The Principal's Handbook

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Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for [00:01:00] principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
Hey everyone. In this episode, we're going to be talking about an important topic for leaders. And this is the topic of time management. As a principal, it can be so hard because what we think is important may not always align with what's on everyone else's mind in the building and what they feel is important.
And urgency often overshadows what's truly important. And your to do list that you had planned or your schedule for the [00:02:00] day can quickly become chaotic as other things. Unexpected things come up throughout the building. So as a principal, we all know this feeling. We have our day planned out. We know what we want to do.
And then nothing happens as planned, because something happens in the building, whether it's with staff or with students. And we have to drop what we're doing and handle that. Today, I want to help you become better at managing your time because we all have the same 24 hours in a day. And the better we are at mastering our time, the more we can achieve and the greater impact you're going to be able to have on your school, your students, and your own wellbeing.
So in this episode, we're going to explore strategies that are going to help you regain control of your time and maximize your effectiveness. So, I wanted to start though by drawing on inspiration from some quotes on the value of time. Annie Dillard said, how we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.
Stephen Covey's words are very true when he talks about when you have too many top [00:03:00] priorities, you effectively have no top priorities. And Charles E. Hummel, he cautions our greatest danger in life is in permitting the urgent things. To crowd out the important. So I felt like these quotes are really helpful in reflecting on how we're spending our time in both school and our daily lives.
It's easy to get lost in the whirlwind of busyness without being truly effective or productive in our days at, like I said, at both school and life. So today I'm going to share seven strategies that can help you manage your time more efficiently. So the first strategy is determine your prime time. And for me, this is so important because I pick the tasks that I need to have the most concentration and I get it done first thing in the morning.
Because recognizing when your most productive hours are in the day is so important to knowing yourself and knowing when you can get more done. So just pay attention to when you feel the most alert, the most focused throughout the day. [00:04:00] For many people, it is the morning. For me, it's the morning. But once you've figured out your prime time, prioritize getting your most important tasks done.
And it's just going to help you be more productive throughout the day. So, for example, if I'm at work and I'm tired, it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon and I have a period of time. I don't start a difficult task that requires a lot of concentration because I know that task is going to take me a lot longer at that time of day because it's not my prime time of day.
I'm tired already. It's been a long day. So I will save that task and I prioritize it for the next morning when I know that I could get the same task done a lot quicker, so it saves me time. So determining your prime time and figuring out when you have the best focus is really helpful. The next step tip is to create a prioritized to do list.
So begin by listing all the tasks you need to accomplish, a big to do list, and then rank them in order of importance and when you need to get them completed by. [00:05:00] You could also use a method like the Eisenhower matrix. So this is where you take four quadrants and you have one quadrant is your important and urgent tasks.
Another quadrant is important but not urgent. Another one is urgent but not important. And then your last quadrant is neither important nor urgent. So this can just help you kind of plan out Your to do list, the things you want to get done and identify, you know, what are things I need to get done for meetings and for events coming up, , versus things that I just think are important that I want to do, but they're not urgent right now.
So that can really help you prioritize your time and feel less overwhelmed. My third strategy is to tackle the dreaded tasks first. So, Procrastination can be a huge time waster and to overcome this we have to make a habit of just tackling that hardest or most dreaded task first and doing it first thing in the morning is a great way to get that done.
So [00:06:00] once it's out of the way you're going to feel accomplished, you're going to have less stress, it's not going to be on your mind. , Um, I, like I said earlier, I'm more focused in the morning, so it not only helps me to have more focus and get the dreaded task done quicker, but it's not illuminating over my head all day.
So I don't know if you're one of those people, you have it in your mind that you need to get it done. If you don't do it right away, you're just thinking about it all day and you're dreading it and not wanting to do it. So you'll feel so much more accomplished and productive if you just do the dreaded task first thing.
I also use this strategy at home. Forgetting my most difficult task done first thing in the day and just getting them out of the way and it's the idea to like if you're trying to get into an exercise routine, exercise first thing in the morning because you don't even have time to think about how you don't want to do it or how you don't have time for it.
You just get it done. It's something that's important and you get it done first thing in the morning. My fourth strategy is to set three daily priorities. [00:07:00] And just like the quote said earlier in the episode, if we have too many priorities, we have no priorities. So each day select three key tasks that you have to get completed.
These are your top priorities for that day. And by focusing on a small, manageable number of important tasks, You're going to have clarity of what needs to get done and you're going to feel less overwhelmed. So when you get those three tasks done or those three priorities, you're going to also have a feeling of accomplishment and progress.
And like you were productive that day, because I know for me, my to do list can be very long. It can have 15 things on it, but what I do is I go, I create that to do list. I redo it every day. So whether it's, , at the end of the day, I like to look at what are tasks I didn't get done the day before and add those to my list that current day, and then what do I need to get done that day?
And then I go through and I try to highlight which task I consider my most important. I'm going to be talking about the three most [00:08:00] important things that I must get done that day. And that just helps with overwhelm and it helps me focus on really getting those tasks done. My fifth tip is to track your time.
Keep a detailed schedule of how you spend your time every day. It helps you to conduct a weekly time audit, and you can analyze your time usage to identify patterns, , and areas where you're spending your time and where you could become more productive. So for me, I put everything in Google calendar.
Obviously I have my schedule in Google calendar, but throughout the day, I'll add what I've done in Google calendar so that when I go back, I can look at my week and look at where I've been spending my time. Was I, was I spending a lot of time in my office? Was I spending time? Walking around, interacting with kids.
Was I spending time in PLCs, , you know, doing instructional leadership activities? So where am I spending my time as a principal? And being able to analyze that and do a time audit is so helpful in getting more productive and making sure that you're using your [00:09:00] time in the way that you want to use it.
So it's also great because you can ask yourself, are there any activities that you're just, they're consistently consuming too much of your time? Is there anything you can delegate that you don't need to be doing that you can have someone else help you? So those are some things to think about as you're tracking your time.
My sixth strategy for time management is to time your tasks. I love to do this where I assign specific time limits to my tasks. So this time boxing technique, it just assures that ensures that I'm not spending too much time on a small task. So you could set a timer. I personally just look at the clock and say, I have five minutes to get this task done.
And this helps me become so much more productive. At work, I'll tell my secretaries, they'll say, are you getting ready for bus duty at the end of the day? And I'm like, I have five minutes. I can get a lot of things done in five minutes. And so I just sit at my desk, prioritize a couple of things and get it done.
And I love that little challenge of trying to get [00:10:00] stuff done quick, because then I can check it off my to do list. And these are just things that don't require a lot of concentration. They're just little things I need to get done. So Timing yourself for simple tasks is a great way to become quicker at things and to just prioritize getting them done.
And I do this at home. It sounds silly, but if I'm doing laundry or dishes or I want to clean the house and I'm like, I have 10 minutes, I'm going to just clean as much as I can. It's a way that I can be productive and get as much done in that short amount of time. And I'm not spending too much time doing it.
, and it also keeps me focused and I move quicker. , another strategy is implementing time blocking. So time blocking is when you're dividing your day into dedicated blocks of time and you allocate specific tasks to each time you work. So the purpose of time blocking is it minimizes distractions and helps you stay focused on one task at a time.
There's a lot of research that we [00:11:00] really don't multitask. We can only focus on one task at a time. And when we're constantly switching between tasks, we're switching our attention and so it's. It's taking longer because we have to refocus ourself into whatever the new task is. And so, As a principal, that's really hard because we might be in our office on a roll working on something and then a situation comes to us and we do need to stop what we're doing and deal with that situation.
So that can be hard, but if you time block, you can save time. So like, I like to time block getting into classrooms. I like to time block the time that I'm working on rubrics or getting paperwork done. And I time block based on when I am most productive. So I like to do paperwork things in the morning because I'm more productive at that time.
Like if I'm planning PD or I need to really be focusing and concentrating on a rubric, I try to time block that in the morning because I know that's where my best focus is. So recognizing that time blocking will help you. And every time you switch a task, it's going to take time to [00:12:00] regain focus. And momentum.
So trying to time block those tasks are really important and implementing these time management strategies. It's just helpful for enhancing overall productive productivity and making better use of your time. Your time is so valuable as a principle. So Being good at managing your time can really change what your day looks like.
So I hope that you experiment with these tips, find what works for you, tailor them to your schedule, your unique needs, and just what you find to be helpful. But I also want to remind you of the importance of focusing on your thoughts about time. Our brain likes to go to the negative and cause a lot of drama for us.
It's important that we catch when our brain is doing this and reframe those negative thoughts because when we're focusing on thoughts such as I'm so busy. I don't have time to finish everything. I'm never gonna get this all done I'm tired of being interrupted when we're focused on those negative thoughts It's really hard [00:13:00] to be productive and be positive.
So it's important that when we do become aware of those negative thoughts and they're creeping in that we reframe them to thoughts such as I always get all my work done. I'm going to focus on one thing at a time. I'm going to focus on my three priorities for the day. So these are thoughts that are going to lead to more positive feelings and more positive outcomes.
Because when I'm coaching someone in my coaching, I focus on what we call the T method. So your thoughts create your emotions, which create your actions. So if you have all these negative thoughts, I'm going to talk to you your mind, whether it's about time or being too busy or whatever it is, that's going to create negative emotions, which is going to lead to negative action and a lot of times when you're stuck in negative thoughts about busyness and not having enough time to get things done, it leads to negative emotions, which lead to inaction and you're not doing anything where if you talk to yourself and, you know, remind your brain, I will get it all [00:14:00] done, it's not anything to be stressed about.
It doesn't need to be dramatic. Then those positive thoughts, those reassuring thoughts are going to create more positive emotions, and it's going to create positive action, which is going to help you to get things done. It's going to help you to be more productive. So if you are interested in one on one coaching or just more tips throughout the week, You can find me on Instagram at Barb Flowers coaching.
I do have a free guide for prioritizing your time. If you click the link in my bio on Instagram, and I also put a link in the show notes. And if you're struggling with overall confidence, I provide a free confidence strategy planning session. So during the session, we'll talk about your confidence, utilizing the five pillars of confidence, and then we'll see where you need to bridge that gap to get to where you want to be.
So this is a completely free. Consultation. Reach out to me if you're interested. Thank you for listening to this episode. If you find this podcast helpful, please leave a review so other people can find the podcast as well. I hope you have a [00:15:00] great week and stay tuned for next week's episode.
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