what flashed through my mind just now: #

Explore the possibilities available in Longmont and the surrounding area for partnering with Spanish speakers to offer additional family-focused technical assistance in our new 1:1 initiative.
Wondering about and thinking through how our 1:1 initiative is also a family digital literacy initiative, to some degree, and wondering about how to support student learning through the lens of family learning¹
Declutter and rethink my home office.
Explore the possibilities of moving from physical book collections in our secondary schools and building digital libraries for students and staff to access via our iPad 1:1.
Date my wife more.
Helping schools to think through how to repurpose no longer necessary lab spaces by rethinking the use of space in those rooms. This might be looking at the Third Teacher and similar resources to create learning commons, or collaboration spaces. It might mean building “iPad writing labs” by purchasing some wired keyboards. It might look like something I haven’t imagined.
Build robots with my children.
Rethinking how we do professional development in my school district as the district has decided that we should not be utilizing substitutes to free teachers up during the school day, but rather that we should fit professional learning for adults into nights, weekends, and summers.
Play more music. Maybe even write and record some.
Redeveloping and redefining my digital and paper workflows – collections of notes, active projects, and lengthy lists of to dos – in order to improve my efficiency and focus on any and all of these tasks.
Finally replace those shrubs in the front yard. Determine if they are, indeed, dead, or just resting.
Wondering about my long-term career goals and whether or not I’m working towards them in my current work.
Diving deeply into how my children interact with technology, each other, and the world.
Helping teachers to rethink analog habits at a time of digital change and the eventual 1:1 move. Wondering about how to help teachers both bring along the practices that they value and abandon the practices that they do not, either analog, digital, or some combination thereof.
Train for longer races as a runner who’s certainly 10K capable, but somewhat intimidated by half-marathons.
Thinking about family history, family archives, and the long term digital legacies I’d like to create, manage, and leave behind.

Again, these are just a few of the many things I’m wondering about wondering about as the year begins. And the more I think about it, this is only a small fraction of a very large list. I know that I can’t do all of these things, or at least do them all well. I know that I am a very lucky person, as I have the opportunity to have my thumb in all sorts of projects and wonderings and dreaming about these and other things. But I’m also struck by, when I take the time to map some of these ideas out, the idea that sometimes, it’s easy to see all of the things I could do and get stuck by the sheer “bigness” of it all. I can get paralyzed by all of the possibilities and avoid moving in any one direction as I know that movement one way certainly closes doors on the other ways I could’ve gone. #

One of the big takeaways of my freshman year of college was the phrase “opportunity cost,” one I picked up in an economics survey class. Wikipedia provides a clear definition: #

In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a choice is the value of the best alternative forgone, in a situation in which a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives given limited resources. Assuming the best choice is made, it is the “cost” incurred by not enjoying the benefit that would be had by taking the second best choice available. #

I get stuck too often in wondering which thing to do at the cost of not getting anything done. So If I’m making a resolution this year, and, hey, it’s never too late, or a bad time of year, for a resolution, it’s this: I pledge to recognize that I can’t do everything I’d like to do, but I’ve got to pick some things to focus on, otherwise, I’ll never get anything accomplished. As I age, I discover that I have less and less time available, and saying no to some things is the only way to say yes to others. #

Deep breath. Let’s dig in. #