What a day!!!

First, realized my phone was charging in my car – at the airport parking lot in Ohio and I was on a plane for  Philadelphia.  Of course that just topped the fact that the plane was delayed, connection would be missed and (to add insult to injury) arrival found that the  luggage was lost!!!  

Does that in any way sound familiar?  Maybe not the exact same details but so many things come crashing at you and the domino effect takes over.  At school it can be a myriad of things  – teachers out, parents upset, schedules under fire, on and on and on.  So, what do you do?  You have to figure out where you are at and what has to be done.  And that is what we call Situation Appraisal!  By listing all the issues I was dealing with and making certain each one was something I could take action on and then realizing which were the most important in terms of the impact on me, and others, and how urgent they were, I could get my arms around things that seemed way too overwhelming at one point  to handle.  Taking a few minutes to get some clarity and make order out of chaos is so worth the time and the effort. And, it is something you can do every single day – whether in a crisis mode or just getting your day – or your team – together and focused.

Next time you think you cannot handle it – reach for Situation Appraisal.  It will give you that order to chaos.  But,there are still some things you just cannot control.   I am still waiting for my luggage . . .