No, I can't help you!

Colleagues,

“Can you help me with time management?”
 
“No.”
 
Time is finite and linear. There is nothing to manage.
 
I can help you manage your priorities.
 
The key is to invest time into growing your people first. Everything else is secondary.
 
I am privileged to invest a lot of time with school leaders, and I frequently hear how hard it is to get into classrooms, but it is actually very easy. 
 
Turn the handle, open the door, and walk in.
 
What is hard is managing priorities. 
 
Organizing test materials, reviewing bus videos for discipline, taking parent phone calls, filling out forms – they all vie for attention. We want to manage them so we can get into the classroom, but this is backwards. 
 
What if….
 
We did our classroom observations first…
 
And then tried to figure out how to get the rest of the stuff done?
 
Investing in people is quadrant 2 activity. Unfortunately, without being strategic and intentional, quadrant 2 will lose to quadrants 1 and 3.
 
Manage your priorities, not your time!

Cheers!

Frederick