Page 4 - Mini-Module 10

Foreword

Take a straw poll of your Beginning Principal colleagues next time you meet and ask
what they need ‘more of’ to implement reforms, motivate teachers, improve
student outcomes and generally achieve their vision for the school. It can be
guaranteed that almost all of them will answer that they need more time As
Beginning Principals they have many, many more responsibilities and commitments
that didn’t have before taking up the post, attending professional meetings outside
the school, connecting with parents, attending ceremonies, supervising teachers –
the list goes on and on. Like you, they have discovered that time is as valuable, and
as scarce, a resource as money and people willing to take on extra responsibility.
They know that being a leader is about getting things done through other people,
but that before this can be done effectively and efficiently they must be able to
organize themselves. A big part of this is being able to manage their time.

To develop higher-level time management skills principals need a definite system or
plan which reduces the time they spend on minor or unimportant tasks, and so
increases the time they spend on actions which are really important both personally
and professionally. The increasingly complex nature of the principalship in times of
rapid reform demands more than ever that principals consciously consider and plan
how they can best use time to produce maximum results. The first step in managing
time is to determine or clarify what it is that you really want to achieve in your first
years as a principal – you vision and propose. Once this is set it is important to work
out how you can better organize your time to achieve this purpose – this is called
efficient time usage and is all about organizing time better. As a starting point for
this module we assume that you have already articulated your purpose as a leader,
except for a small section we will concentrate on the later, or the practical strategies
which can be used to better organize and utilise your time.

By the end of this module, participants will have:
● Explored one approach to controlling and maximizing their time usage.
● Thought carefully about how they presently spend their time.

● Challenged themselves to reduce those factors which ‘steal’ their time.
● Considered ways in which they can better organize their time.

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