Time Management for Instructional Leaders: Let’s Get Practical
There’s so much to juggle in the work of instructional leaders: not only do you hold coaching, professional development, curriculum, class observations, and teacher evaluations in your hands, but you are often passed a number of other responsibilities that just feel impossible to hold. In order to prioritize your role in supporting amazing instruction so that our students benefit, you’ve got to find a way to manage your time well, which I know can be a challenge!
In order to build your time management skills, start by reflecting and identifying what major factors may be preventing you from getting to your priorities. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading the first part in this two-part series: Time Management for Instructional Leaders: Where are you?
After you’ve been able to identify what pulls you away from your focus on instruction and why, it’s time to get practical. Below, I will share my top seven time management strategies that I’ve found most helpful as a coach. However, while counter intuitive, my biggest recommendation is this:
Don’t try all of these at once. Pick one, and build it into a habit!
I know that feels hard, but you’ll be much more successful with building your time management skills if you take it one step at a time. I also highly recommend finding a colleague or friend with whom you can share you plan for shifting the way you spend time.
7 Time Management Strategies for Instructional Leaders
Keep a to-do list - One thing that makes me feel overwhelmed is just feeling like my brain is at capacity, that mentally I can’t handle any more. I’ve found it very helpful, and very simple, to just write down all the things I need to do instead of trying to just remember them. This gets things out of my brain and onto a physical list. I like to use Notes on my phone, but you can use anything that you always have with you when you need to write things down. I also recommend keeping just one to-do list, not a personal and professional one separately. (Depending on your work, it may make more sense to split them. Because most of my work is remote and I’m my own boss, my errands and personal responsibilities go on the same list as my professional responsibilities.)
Morning priority setting - Before you start your work day, take 15 minutes to look over your calendar and responsibilities for the day. During this time, name the ONE focus priority for that day that you have to make sure to get done. Instead of giving yourself an impossible to-do list, set yourself up for success by clarifying one really important focus. In addition to the one focus area, you can also prioritize (actually number) other items on your to-list that you’ll tackle in a given order. I recommend putting this 15 minute block on your calendar so that you don’t accidentally schedule anything right when your work day starts.
Set protected time - We often build our calendars around meetings, or other events like class observations. While these should certainly be anchors of our calendars, we forget to give ourselves time to prepare for or follow-up from these events, and so end up having to stay late or get up early to finish them. I recommend scheduling blocks of time on your calendar that are protected work time where you can close your office door uninterrupted for even an hour at a time. This is the time where you’ll plan for coaching meetings, professional development or other meetings you may lead. This is the time where you send follow-up emails or respond to emails that are in your inbox. Scheduling protected time connects well with the next two strategies.
Weekly scheduling - Each week, map out your schedule for each day before the week begins. I recommend doing this as an electronic calendar, such as Google Calendar, but it could take any form that works for you. Having an electronic calendar helps you easily reschedule where meetings get canceled, instead of missing it all together. Set your calendar by Sunday night and build a routine of mapping out your week ahead of time. I recommend building your calendar in blocks. For example, schedule 3 class observations back to back in an hour chunk of time, instead of spread throughout the day. It’s much easier to accomplish 3 observations when they are scheduled together. (Paul Bambrick-Santoyo’s book Leverage Leadership is a great resource if you’d like more depth on this one.) Many online calendars also send you a reminder 10 minutes before an event, which can be helpful to give you a heads up if you are transitioning from one event to the next.
Afternoon wrap-up - Just like the morning priority setting time, schedule 15 - 30 minutes for yourself to have uninterrupted time to wrap-up your work for the day. This ideally includes responding to all emails from the day and checking off items from your to-do list (hopefully the one focus priority!). For me, having an empty inbox helps respond to all emails promptly.
Delegate - Consider 1 - 3 items that are often on your to-do list that really could be someone else’s responsibility. Oftentimes, instructional leaders know they should delegate more, but it feels like an extra thing to do or that it will take more time! It might at first, but it pays off. Start with just one thing at a time. What is one thing today that you can delegate to someone else on your team, a teacher, or even a student?
Say “no” more often - We want to do everything in our power to support and see the students in our school thrive. But that often means we take on too many things, and then don’t end up doing any of them well. You are not serving kids well by taking on more things. In fact, we often are less effective at our job because we take on too many things. Practice saying “no” more often. If you are invited to be on a committee, or do a presentation, or write a letter of recommendation, it is okay to say no when you are already at your full capacity.
While each of these strategies work together well to support healthy time management as an instructional leader, I recommend starting with just one at a time, and building in that strategy until it becomes a new habit. Think about what is taking up most of your time or what is causing you to not be able to focus on instruction in the way you would like to. This should help you form your priorities and land on which strategy will be most helpful for you.
Building new habits takes time. Be patient with yourself as you work to manage your time more effectively. And if something doesn’t work for you, come back and try something else until you have your own unique strategy for managing all that is thrown your way as an instructional leader.