Let the hour be mine. Take the high road, take the low. Take any one you're on (Bob Dylan)

Photo by carolyn christine on Unsplash

In 2022 I have decided to get a grip of my schedule.

As Dan Rockwell says:

A person who has a grip on their schedule has a grip on their life. Cramming more activities into less time is like walking on marbles. Running from one thing to the next means your life is frantic and shallow.

The secret to getting a grip on your schedule is serving the Big Rocks.

The first Big Rock is taking care of yourself. Take care of your body, soul, and spirit.

The second Big Rock is taking care of others.  

For the first time as a Principal I have decided to take my allocated release periods in 2022. Enough is enough. I'm done with covering everything that needs covering, being time poor and not looking after myself.

Every year as a Campus Principal I am allocated non-contact/release periods and Learning Centre supervision/coaching periods. In the past, like other Campus Principals I suspect, I've completely ignored those allocations and allocated myself none of the non-contacts. Actually that's not 100% accurate - I've allocated myself four and then allowed them to get swallowed up in 'needs must' scenarios.

Next year, I don't have a teaching allocation and our two distinct Learning Centres have merged into one by staff consensus. That expands our supervision and makes it a lot easier for me to take my release periods to do my job - which is to lead and manage the campus and look after my staff better - not by doing their job for them, but by being kind to myself.

I've had this aim for a number of years but this time - cards on the table - I told my staff about it. 

I'm determined to make this work in 2022.

Whistling men in yellow vans, they came and drew us diagrams. Showed us how it all worked out and wrote it down in case of doubt (The Housemartins)

As a life long fan of lists (but paradoxically - not to-do lists), I like this advice: Be a schedule builder not a to-do list maker! 

I aim to limit my must dos in my diary from zero to three each day. But I am a creature of habit and I do like schedules. I still like to use a printed one-page-a-day diary instead of a a digital one, and I still like to set up the week on a Sunday. Our school uses a ten day timetable so if I'm feeling particularly crazy I do my schedule for those ten days.

This works for me - it may not work for you!

Things like my teaching timetable, regular zoom meetings, face to face meetings, duty slots, times for doing my weekly reports, appointments, Learning Centre supervisions, and regular student meetings are put onto my schedule.

I like to physically write them down each week (rather than set them up digitally as recurring events) because they then lodge in my brain (hence the, mostly, one week version rather than the ten day one).

As I indicated in my previous post, I'm time poor. That means my schedule is pretty full with stuff and I sometines have to double book myself (a zoom meeting while doing a supervision is reasonably common).

If I was to do a to-do list each day I wold probably explode. So I don't.

But I do recommend the scheduling approach.