When it comes to gardening, I’ve often had good intentions but failed at execution.

The tray of pansies stays on the porch until it’s too hot to plant them. The flowering vines that were supposed to decorate the back deck instead eat it alive (this kind of thing can easily happen in Georgia).

It’s the same old thing many of us face: We start with enthusiasm but not much of a plan, and then get distracted.

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From middle schoolers to experienced executives, I have seen the same challenge: We put ourselves last.

We show up where we’re supposed to show up, which is almost always at someone else’s behest, whether it’s math class or a client meeting.

Then, we tend to do the stuff that’s in front of us. For some of us, it’s eating snacks and playing video games; for others, it’s answering emails and phone calls.

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One of my most important tasks as a teacher is to prevent unnecessary frustration.

That implies that some frustration is necessary, which is true. But the feeling of losing ground (“I could do this perfectly yesterday, I swear!”) can be avoided.

It’s totally normal to have a warmup or review phase in any activity. I teach my students to do this in a systematic way that we call The Undertow. It provides a strong foundation for successful practice and progress. Here’s how it works:

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“Just keep practicing! You’ll get it.”

Have you ever had a well-intentioned teacher tell you something like this?

It can be decent advice. But it’s limited.

“Just keep practicing” works when you’re on the right track. You understand the mathematical concept — you just need more experience solving similar problems. You are doing your scales with the correct fingering and just need to build speed. You have successfully completed one public speaking engagement and you’re gearing up for the next one.

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When you’re writing an essay, you have to organize your thoughts, create an outline, and incorporate your research, while crafting sentences and paragraphs — and these skills depend on solid handwriting or typing skills, confident spelling and punctuation, and strong mental stamina.

This is a lot to manage. So whenever possible, we want to isolate skills. To do this, we use Tiny Tasks. We want to tell the student exactly what’s expected, ask them to carry out the task, and praise them for a job well done. Then we do the next thing, and offer praise. 

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