The Principal's Handbook

The Monday Morning Reset for Principals
[00:00:00] In today's episode, I want to talk about the Monday morning reset. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for 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. 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.
Welcome back to the podcast today. We're going to be talking about the Monday morning reset and how you can start your Monday on a positive note.
Many people dread Monday. And if that's you, I want you to go back and listen to episode 76, where I [00:01:00] talk about the Sunday scaries. I think this is such a common topic when it comes to Mondays and going back to work. So if you do struggle with Mondays and you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to that episode first, that can really help you with your mindset over the weekend leading up to Monday.
But today I want to give you some simple tips for starting your Monday off on a positive note, how you can go into the week, feeling refreshed, ready to go excited for Mondays and what to do to keep that momentum going for the rest of the week. So before sharing my Monday reset strategies, I want to first highlight three major pitfalls that I see that derail my own Mondays.
So these are things that if I do these things over the weekends, it really messes up my Mondays and doesn't give me the best start to the week. So I wanted to address those first. And the first thing is working through the weekends. If I find that I am not Disconnecting and really letting myself have that break and I'm working through the weekend.
I'm Thinking [00:02:00] about work all weekend. I'm not really taking that time to relax and have time for myself On monday when I come in, I don't feel refreshed. I feel like I never had that break that I needed And so that's one pitfall. It could be that you are just even not taking time for yourself. It could be overscheduling personal activities.
, so for example, and I know sometimes you can't help this if you're a parent, you have multiple sports all weekend for your kids and there's not even a minute to breathe for yourself. That sometimes makes me, , struggle to go back to work on a Monday. Lack of preparation. If I haven't been able to go grocery shopping, meal prepping, , you know, I haven't looked at my schedule for the week.
I love putting my schedule for the week for our family on the refrigerator. It just gives me an idea of what my week is going to look like. I do that on Sundays. If I don't do that. I feel like I'm not prepared for the week. , if my house is unorganized, if I have stuff everywhere and it's not clean, it doesn't make me feel prepared for the week.
So those are just some [00:03:00] simple things that can derail me on a Monday if those are not done. So I wanted to share that. Before I get into the Monday morning principles, but here are my core principles for really having an energizing Monday reset. So first Friday preparation sets the tone and I'm talking about at work, making sure that you
take time to clean and organize your office before leaving. I always made sure to disinfect my office. I would organize papers, wipe everything down. I was an elementary principal. Little kids are so germy, so it just felt really clean to have everything wiped down in my office. So that's one thing.
, and just making sure that, you know, you don't have papers all over your desk. I loved coming in on a Monday morning with a really clean office. Just made me feel like. I'm organized. I'm ready to go. So if you don't do that, I really recommend you taking time on Friday afternoon to clean and organize your office.
The other thing I like doing on Monday mornings is sitting down and looking at my priorities. [00:04:00] So I like to review my calendar, my Google calendar, and look at what are the things happening that week, What is going to be going on in my schedule?
Is it a super busy week? What does that look like? , then I like to write down my top three priorities for Monday. , and I like to think about what am I going to be doing and what do I really need to get done? And I want to be realistic about what that looks like because I see So many clients who are not realistic about what their day could look like.
They have too many priorities and then they're frustrated with themselves when they don't get all those priorities accomplished. So you want to have three non negotiables. And then schedule time for unexpected issues. We know as a principal that lots of unexpected things are going to come up. So we can't be surprised when those things come up.
So I like to pick those three priorities and then schedule them into my day of where I'm going to get them done. So one priority was always getting into classrooms. Now, granted, there were days that I couldn't do that because my schedule was so busy, but if I had the time I wanted to get into classrooms and so finding the time that works [00:05:00] best.
Now, for me, it always worked best to do the morning because. We know, , especially in the elementary world, but even as kids get older, it seems like as the day goes on, you have more behavior issues. , in the morning kids, especially Monday morning are very tired. And so I always felt like Monday morning was the perfect time to get in classrooms, see everybody, and just check in with how everything was going.
So you want to just start each day, , especially Monday, looking at those priorities, looking at your week, seeing what you. Have to do that week, which goes into time blocking. , that's another thing I like to do on Mondays, map out your entire week in advance.
So I like to designate specific times for reoccurring tasks. So for example, if my schedule is pretty open that week with not a ton of meetings, I'll schedule time to get into classrooms. , I also like to block time for focused work. So having time each day, if I need to complete rubrics, if I need to plan for a staff meeting, , my building [00:06:00] leadership team meeting, if I need to call, you know, a coworker and kind of plan some things out, I schedule that into my day so that I know that I have time to get that done.
And you want to make sure that you look at your schedule and see what meetings you have coming up. I always like to do that. And then I would sit and have a planning session sometimes with my assistant principals, sometimes just myself, but I would then plan out those agendas and I would schedule, send them to the committees.
Because I knew that, let's say I had a meeting Wednesday morning. , I wanted to send the agenda out Tuesday and I knew Tuesday could end up being crazy. So if I had time Monday, I would work on that agenda and I would send it out. , and I would just schedule, send it. I love schedule, send on Google. , that's really a game changer when it comes to you deciding when you want that information to go out and you can plan it ahead of time.
The other thing I like to do on Mondays is really look at my week and set boundaries based on what my start and end times were for each day. So I like to look at what days did I need to be at work a little bit [00:07:00] earlier? And I would put this on my home calendar as well. Like if I had a staff meeting at eight o'clock on a Wednesday, I would make sure that was on my calendar at home so that I knew I needed to get to work a little bit earlier that day.
, but knowing your clear start and end times. I also would make sure to write down, you know, what days I might be staying later because it was conferences or I had a meeting or there was an after school event. I would put those on my calendar to know those are days I'm going to stay later. But then what days do I need to make sure I'm leaving at four o'clock?
And maybe it's because I have to get one of my kids to a sport or activity. But maybe it's because I know that I have a lot of busy evenings after school, and I want one evening where I get home at 4 15 and my evening is clear. So knowing what that looks like for you, having that planned out is really going to help you be strategic to have that time for yourself during the week when you can be home and when you can just relax and have some time with your family.
Or get your kids, , to the activities that they need to get to. Prioritizing that looking ahead of time [00:08:00] and making sure that you know what that is and then communicating those boundaries to colleagues. I would talk to my secretaries. Okay. So this week on Monday and they knew Monday is I had to get my daughter to gymnastics by four 30.
So I had to leave at four o'clock and they knew, and they were great at reminding me and saying, okay, Barb, you gotta leave. It's time for you to go, , so that I was out on time. So communicating those boundaries and what you need to accomplish with your secretaries, with staff, so they know. Also, if staff members wanted to come talk to me, I'd say, oh, today I can't.
After school, I have to leave at four o'clock. So being really clear with people as you talk to them., And then having morning routines that really optimize your day. . It morning and nighttime routines, I should say, because it really could be preparing your clothes the night before when I did that.
I felt so ready for the day because sometimes picking out my clothes felt like so draining in the morning of something to think about. Or if I hadn't planned out the night before, it was really simple. So it could be the nighttime routine of packing your lunch, setting out your clothes, knowing what you're [00:09:00] going to wear, get your coffee ready.
Those types of things are going to make your morning even better. But for me, I had a really good morning routine that helped me start my day in a really successful way. I always work out before my kids wake up, get my lunch ready for the day, just prepare myself, know what my day looks like before school, after school, all of that. And then I feel like I'm ready for the day. I don't check my email. I don't start working right away, but instead I focus on that.
Me time first, get myself ready. And then I feel ready for school. And then I also had really good morning routines, not just on Mondays, but every day that I got to school and some days it looked a little bit different because of meetings, but pretty much it. The fact that after announcements, I would sit down, have my coffee.
I would check my emails, really plan out what my day is going to look like. And it just brought me into the day with a sense of ease of, I had that few minutes to plan out my day and what that would look like now, sometimes that would change because I had to do an observation earlier, you know, a [00:10:00] meeting or something would come up, but for the most part, that was my routine in the morning was to just kind of sit, prioritize, plan out my day and have my coffee and it was just a.
A relaxing way to ease into the day. And so it also made me feel excited to get to work because at home, my mornings could be a little chaotic with two little kids getting them ready for school. And so it almost felt like work was my reward after hurrying up, getting everybody else ready that I could just sit there, calm myself down and get into the day at work, in a way that felt relaxing to me and not stressful.
And then also think about your energy management and really schedule your task based on your peak energy hours. So I used to beat myself up because I noticed in the afternoon I wasn't near as productive and I would feel like what is wrong with you? Why aren't you as productive? But really, I realized my mental energy just, it drains me, you know, all the decisions that you make in a day as a principal, all the things you have to do.
It starts to drain you throughout the day. [00:11:00] And so knowing that I started to realize my peak energy times and my peak energy days of the week. So even now, when I work from home, it's the same Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I have so much more energy on those days. So I know that my most important task, I need to make sure to get done on those days.
Also, I am a morning person. If it's done in the morning, I get tasks done way quicker, with more energy, if I do it in the morning. If I try to do the same task in the afternoon, It takes me double the amount of time and I'm resisting it the whole time.
So knowing that really is important in helping you to manage your energy and feel more productive throughout the day. So I really scheduled that my Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays in the morning, I'm getting the most important tasks done and the things that require the most brain energy of me. For example, planning for meetings that I wanted to plan for.
It might be doing rubrics. You know, when I would do observation rubrics, I would try to do as much as possible in the morning, because that's when my brain was [00:12:00] fresh. You also want to make sure throughout the day that you're getting up and moving regularly. , I know there's always a debate. There's people who walk through the halls with moving desk, things like that.
It's all great. , but you want You know, you want to be visible in the building. You want to be seen, but I also am very passionate that you should have those focus blocks where you're allowed to be in your office with the door shut, getting some work done. It's gotta be a balance. , you can't do both all the time.
And I just want to remind you though, if you're sitting for too long of a period. So if you get into back to back meetings, or it's just a day where you feel like you can't get out of your office, cause you have so many meetings happening. Then you need to just take a break, get up and move around. That's going to help your energy levels as well.
So I just want to review what these are to really help with a Monday reset. So make sure that you set the tone for your week with Friday preparation, sit down on Monday morning and list out your priorities. Do some strategic time blocking for the week. , and then really decide your boundaries for that week and what that work life [00:13:00] balance is going to look like in your schedule.
Have a clear morning routine and manage your energy. So if you work on all of these areas, and It's really going to help you not only have a good Monday morning, but just better energy in the morning as you start your day.
I hope you find these tips helpful. I dive into all of these tips deeper , in my course, the sustainable principle. If you want to learn more in that course, I'm really helping principals find that work life balance. So often I see principals thinking it's all or nothing.
It's that I have to be at school all the time, giving a hundred percent all the time, or I'm not a good principal, and that's not true at all. So I really wanna help principals find that balance for them where they're able to sustain the principal job for the long term and they don't feel like they're going to burn out.
So again, look for the link in the show notes, , or you can go to barb flowers coaching.com and find my courses. And you can find the sustainable principle there. So make sure you look at that. , that could be really helpful for you if you're finding yourself burnt [00:14:00] out or you don't have any work life balance.
You don't have boundaries. You're not disconnecting from school. All those things are really important. So I hope that you found this helpful. I hope that you start to love your Monday mornings. And again, if you get the Sunday scaries, go back to episode 76, listen to that episode where I talk about the Sunday scaries and help you navigate that during your weekend as well.
And if you love the show, if you're listening on Apple, scroll down in your app and leave a review that helps other people find the show. , keep in mind you have the power to shape your life according to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you back here next time.