Activity: Personal Time Management System

Description: In my new roll as Instructional Coach/Principal Designee one of the hardest

things that I had to do was to learn how to manage my time I had many new things to
!uggle I could no longer wal" into my classroom and only worry a#out my $$ students
I now had to worry a#out every student and every teacher in two #uilding and when the
administrators were out I also got to worry a#out the parents in #oth of those #uildings
and the wonderful #uses% I am also the Title &ne coordinator for my #uilding so I also
had to find the time to do ordering' wor" on the Title &ne note#oo"' etc It didn(t ta"e
long to find out that the time management system that I was using within my classroom
was not effective outside of the classroom I was sin"ing and I was sin"ing fast%
)hat went well*
The #est thing that I am doing is that I am using lists This "eeps me on target and
organi+ed The other thing that went well is that I have a schedule that tells me when
each grade level P&D meets so that I am aware of where I need to #e and it helps me plan
other meetings that may need to #e held At the #eginning of the year I was spending a
lot of time on #us referrals These referrals were ta"ing up to an hour out of my day I
,uic"ly learned that it was far #etter to call for the students to come to me rather than for
me to go get them and wal" them #ac" to my office -time lost. and once I started tal"ing I
really stuc" to the point I figured out that /
th
and 0
th
grade girls and #oys will do !ust
a#out anything to get out of class even if it means tal"ing to Mrs Moore a#out the #us for
an hour% Another thing that went well is that I tried not to put something that could #e
done today off until tomorrow I called parents #ac" immediately' I pulled students as
soon as the referral came in' I loo"ed for curriculum information that teachers re,uested'
I attended grade level meeting as soon as possi#le This prevented things from #uilding
up
)hat did not*
I am a social person and I wanted people to "now that I was approacha#le I wanted
them to "now that I was there should they need me )hile this is a positive it is also a
negative -Pet+"oism . #ecause it prevents me from getting my wor" done &ne day I
did do an informal time on tas" activity to see how much time I was 1wasting2 #ecause of
discussions that were not truly wor" related &n that particular day I found that I was
wasting appro3imately 4 hour and $5 minutes to off tas" situations )hile it was
important that I #uild relationships and at some point we all end up getting off tas" 4hour
and $5 minutes is a su#stantial amount of time wasted% This is something that I need to
wor" on since it will allow me to do things that I am missing #ecause I am staying after
school trying to catch up
Another area that did not go well is that I did not do a good !o# of staying on top of my
title paperwor" The un"nown scared me and I let it get to me I had a #as"et and it was
organi+ed' #ut I did not file it into the note#oo" in a timely manner and it too" an entire
day to catch up This tas" would have #een very easy if I !ust filed it along the way' #ut I
let it get out of hand and then I found myself drowning in paperwor"
6iven the chance to do it again' how would you do it #etter*
I will definitely prevent stac"s from forming 7verything that comes off of the copier
will need to #e filed into the appropriate spot in a timely manner )hile I try to do this
daily I ma"e sure that I have a clean des" #y 8riday afternoon I also try to limit my
personal conversations I do not let myself leave my office #efore getting certain tas"s
completed and I do call students to my office instead of traveling through the hall since I
found that I lost a lot of time in that process I also do a ,uic" wal" through each
morning #efore school starts This seems to help me #uild the relationships with the
teachers and not loose valua#le time They are still a#le to tal" to me' #ut we are not
spending our wor" time tal"ing a#out personal issues All of these things will help me
ma"e sure that I am spending my time wisely so that I have #etter #alance #etween
personal and professional time #ecause that is something that really has an effect on the
,uality of life