My current understanding of Managing Effectively is that you can get good quality work done with focus. Managing Effectively means that you understand what deadlines you have and meet those deadlines with the best work possible and that you don’t get distracted by other things that get in the way of your current work. As well as manage your time to make sure you get everything you need to work on done in the span of your deadline. Some ways to successfully Manage Effectively are by making sure your work space is organized in a way that you can find everything without thinking. This is important so you can focus more time into the project rather than searching for a misplaced item. Another way that personally helps me Manage Effectively is listening to music. If I listen to music that calms me down I can use my brain better. Music helps me work better in the moment and focus more on the task at hand instead of things happening around me.

I have grown in Managing Effectively  a lot during my time at SEEQS. In my 6th grade year I understood what it meant, however I was not the best at actually using it in my work. I struggled to manage my free time and work time which was somewhat due to the fact that we were online, so I had access to video games that easily distracted me. I did get my work done but most of the time I rushed it which caused me a lot of stress. Overall, Managing Effectively  was one of the easier skills for me to understand in 6th grade, although it was one of the harder ones for me to accomplish. 

In 7th grade my skills in Managing Effectively  grew by a lot. I started the year really well, being able to manage my time in school and outside of school. Even though I wasn’t doing the best I possibly could, I was still doing good. I got my assignments done easily and if I didn’t finish work in school I found time outside of school to finish them. This all changed when I started the ambassador program. I now had to manage even more of my work outside of school because I had to do tours that took a chunk out of my class time. This helped me learn to plan things out better because I had to balance class work with tours. Doing tours also prompted me to get information from my teachers on what we would be doing on the day of a future tour, just so I don’t accidentally miss a test or an important assignment. On the days that I did miss these things I talked with my teachers to find time to get my work done or spend my own time at home doing it. 7th grade was the peak of my growth in Managing Effectively.  

Finally in 8th grade I have used these skills and I have learned from 6th and 7th grade to manage effectively to my best ability. I meet all of my deadlines and contact my teachers for any reason when I am going to turn in an assignment late. I still have much growth in this skill but I think I am on the right track. In my personal life Managing Effectively is a very important skill. As an animator I must find time that I can’t be easily distracted or interrupted and I must make sure that I use my time to get important scenes done. I have to make sure to get editing done as fast as possible to meet the deadline for my videos. From these experiences I have grown from an understanding to taking action to use this skill throughout my life in school and outside of it.

A good example of a project that I used Managing Effectively was my Mo’oku’auhau project from the social studies class “Who’s History?” from 8th grade. Mo’oku’auhau roughly translates to family tree in Hawaiian. Mo’o means lizard/succession and Ku’auhau means offshoots so put together it translates to genealogy or family tree. This project was for us to learn more about our family and where we come from. 

We started this project by learning what our Mo’oku’auhau was. We learned about family trees and genealogy through some examples such as King Kamehameha’s family legacy. Our next step was to get a basic draft of what our final product would look like. I went through a variety of designs for this, but after I realized that my whole family wouldn’t fit on a piece of paper I switched to Canva, online. A problem I ran into while drafting was that I didn’t know the names or ages of some of my family members. I substituted these with placeholders so when I learned what they were I could replace them.

This project connects to Managing Effectively because I had to manage my time to get my project done within the deadline. I needed to make sure that I finished the best I could during my class time (Including formatting my design and including details that I know). I had to Manage Effectively outside of school by using my free time responsibly and asking my parents what they know about my family, then calling some other relatives to confirm some of these things and to get other information. This whole experience includes a ton of ways to Manage Effectively because we only had a few class periods to get it done, so we had to make sure that we used it to the best of our ability. This was especially challenging for me since I have a pretty big family and getting everyone onto a family tree was very hard. 

A good example of how I managed effectively throughout my project was the work I completed during class. Even though I didn’t know the exact names or birthdays of some of my family members I guessed them or put a placeholder so I could get a good idea of what the final product would look like. For example, I didn’t know my grandma’s maiden name so I left out her and her sibling’s last names and only put their first names. This is an example of Managing Effectively because even though I didn’t have all my information I still continued my work and had a substitute for my relative’s names. Even though this is an example of Managing Effectively it also is kind of a counterexample because I should have worked on getting the information I needed about my family in the beginning of the project. This would allow me to finish my project earlier and possibly add more quality.

This project helped me grow in my skills of Managing Effectively because I had to learn the consequences of getting distracted before finishing my work. Next time I have a project like this I will make sure to get all the information I can’t get in school beforehand, so my project is completed with my best quality work and I don’t lose focus. Overall this project was a great way for me to learn more about where my family comes from.