Time Management + Task Management = Doing the Right Things at the Right Times.
We often think that what separates millionaires and people who have ‘made it’ from the rest of us, is their ability to squeeze the most out of every day and every situation.
But success is more often a result of doing the right things at the right time. In education, we have the added challenge of balancing the tasks that require students to be in the building (student dependent tasks) and tasks that don’t require students to be in the building (student independent tasks). There are a finite number of hours and minutes that we have access to our students throughout the school day and across the school year, from bell to bell so to speak.
While we know that we need to prioritize tasks that need to be done while students are in the building (ie. classroom observations, conferencing with students, building relationships with individual students, etc.) we often get pulled away to manage student independent tasks (ie. reports, parent meetings, adult issues in the building, etc.) during the most valuable time of our work day---when students are in the building!
While delegating is a useful strategy, many times even after we delegate the tasks that we can we are left with a packed schedule of things that “only I can do”. It is most critical that we effectively prioritize tasks when we can’t delegate or dump any of the tasks that must be accomplished in our professional lives.
Prioritization simply put means- Doing the right things in the correct order. Prioritization is nothing more than getting the important things completed before the not-so important tasks. People who find huge success know that it’s more important to do the right thing, even just for a couple hours out of the day, rather than filling up their daily schedules to get every possible task done. In an article published by Concordia University, “5 Time Management Tip for Principals” one of the 5 tips highlights the importance of prioritizing tasks throughout the workday. Check out the full article here.
As easy as it sounds, we understand how difficult it is to maintain a conscious focus on the student dependent tasks throughout the hours and minutes that we have students in the building, but let’s take a look at a simple strategy to make it happen!
It all adds up:
With the Time ReDesigned time audit process School Leaders choose 3 consecutive work days and record data for the activities they are engaged in at 20 minute intervals. Click here to learn more about the 4 step Time ReDesigned cycle.
Over the course of the 3 days, school leaders average approximately 90 activities logged (remember that activities are logged every 20 minutes). When reviewing these tasks we ask administrators to select 2 tasks that are student independent but being addressed when students are in the building. We then ask them to move one before school and one after school. That frees up 40 minutes during the most critical time of the workday to focus on student dependent tasks.
Let’s do the math to see how it all adds up!
40 minutes per day * 5 days per week = 200 minutes per week
That’s approximately 3.5 hours per week
3.5 hours per week * approximately 38 weeks per year (student days in school) = 133 hours
133 hours / 8 hour work days = 16.5 full work days per year
How much could you positively impact student outcomes with an additional 16.5 full work days devoted to the tasks that matter most to student success? We know this isn’t rocket science, but when is the last time you looked at your daily schedule through this lens?
Developing the habit of doing the right thing at the right time is one of the key principles to school leadership success and is correlated to improved student outcomes. Consider implementing this strategy when students come back to school in the fall and see what a difference it can make!
Comments