The SLIME Method
An alternative to New Year's Resolutions
I’ve never been good with making and keeping New Year’s resolutions. Whenever I try to set one, it feels artificial; like I’m creating a superficial rule just to set one. Instead, I try to be better every day. I try to make good choices and live up to the expectations I set for myself. Sometimes I fall short. Sometimes I fail miserably. But as long as I pick myself up, dust myself off, and try to be better tomorrow than I was today, I’m content.
When we return from winter break, I’m going to have my students use John Spencer’s SLIME Method to set some goals for the next semester. I love how instead of setting one goal, Spencer has you create multiple goals: something to start, abandon, improve, maintain, and experiment. So, here are my preliminary SLIME goals for 2025.
Start
What do I want to begin this year? During the pandemic, early into lockdown, I listened to Ryan Holiday discuss alive time versus dead time with Tim Ferriss.
“Alive time or dead time, what will it be?” I think whether this quarantine goes for two more weeks, obviously it’s going to go much longer than that, or whether it goes for two more years, all you know is that you have that block of time. What you do control is how you use that time and what you get out of it.
During the months we all spent locked in our homes, I decided to use this dead time to write a book. I had an idea, outlined my thoughts into chapters, and began writing. Over time, I had written 55,000 words and a book proposal, and was ready to submit.1
I sent out my proposal to a few publishing firms and waited patiently for a response. Weeks turned into months with no reply. Not even a rejection letter. By this time, I was back in the classroom, trying to teach with a mask and a microphone, while my students were socially distanced from each other. I had continued my writing habit and was detailing my experiences of teaching during a global pandemic. After that first year back in the classroom, I decided to turn each chapter into series of blog posts. Many of those initial posts have appeared in the early days of this newsletter.
Even though I never landed a book deal, I value that experience. Using the pandemic lockdown to create a regular writing habit helped me process my teaching career pre-Covid. I’ve always been a reflective teacher, but regular writing forced me to sort out what type of teacher I wanted to be in a post-Covid public education system. I realized that my ethos as a teacher is to create learning experiences where students can be human again. The push to standardize learning and overly assess students has deadened of the public classroom experience, and I knew that rehumanizing learning experiences is my calling as an educator. So, what do I want to begin?
I’d love to try writing another book. I’m not sure what that will look like, but I know there is a seed of an idea somewhere deep in my brain, and the more I write and think, the more this idea will surface. I’m sure it will take me longer for me to write; I don’t have the luxury of taking a sabbatical from teaching, but I am eager to get started.
Let Go
What do I need to abandon this year? I recently read Johann Hari’s book Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again. While others have been reading and reacting to Jonathan Haidt’s clarion call for improving the mental health of adolescents and teens, I’ve been slowly focusing on (yes, pun intended) the degeneration of focus that I see in my students and myself. Haidt and Hari have some similar suggestions, however, what I found most engaging with Stolen Focus was how his vulnerable and thorough journalism made for compelling reading. To understand how our focus is declining, both individually and as a society, is to grapple with very complex systemic issues, involving surveillance capitalism, global warming, and our diets. Stolen Focus is not a self-help book and offers no easy answers. It’s clear to me that I should let go of how much I’m on social media. In truth, I’ve abandoned much of my activity on Twitter, but I don’t want to replace it with mindless scrolling on LinkedIn or BlueSky. So, this year, I am going to take more breaks from social media.
Improve
What do I want to take to the next level? In the last couple of years, I have been lucky enough to be a guest on a few podcasts. My first guest spot was a wonderful conversation I had with Danny Anderson for his UnTaking Substack. He asked me 5 questions, and I did my best to answer them. It was a lot of fun!
Since then, I’ve chatted with Marcus Luther a few times on The Broken Copier Podcast, including What the 5th Grade Classroom Feels Like and Falling in Love with Teaching—Again. I have had so much fun chatting with these educators that I would love to do this more often. I think the more I speak on camera, the more I will improve my speaking skills. So, if you have a podcast and want to chat teaching and learning with a 5th grade teacher, let me know in the comments. I’m game!
Maintain
What do I want to continue to do this year? I have been writing on Substack for a little over a year. I am really enjoying my weekly practice of teaching, reflecting, writing, and sharing resources and stories with y’all. I work to have each post be a bit better than the preceding one. I hope that each week, you find something of value in my posts. Even if you don’t use any of the resources I share, I want my posts to help you improve or maybe just brighten your day with a little bit of dancing. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I do work to help teachers be better for their students. I write to nurture this growing community, and I want to continue writing in 2025.
Experiment
What do I want to try out? This year, I’d like to record more videos for my newsletter. I’ve already experimented with posting some videos to Ople, a platform for teachers to record instructional videos. Think TikTok for teachers. Ople is free to all educators K-12. The hope is that we all learn from and inspire each other. Now, I’m not the most photogenic person. The few videos I have posted are pretty rough and took me about a dozen takes before I was happy with them.2 Still, I would like to experiment with creating more videos about what I do in my classroom. I figure the more I record, the more comfortable I will be in front of the camera. Hopefully one day, I can record LIVE videos here on Substack. In the meantime, I’ll work on my camera presence!
What are your SLIME goals or plans for 2025? Are you a resolution person, or do you do something different? What would you like to start, abandon, improve, maintain, or experiment with in 2025?. In my journal, I do an end-of-year review, which helps me see what I want to include more of in my life (and get rid of). However you spend these last days of 2024, I hope you emerge healthy, happy, and ready for what’s ahead.
Have a great week!
— Adrian
Resources
Johann Hari: Stolen Focus Pt. 1 | Oprah's Super Soul Podcast
Johann Hari: Stolen Focus Pt. 2 | Oprah's Super Soul Podcast
These podcast episodes are a great introduction to Hari and his research on focus. Part 1 is about an hour long, while Part 2 is only about 30 minutes. If you are interested in this topic, but unable to commit to reading Stolen Focus, these podcast episodes are a great place to begin.
Again, if you are interested in learning more about Jonathan Haidt’s research, I recommend you begin here.
Haidt also has an interview with Oprah. Above is a clip from that conversation. You can watch the entire interview here.
Ferriss explains his Past Year Review methodology in this interview with Dr. Andrew Huberman.
Freedom | Block Websites, Apps, and the Internet
Johann Hari mentions using this program on his laptop to block out distractions while writing. Although I tend to use the Internet for research while I write, I’m considering giving this a try to see if I can avoid being pulled out of my flow state.
Speaking of flow states, this TED-Ed video explains how to concentrate and avoid distractions. For me, writing is a flow-state activity that I want more of in 2025.
Want to learn more about alive time and dead time? Ryan Holiday discusses how he used a year to be really productive and happy. This version of the above video is a bit longer and ties the concept to stoicism.
I knew nothing of the publishing industry, and my naïveté definitely contributed to my failure.
I know that I said that I would be cutting back on my social media in 2025, but I am really enjoying learning from other teachers across the country about what they are doing in their classrooms. Each video is a short demonstration or explanation of an instructional activity or pedagogical practice. It’s a great way to learn something new!
Thanks! Do you have your students assess their own intentions using this model? Congrats on maintaining this account for a year! I know it’s brightening my corner of the world and giving me new ideas and reflections. Also, added the Ople app too!
Love this framework. I use a pomodoro timer on my laptop while I write. I recently discovered one that will block you from access to things like YouTube while you are in a work block.