We have a running joke idea for a silly social media page called “Oddly Specific Life Hacks.” It would feature posts like, “if you put a knife in the first silverware compartment in the dishwasher, it often gets stuck in the door.” Or, “When you make bread in our KitchenAid, you have to first stir up the flour and liquids slightly by hand, or a pocket of flour gets stuck on the bottom.”
Those Life Hacks won’t do anyone else any good, because they’re oddly specific to my particular situation. But they help me.
Here’s the thing: we attend conferences, read journals, take classes, talk to colleagues – all to gain more skills as conductors and educators. But a big percentage of the work you do can more effectively be improved by Oddly Specific Life Hacks: things that work in your particular classroom, your particular student population, your particular personality, your particular voice.
These Oddly Specific Life Hacks can’t easily be passed on to others, but they make all the difference to your success. The fact that they aren’t shareable doesn’t make them less worthwhile than universal tools.