Where does all my time go?

Welcome Back😊

I hope your week is going well! One thing I have learned through my journey as an early childhood leader is how to manage my time. My days were always very busy but not effective! I felt unmotivated because my to-do list just kept getting longer, and then one day I missed a big dead line…

Have you experienced a mistake like this due to just being exhausted? Yes? Keep reading…

3 Common Causes of Poor Time Management

1) Procrastination – We all have things at work that are not fun, so we tend to look for tasks that we like and make us feel good, so we move those up to the top of our list for the day.

I caught myself updating the center bulletin boards instead of entering data into Google Docs. When I stopped and looked at what problems my actions were causing in our organization, I realized that I was preventing someone else from being successful at their job because they were waiting for information from me to complete their task.

2) Distractions- Phones ringing, parents asking questions, and teachers needing to use the bathroom were some of my distractions. These distractions were causing me to lose focus, make mistakes, and not follow through on things I said I would do.

3)  Not able to say “NO” - As early childhood leaders we put others first: we want to help everyone with their goals, and think we can do everything. I thought the same until I realized I couldn’t. I was losing my self-confidence as a leader and my quality of work was going down because I had too many plates in the air.

Once I realized all my mistakes, I had to find ways to Grow and Elevate my time management skills as a leader

My Top 5 Benefits of Better Time Management:

• Decreased📉 my level of stress.

• I was able to focus🔍

• The quality of my work improved💡

• My self-confidence was stronger💪

• The relationships🧡 with my staff were intentional

4 Key Tools that helped me organize my time throughout the day:

Calendar: I have always had a calendar, but I did not put everything on it (even though another leader STRONGLY suggested it). Once I started to add all my meetings, tours, and interviews on a calendar I realized that I was overextending myself. Implementing this helped me attend the meeting but also get my other daily to-do’s completed.

Time blocking: This is where you schedule every part of your day and I mean every part. This will provide consistency for you, the employees, and parents. Just think of it as a classroom schedule: there are dedicated times for the children’s activities; you may need to adjust slightly but for the most part, it is consistent!

Timer: I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to move to the next task or just get up and visit the classrooms around the center. have even used my Alexa to set timers or ask her to remind me when by next task was.

Sign-up list: I created a list of times that employees could sign up to talk with me. During this time, we would not break conversation even if a phone rang or the door bell chimed; I made sure my team was prepared to support the center. All my focus was on the employee and myself.

I am nowhere near to perfectly managing my time, but I am getting better each week.

My challenge to you

If you choose to accept

• Get a large piece of paper and a pen

• Starting now and for the rest of the workday write down the time and what you are doing every time you start a task

Here is an example of what I am talking about:

9:00 Adjusting daily schedule because of two call offs

9:06 Walkie calls – teacher needs to use bathroom

9:12 Back to adjusting schedule for the day

9:13 Phone rings

Before you walk to your car and look at this paper and ask yourself – was I being an efficient effective leader today?

If the answer is no, try choosing one of the time management tools I shared.

Let me know what which tool you are choosing click here

Till next time,

Jen

P.S. Did you miss this weeks #TeamBuilding activity? Check out our FB Page for the golden egg game🥚