Prioritization Strategy
I’m a morning person naturally and so doing self care first thing in the morning is key because I know I will NOT do it in the evening. I love the idea of getting in school before anyone else shows up and this was amazing prior to being a parent. I got so much done in the hour/hour and a half prior to people arriving in the building. Now, parenting duty takes priority even though my husband and I trade off keeping our daughter before and after school.
I have scheduled out my days before, but will will implement it again. I think it will be great practice anticipating my next role in leadership. For now, I will block out well-being, before school, classes, planning, duties, activities, personal project, and PD. I will schedule out each day and tasks that meet my goals.
I am currently revamping my curriculum that smashes several idealogical strategies together. This requires extensive time management. I need to be very intentional in organizing my day and practice good habits for my leadership position.
I also have to update all the Personal Project for the new guide. As I am given minimal time to do this, I have decided to schedule it in and work only in that time frame.
Sometimes I can get so intense with my schedule and getting as much accomplished at school as possible, I need to remember to take time to build relationships. I am so appreciative that Suzanna Jemsby’s shared her idea of blocking out a whole day for just this!
While, I can’t do that as a teacher, I can do that in smaller ways to build that habit. I will still need to focus on doing as much work as possible at school because my schedule is not as flexible as those in a leadership position. Last year I didn’t do a great job of setting boundaries around work and personal space needed to give everything my best. That is also a habit I need to have grounded, as much as possible, before stepping into a leadership role.
- I really like Angela Maiers “To-Be” list
- Be, Do, Have
- Who do I want to be?
- What do I need to do to be that?
- What will I have as a result? Does it align with who I want to be?
- Who am I seeking to be? Who do I want to be for myself? Organization? Community?
- Be convicted
- To-do list has to align
- Know who I am and what I have to offer
- Be, Do, Have
It’s really interesting to focus on who I want to be and to think about the legacy aspect of how I want people to remember me and what I want accomplished.
At the end of the day, my success is determined by how many people I have helped.
Task Management
What I learned from the women in leadership positions.
- 3-5 max goals for the year
- Simple enough to keep referring to them
- Categorize the smaller details under these
- All work towards the same goal
- Set schedule daily
- Road map for the day
- 5, 3, 1 each day
- 1 big thing (harder)
- 3 medium things
- 5 small things (easier)
- Start with the 1
- Is this the most important thing I am doing today? Is it getting me to where I need to be?
- Bullet Journal for the day to day and utilizing
- Trello to categorize task on a larger scale
- Prioritizing relationships and schedule time to be visible and present
- Students and teacher in a manner that absolutely eliminates toxic positivity.
- Brad Johnson’s tweet is 100% spot on!
- Students and teacher in a manner that absolutely eliminates toxic positivity.
- Staff, parents, and community
- Keep focus on the goals and display them where they constantly visible
- Support system of people wearing a similar hat to bounce ideas
- Respond to email at the end of the day
- Creating a decision making process
- Conversations and Listening
- Remind that this doesn’t equate agreement or an immediate decision
- Collect as much data as I can
- Multiple meetings
- Conversations and Listening
- Ask questions & Reflection
- Which priority is this decision addressing?
- Why? What are the impact and implications?
- What can I control and what decision can I make?
- What needs head space?
- How much can I influence things or not?
- Is that up for me to control and decide or is it not?
- What do I give up?
- Can I defend this decision today, tomorrow, next year, and next 10 years?
- Is that what I need to be doing right now?
- Is this something that needs to be done immediately or can it wait for 1-2 weeks?
- Is it going to impact the project to wait for a week or two?
- Are there things I am not doing that will matter in 2 months time?
- What is the big picture of what I am looking for?
- What I am trying to accomplish? How? Why?
- What is the purpose of this?
- How does it fit in with goals?
- Impact students learning? Impact how my teachers can teach?
- Why won’t it work? How can we (team) improve it?
- Who can I assign the task to get them out of their comfort zone but give them what they need to succeed?
- Can they accomplish the task better than me?
- Am I the best person to take this on?
- Grow and develop in leadership in others. Their success is my success.
- Is it scalable?
- Is it sustainable?
- Which priority is this decision addressing?
- Make a Decision
- Explains the timeline for making the decision
- Want to get it right and that takes time, discussion, and multiple perspectives
- Share the thinking and why behind the priority, system, or approach
- Touch base daily with team members assigned to work with me
- Schedule predictable items ahead of schedule to give space for the things that will naturally come up
- Letting some of it go so I can come back to it refreshed
- Mental box to lock it in
- When it creeps back in, visualize closing it and locking it
- Mental box to lock it in
- Write down the next day’s todo list for tomorrow that didn’t get accomplished today
- Highlight and remind myself of at least 3+ things I did accomplish
- If I don’t have everyone feeling secure, supported, calm, and balanced, it doesn’t matter what I have to do on my list.
- None of it will happen if the people running it (staff, teachers, students, parents) cannot do what they need to do.
- Set those boundaries and be able to say I can’t do that because I need focus on relationships right now
Systems For Prioritizing
- Critical, Important, Desirable
- C-Get Done
- I-Can Wait Until Critical Is Accomplished
- D-Do As Time Permits
Leadership Role Mode
I have not really had an opportunity to work with someone who took the time to help me grow as a leader. I’m looking forward to doing that through the WWL’s course!
Based on Roselinde Torres’s TED Talk, she says there are 3 questions to develop to be great leader.
- Where are you looking to anticipate the next change in your business model or your life?
- What are spending time on? Who are you spending time who? What topics? Traveling? Reading?
- What is the diversity measure of personal and professional stakeholder networks?
- Develop relationships with people are different than me.
- Different in terms of biological, physical, functional, political, cultural, socioeconomic.
- Connect with me and trust me enough to cooperate with to achieve a common goal
- People thinking differ than me.
- Develop relationships with people are different than me.
- Am I courageous enough to abandon a practice that has made me successful in the past?
- Dare to be different and take risks
- Build emotional stamina to withstand new idea is naive, reckless, or just plain stupid
- Those who think differently will join me in taking a courage leap
I have always thought that the educational system needs a radical change. However, I have yet to find many leaders who think that radically or that courageously. But when they do, it is extremely difficult to make a change because it is very difficult to measure qualitative data instead of quantitative data. If I were to share my ideas, I may scoffed at it and passed over for opportunities. So, I try to do what is right for kids within the boundaries I am given.
Preparing for the realities of today and all of the unknown possibilities for tomorrow is the job of education. Over simplification of the article, “Similar Ideas, Different Priorities:Women and Men’s Distinct Approaches to Leadership,” that men are driven by external results and women by people and relationships. Almost ever single women in the videos discussed that the priority always concerns the people/relationships: students, teachers, staff, parents, and community. That’s also how I view leadership as well!
Examining the different between a boss and a leader has been very interesting. This has been key recently in thinking and reflecting on how I want to lead along with my discovering my next steps in leadership.
Attempted to find the artist/author who created these perfect visual notes characterizing a leader and a boss. Bored panda article cited Yukbisnis.
Anticipate Change
Currently, the Personal Project needs to change to be aligned with the new guide. I want to design a space where every has access to all the information and it is easy to keep up once I am no longer in the role. I want to change how I train supervisors so that it isn’t just a sit and get informational meeting. Trying to create PD for them that embodies the personal project and gives them the information to supervisor the students and grade the written report.
Forward Vision
Leaving the organization and the program(s) better than when I started is my ultimate goal. Knowing I want the impact to drive the decision making forward while also not needed the next person to recreate everything. I want to create systems that move the organization forward. This goes with my curriculum that I am re-doing and the MYP program along with the Personal Project. My goal in my current role is that students are extremely prepared for the DP program and live beyond the organization. I want my students to experience learning in such a way that the skills transfer regardless of the path they choose.
That means looking forward to 20+ years and anticipating which skills will I teach them to help them in their careers, relationships, and goals?
Reflection throughout each step of action, “does it meet my goal of students using this skill in as many situations as possible?” If my answer is yes, then I know to continue making those actionable steps.
Featured Image by FreePik on Flaticon
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