What Mike Simpson Can't Work Without

What does it take to teach at Stone in 2023? It takes deep creativity, and a relentless love of students, a commitment to Designing for Joy. And really good coffee, and a few comfort-items to see us through these challenging days!

Periodically, we ask Stone Faculty members to talk about the “stuff” — the tools, the devices, the gear, the go-to-things —which enable them to show up for their students and care for their students while also providing some all-important self-care. Today, Head of School Mike Simpson shares a few things he can’t work without!

Though I’m loath to admit it, I’m kind of a productivity-gear-nerd.  I’ve read…most of the most famous books, I’ve downloaded and deleted and re-downloaded and re-deleted most of the apps, I’ve shuffled and re-arranged my “systems”.  I love what I do for a living and I feel so lucky that I get to do it; I sometimes suspect there’s a slightly different version of my life where I run a small boutique shop filled with productivity books and really cool notebooks and mechanical pencils  A shop almost exactly like the great Curio, but for people obsessed with to-do lists.

1. Getting Things Done, by David Allen.  This book quite literally changed my life.  I first read it around 2005 – back when I was a young and overwhelmed teacher trying to figure out how to manage life, responsibilities, a full teaching load, the constant influx of papers, two seasons of coaching, etc. etc.  David Allen rose to prominence after Stephen Covey and provided me with the first working framework for how to think through multiple elevations of life while also developing a process for all of the inbound stuff life seems to generate.  Since, I’ve probably read GTD 20 times and it continues to provide me with a mechanism to step back and examine my world.  At the end of many of his podcast episodes, Tim Ferriss asks his guests what book they’ve gifted more than any other – for me, it’s Getting Things Done (and Ramit Sethi’s wonderful I Will Teach You To Be Rich as a close second).

2. Moleskine Notebooks.  Speaking of Getting Things Done, one of the foundational practices David Allen talks about is making sure you get every idea out of your head and into your “system”; at the core of my system are hardcover 8.25 x 5 moleskines which I carry with me everywhere I go.  Back in 2005, I used them just to get all of the “to-do”s out of my head; over the years they’ve become part of a just-about-daily practice of writing, reflecting, and processing.  I tend to go through about 4 a year and – not unlike Kolby Kirk – I keep them all organized chronologically on my shelf in my office.  I would love to say that I do it because it’s such a powerful reference tool – which it is! – but in truth it’s really because I’m sort of an inveterate collector and organizer of things – baseball cards, and comic books when I was a kid, now books and vinyl records and moleskines.

   Here I’ll also add: I can’t imagine writing in one without a Blackwing Pencil (which has led [potential pun intended] to some fierce Pencil Debates within our faculty).

3. Nikon D7500, with an 18x200mm Nikkor Lens.  Like I said: I tend to like gear, and there’s no single piece of pure “gear” that I enjoy more than my camera.  I often say that I’m a B+ amateur photographer, and my camera equipment definitely reflects that – the D7500 is a “decent” camera; the lens – which was an incredibly kind gift – is pretty good at a lot of things (you can basically throw it in a bag and travel all over the world and never need anything else) without being particularly perfect at any one thing.  

4. Passenger Coffee.  We use Slack here at Stone; usually around 7:30am Slack messages like: “Heading in – anyone want Passenger?” start popping between Stone faculty.  I’m a three-latte-a-day kind of person (please don’t judge) – I make the first two at home; the third is an oat-milk latte from the wonderful Passenger roastery and coffee bar on Plum.  One of the real joys of working in Lancaster City is the community of small shops and makers and entrepreneurs and artists and activists who each work with such care, who each are so willing to collaborate and share in the larger work of our city. 

5. Google Sheets.  Like most of us, something like 82% of my work life is distributed between an increasingly complex architecture of spreadsheets; here I will finally admit publicly that much of my non-work life exists in a similar state.  Years ago, I heard that Jim Collins keeps a running spreadsheet tracking his distribution of work hours, and the quality of his days – something about that has always appealed to me (see: the organizer brain above), and because it has I keep a running tally of about 12 daily items (things like work hours, and exercise, and eating habits, etc) that gives me a little insight into how I’m doing across a week or a month or a year.  To be honest, I’m not sure which key insights I’ve actually pulled from all of those numbers, but I find the practice immensely…enjoyable?   

   I can also acknowledge that what I enjoy might not actually be “enjoyable” for most people

6. Bonus: Great Teammates.  My day is jam-packed and the tempo can be incredibly high, but so too is it filled with meaningful conversations with remarkable and creative people who each are invested in the work of the school and the work of Lancaster.  In a given day I may have 2-3 ad hoc conversations with Abby Kirchner about the design of our teaching and learning scaffold; then spend 60 minutes really closely reading and editing 4-5 sentences with a group of brilliant senior english students; then meet individually with a colleague to talk through their goals for the year; then head to our weekly faculty meeting and listen to an inspiring discussion of craft and pedagogy; then spend my evening with our Board or a sub-committee or our Parents’ Association.  Across all of those meetings, I’m reminded again and again of just how smart and creative and committed and funny the people I get to work with are.  

Across all of those meetings I’m reminded of just how lucky I am to do the work I do. 

See also: What Erica Bartos Can’t Work Without; What Linus Morales Can’t Work Without; What Horst Rosenberg Can’t Work Without; What Andrew Hermeling Can’t Work Without; What Molly Holden Can’t Work Without;

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