Time Management Suggestion

A friend of mine challenged me a few weeks ago to do something in reference to time management, so I thought I’d pass it along to see if it can help anyone else. After explaining (okay…MAYBE I was complaining…but who’s counting! J), that I consistently feel like I don’t have enough time in the day or week to get the important things done, he suggested I take a little time to tally my daily and weekly activities from my calendar, and rank them by percentage of time spent to see where my time is going. At first, I balked at the idea, because, in my head, I know exactly how I spend my time. But, I did it anyway. Mainly thinking I would prove him wrong!

Well, I’m almost embarrassed to explain the results, but, I will definitely say this one thing: it’s not what I expected! It’s SO easy to get caught up in everything day-to-day, and think you’re focusing on what’s important that you also lose sight of the big picture. I broke my calendar down into these categories of tasks: administrative (discipline, admin meetings, etc.), special ed (IEP meetings, parent meetings, referral meetings, etc.), instructional (anything having to do with helping teachers or students), county stuff (county meetings/trainings, etc.), and miscellaneous (anything else). Special ed and county were the two biggest categories that ranked in my calendar for the two weeks I calculated. That’s where the vast majority of my time went for those two weeks. And after flipping through the previous months in my calendar, I’m sure the results would be similar if I would go back and calculate other weeks.

So I’m issuing an open challenge to everyone who reads this to do the same, calculate your calendar!

Dr. Kafele tried to tell me this in our first Twitter chat; however, it didn’t make as much sense to me then as it does now. He talks on pages 4-5 of The Principal 50 about being an “intentional” leader; one that is not “random, reactive, or haphazard.” This simple task of calculating my calendar really made it clear to me, in black and white (so I can’t argue with it), that I need to do a better job of intentionally organizing my time to NOT be random, reactive, and haphazard and to be more instructionally-minded. I organize my days/weeks with many meetings, and my time is always productive, whether it be meeting with a parent or scheduling time to debrief with a teacher. However, I need to think of how I can better use my time. It’s not that I’ve been wasting time or scheduling things that don’t matter in the overall scheme of the school; however, I need to get better at intentional scheduling. I can see that this will be a journey for me. After all, it took me almost two months to only partially grasp what Dr. Kafele meant. Maybe I’ll fully get it in the near future. So…until then…to be continued at a later date…