Time Management

greetings. I opted to do a more creative outlet instead of writing a paper.

Um there's only so long I can look at a word doc for but um here we go.

So for are the time management project?

I um went ahead and did a presidency going over the Big Rocks analogy.

Uh Covey's four quadrants where I can improve as a current teacher in the

future admin and how that improvement can serve as a catalyst for change.

So

the Big Rocks analogy is one that I am familiar with.

I've seen it multiple times before.

The idea behind the Big Rocks analogy is that if you have a jar or container

and you are to go ahead and place um different sized items inside of that container,

The order that you put them in does matter.

So that way you can go ahead and get all of those items to fit in,

um you want to go ahead and put the larger items in first and then the

medium items and then the smallest items to fill in the cracks where you have room.

Uh Covey took this analogy um and it's been done by other people

as well that the objects size represents a task or a goal or a

focus um in one's life or day to day challenges and so you

want to tackle or make room for or prioritize the larger items first.

Since those are the ones that tend to have more value from there,

you want to go ahead and fill in these smaller items or littler rocks.

Um and then the sand can fill in the cracks.

The sands is typically the unimportant jobs or tasks that don't really um

go for

um aiding the overall goal itself.

So what does that actually mean in terms of

application?

So again, we want to look at like these big rocks,

these little rocks and our sand as they go ahead and fit into

the container itself.

So this is really important when we start thinking about

task completion from an administrative level at in a school,

you always want to make sure you have those higher priority tasks or goals

um

Focus is accomplished first.

Those are usually are higher priority ones um and ultimately lead to school,

culture and climate being effective and positive and producing our

um

and result to go ahead and meet our mission, our mission and vision. Um

you by getting these done out of the way first, it does

potentially create a positive domino effect in terms of preventing

um what initially were smaller issues from becoming larger issues

and examples of this um would be just first and foremost,

regular building maintenance and upgrades,

ensuring safety and upkeep of building furniture, anything like that um is good.

It's good to have a routine for all of those

things because um we don't want things to start getting,

breaking down becoming a safety

hazard for others.

Uh annual review of student handbook and in regards to policies and procedures.

I want to make sure that we're staying relevant in that, you know,

appropriate disciplinary actions um are actually appropriate.

Sometimes those things we get out a

little outdated if they're not frequently reviewed,

consistent and transparent communication with students,

parents and staff members.

Um

mm hmm,

overly communicating or being transparent about your

communication in a consistent manner definitely allows.

Um

So

two open lines of communication with the community that you serve.

Um it goes back to that, you know, we want to prevent issues from arising,

not putting issues or not putting fires out so to speak.

Um And that also ties back into regular teacher evaluations and feedback.

Um as professionals,

it's our responsibility to help support each other um and

promote growth and very very easy way to do.

That is make sure you have some sort of teacher evaluation cycle.

And make sure that these that feedback

evaluations are happening on a regular basis.

Mhm.

Which leads us into Cubbies four quadrants.

These four quadrants were kind of talked about when

the Big Rock analogy without specifically identifying them.

Um but cubby basically saw um focuses or tests or goals however you want to phrase

them um into two different categories that weren't

necessarily separated or isolated from each other.

Um These tasks are focuses can be grouped as either

important or urgent or not important and not urgent.

Um It is kind of a crosswalk matrix on how they overlap with each other and based

off of the level of their importance and their

level of urgency determines what quadrant there in.

So quadrants one and 2 are deemed as important tests or focus

and quadrants three and four are determined not important tests or focus.

So when we look at quadrant one in quadrant two,

really the defining matter between the two is the

absence of or the need of urgency to accomplish these focus and tasks.

Quadrant one is known as the crisis quadrant because

everything in there is typically considered important or urgent.

Those are like pressing problems,

things that are coming up and meeting a hard deadline.

Um Usually tests or activities that result

in high stress burnout crisis management.

Um the immediate thing that popped into my mind was that fantastic shift

in March of 2020 when the pandemic hit and we all had to

pivot very,

very quickly and it was kind of a crisis mode

for a few weeks until we got our groove back.

Quadrant two is the ideal. So this is known as the productivity quadrant.

Activities that are in this quadrant are important but not necessarily urgent.

Um usually aid in prevention, building relationships,

recognizing new opportunities, planning basically your clerical um

activity task quadrant.

Um We promote vision and perspective,

balanced discipline and control with within these and I think

one of the main things is planning

professional development based on employee input.

Um You don't want to schedule professional

development that isn't going to be useful.

And so having that relationship building aspect of saying what do you need,

how can I help support you?

And then regularly scheduling this professional development is also

going to promote teacher growth and understanding as well.

Quadrant three in quadrant four aren't necessarily

as deemed as important um but some

can be urgent and some cannot be quadrant three is the distraction quadrant,

so we're not looking at really important things but they are pressing or urgent.

Um So these could be phone calls that you get throughout the day, reports messages,

um popular activities that you know, you know pop up in your day and you're like,

oh that really needs to happen.

Um This however,

does promote a short term focus um promotes crisis management and

sometimes we're not looking for really building in depth relationships here,

It's just a who can help me in this

moment at this time and they're considered shallow relationships.

Best one I can think of is an unplanned fire drill.

Um These pop up all the time, something went off or is faulty or a kid pulled it.

Um It's it needs, it's important.

Um You have not necessarily important, it's urgent,

you need to take care of it right then,

but it was not important to our day at the time if it is a false alarm

um Quadrant four is our waste quadrant,

so anything that we can put into this quadrant is deemed

not important and not urgent um we would typically call this

busy work or time wasting or it's just not overly focused

or in any way going to promote in achieving goal.

Um

If tasks and activities keep falling within this,

it can go ahead and lead to bad habits forming in a responsibility.

And so if we keep using our contract time for personal time and not doing our job,

that would be a

example of a quadruped for activity or task.

Ah

So reflecting on this process um

in time management and how it can be effective, um I'm definitely a planner.

That's one thing that I've had to learn in my life over time. I am diagnosed with A. D.

H. D.

Um but I am not medicated and because I've learned

to develop the tools that I need to be successful.

So I know keeping a digital calendar accessible on multiple devices

with reminders, color coding um with

event locations and descriptions is extremely helpful for me um

and especially providing those reminders um And as part of my

um process, I have also learned to leave reflection notes,

I go through a lot of post it notes um on papers and after a task is complete takeaways,

things to help remember for next time or if I need to follow up on something.

However,

if you look at my desk,

I know where everything is but at other people it could look a little chaotic.

So I know for my areas improvement I need to do

better at cleaning up after a task.

So all those post IT notes and all those reflection notes need to somehow get

into my organization system which is files and binders and um you know cover slips,

things like that,

they need to get to that base probably a little bit faster than they do.

Um they do eventually get there.

It's just,

this should probably be in more of a timely manner

um which could definitely help increasing organizing my planning area,

like I said, I know where everything is,

but someone walking in who may not know that um identifying

goal planning um goes hand in hand with my procrastination.

So sometimes um having a dhd you do get really distracted and

procrastination is one of those big things and I know that's an

uphill battle that I'm always going to have to fight and so

um I have really had to work on saying okay today,

what do I need to accomplish and by the end of this week, what do I need to accomplish?

It should probably be a little bit better at that.

Um and allocating a set time in my day

um to go ahead and reflect on those and look

at our short term and long term goal planning,

we do need to be better about that.

So really why does this improvement matter?

Um Well the goal is to be an administration and if you are an administration,

you do lead by example, so having effective time management strategies,

organization, communication skills, building, rapport, um just being present.

Uh managing

Fisk ALS or just people management.

Um And how you do that does set the stage for the rest of your staff.

And so by making sure you prioritize certain tasks um and goals

and not allowing it to build into the snowball effect and becoming

um a huge problem really does allow you to lead by example,

and if you can lead by example, in a positive manner,

you're going to have a positive climate and culture.

Time Management

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