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Welcome to the podcast!
Today, we're going to be talking about why you don't have a time management problem—you have a systems problem.
I can remember my first job as an assistant principal. I went into school leadership because I was so passionate about instructional leadership. I love moving instruction forward, and it's something I've always been very passionate about.
When I was hired as an assistant principal, I had the opportunity to work with a very experienced principal. She had been a principal for over 20 years, retired, and then was rehired in our school.
It was really cool to get to work with her because she taught me so much. I was her assistant, and she really took me under her wing.
But here's what happened.
We started school at the end of August, and she was scheduled to have surgery in October. That meant I was going to be running the building by myself for about a month.
I had only been an assistant principal for five weeks, and suddenly I was going to be in charge of this big building.
We had a lot of behavior challenges, and things could get pretty crazy at times.
I'll never forget that first day.
I was so excited. I had picked out a cute outfit, I was feeling confident, and I was pumped to go to school and take on this new responsibility.
And then, while I was driving to school, I got a phone call from the head of transportation.
There had been an incident on one of our buses. The police had pulled the bus over, and they were bringing a student to the school. I needed to figure out what had happened and how to handle the situation.
The parent involved was very angry and explosive, so I was trying to manage that situation.
Meanwhile, another parent came into the office crying because of a physical abuse situation.
Teachers were coming to me with problems.
Everything was happening at once.
And I remember getting to a point that day when I shut my office door and just started crying.
I remember thinking, "I don't know if I can do this."
Even though it was my first day as the acting principal, I realized something that I think so many principals experience.
I had spent the entire day putting out fires.
I hadn't gotten to do any of the things that made me want to become a school leader in the first place.
And I think we can all relate to that.
Even now, 10 years into school leadership, there are still days when I walk into school with a plan for what I want to accomplish, and that plan completely changes.
Sometimes truly urgent situations come up that need my attention. That's always going to be part of being a principal.
But what I've learned over time, and what has completely changed how I think about my time, is the importance of having clear systems.
How Systems Change the Way a School Runs
When I started as an assistant principal, there weren't a lot of clear systems in our building.
The principal I worked with was also relatively new to the building, and we were working together to create those systems.
For example, she had started implementing PBIS the year before I arrived because there hadn't been a PBIS system in place.
We were also trying to create systems for behavior so students weren't constantly being sent to the office.
We wanted to create the conditions that would allow us to actually be instructional leaders.
We wanted to get into classrooms, complete observations, and focus on instruction without being interrupted all day.
But at first, the building was pretty wild.
There weren't clear systems, and everything seemed to come back to us.
Now, fast-forward about 10 years.
I'm in my third building as a principal, and this time I stepped into a school that already had amazing systems.
The previous principal had been there for a long time. She was an excellent principal, and she had established really strong systems.
Sometimes I walk into the building and I'm genuinely in awe of how smoothly things run because of the systems she put in place.
The year before, I was in a different building where I had to put many of those systems in place myself because they weren't there.
So I've experienced a variety of school environments.
I've been in buildings without systems, buildings where we were creating systems, and now a building where strong systems are already established.
And I can tell you that there is a huge difference.
When principals create clear systems, they free themselves up to actually be instructional leaders.
I want to talk about why systems are so important and why they make such a difference in how you spend your time.
One of the biggest problems when systems aren't clear is that everything becomes urgent.
People don't know what's actually urgent and what isn't.
I saw this all the time in my first building.
Our secretaries would use the announcement system to beep for me, and that was my cue to come to the office.
I felt like I was constantly being called down.
In my current building, that rarely happens.
But in that first building, it seemed like everything was an emergency.
Parents would walk in and say, "I need to talk to the principal right now."
Teachers would bring students down and say, "This is an emergency. We need a principal."
Everything felt urgent.
Another thing that happens, especially when you're new to a building or implementing new systems, is that everyone comes to you because they don't know what else to do.
They're still figuring you out.
They don't know who else can help them.
And they see the principal as the person who handles everything.
Without clear systems, the same questions get asked repeatedly.
The same behavior problems keep showing up.
The same teachers might be bringing students to the office over and over again.
Decisions might be handled differently depending on the day or the situation.
And principals end up spending a tremendous amount of time solving problems that could have been prevented.
That's why unclear systems consume so much of our time.
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What Happens When Everyone Knows Their Role
When you have a system in place, things look completely different.
Let's take student behavior as an example.
Teachers know which behaviors should be managed in the classroom and which ones require office support.
They know what steps to take.
They know who they can go to for help.
And they understand that the principal doesn't have to handle every single situation.
I actually had a really good example of this happen recently in my current building.
There was a behavior incident involving some third graders who were being mean to one another, and we ended up with eight students crying.
The substitute teacher got the counselor involved, and she went upstairs to help.
I took the two students who were primarily responsible for the incident and handled the discipline.
My counselor took two students.
My instructional coach took two students.
And my speech pathologist took two students.
We all worked together to talk with the students, figure out what had happened, and help resolve the situation.
Then my instructional coach went outside with the students for a few minutes during recess to make sure everything was okay.
And I remember thinking, "Wow. This is what it looks like when everyone works together."
Because in the past, I would have been the person dealing with all eight students.
I would have had eight crying kids in my office, trying to talk with them individually, figure out what happened, and get to the bottom of the situation.
That easily could have taken over an hour.
Instead, four people stepped in and helped.
They didn't stop to say, "That's not my job."
They knew they could help, and they worked together to solve the problem.
It was night and day compared to what I had experienced in other buildings.
And I think that's such an important example of how systems and a team approach can make a difference.
Behavior doesn't have to be something the principal handles alone.
I actually have a product called Behavior as a Team Approach if you're interested in learning more about that. You can find it at barbflowerscoaching.com.
But the bigger point is that we put so much responsibility on ourselves as principals.
We think we have to fix everything.
And we can't.
That's why we need systems and other people who can support us.
Examples of Systems That Save Principals Time
There are so many areas of school leadership where having a clear system can make a difference.
One example is having a buddy classroom system for behavior.
I've used this in other buildings.
When a student needs a break from their classroom, they can take their work to a designated buddy classroom.
They sit in a different environment, complete their work, and have an opportunity to reset.
Sometimes simply changing the audience or the teacher they're working with can help the situation.
And it gives the classroom teacher an opportunity to continue teaching.
Another example is arrival and dismissal.
Having clear plans and procedures for how students arrive and leave school makes such a difference.
In my first two buildings, we had really clear dismissal procedures for parent pickup.
We used student names and walkie-talkies to communicate and call students out.
Everyone knew the process.
Parent concerns are another area where systems can help.
For example, in some of my previous buildings, every time a parent requested an IEP meeting, I was the person responsible for setting up the meeting and handling the process.
In my current building, the school psychologist takes the lead on that.
And that saves me so much time.
It's a clear procedure with someone who owns the process.
Another huge example is PBIS.
Having a strong Tier 1 behavior system in your building can make a tremendous difference.
In my first building, the principal and I worked together to create a PBIS Tier 1 system.
When I took over as principal, we had somewhere around 360 behavior referrals that first year.
The following year, we brought that number down to about 180.
That's a significant reduction.
But it didn't happen overnight.
It took a lot of hard work.
It took everyone implementing Tier 1 expectations, having Tier 2 systems in place, and consistently following our procedures.
We talked about those systems constantly at staff meetings.
We made sure expectations were clear.
And we kept working to improve the process.
The goal was to create a school where we weren't spending our entire day handling discipline.
We wanted to have time to focus on instruction.
And that's what strong systems help us do.
How to Identify Where You Need Better Systems
Now I want to talk about how you can identify where you need systems in your own building.
The first question I want you to ask yourself is:
What problems keep showing up?
Think about the interruptions you experience throughout your day.
Are staff members constantly coming to you with the same questions?
Are you dealing with the same behavior situations repeatedly?
If you're having a lot of behavior incidents, look at where they're happening.
Are they happening during lunch?
At recess?
In classrooms?
Are certain problems showing up over and over again?
If you have parents coming into the office throughout the day and demanding to speak with you immediately, think about what kind of system you could create to manage those concerns.
The next question is:
What decisions am I making repeatedly?
Think about the decisions you make over and over again that could be handled through a clear process.
For example, in my Principal's Discipline Toolkit, I have a system for how I handle discipline.
I'm not starting from scratch every time a student comes to my office.
I have a process I follow.
With PBIS, we also had a system for how often teachers would teach and review expectations.
Instead of constantly thinking, "Oh, I should send an email reminding teachers to teach expectations," we had a clear plan.
Everyone knew when expectations were supposed to be taught.
I also have systems for communicating with teachers and parents.
Every Friday at eight o'clock, I send my teacher communication.
Every Friday at three o'clock, I send my parent communication.
I don't have to constantly decide when I'm going to send something or how I'm going to communicate.
I know what I'm sending.
I know how I'm sending it.
I know what's included in the newsletter.
It's a system.
And because it's a system, it eliminates repeated decisions.
The third thing I want you to think about is:
What's keeping me out of classrooms?
If your goal is to be an instructional leader, what is taking your time away from that work?
Is it behavior?
Is it problems teachers are having?
Is it answering emails all day?
What keeps pulling your attention away from instruction?
Those are the areas where you may need to create better systems.
Keep Your Systems Simple and Sustainable
As you start thinking about the systems you want to put in place, there's one thing I really want you to remember.
Your systems need to be simple and sustainable.
If you create systems that are overly complicated, people aren't going to use them.
And I've experienced this firsthand.
In my first building, we created Tier 2 behavior systems, and we ended up refining them multiple times.
We realized we were making the process too complicated.
Teachers weren't using it.
They weren't coming to us to get help with behavior because the process was confusing.
There were too many steps, and people weren't sure what they were supposed to do.
So instead of helping us, the system was creating more stress.
And some teachers just chose not to use it.
That's why it's so important to keep your systems as simple as possible.
A system is only helpful if people understand it and actually use it.
Introducing Transform Your Time
If you're listening to this episode and thinking, "I can relate to all of this. I need better systems, but I don't even know where to start," I created something to help you.
It just came out, and it's called Transform Your Time: The 3-Part Framework for Principals Who Want to Lead Instruction, Not Just Manage the Day.
It's a mini-course with a workbook designed to help you create simple systems, delegate to other people, and prioritize the work that matters most.
Because here's what I see so often with instructional leadership.
We get overwhelmed trying to do too much.
We know we should be spending more time in classrooms and focusing on instruction, but we get pulled in so many different directions.
And it really comes down to keeping things simple and sustainable.
I'm not teaching you how to squeeze more into your already busy day.
I'm helping you rethink how you lead so everything doesn't depend on you.
I want you to walk away with practical tools you can start using right away.
The goal isn't to do more.
The goal is to spend less time putting out fires and more time leading instruction and doing the work that will actually move your building forward.
I'll put the link to Transform Your Time below so you can check it out and see if it's something that would be helpful for you.
Your Action Step This Week
Before we wrap up, I want to give you one thing to focus on this week.
Pay attention to the problems that keep coming back.
And I want you to track your time.
I tell principals all the time that it's important to use your calendar to track what you're actually spending your time on.
Even after something has happened, go back and add it to your calendar.
This gives you a way to audit your time.
You can start to see where your attention is being pulled and identify areas where a better system could save you time in the long run.
Then I want you to pick one recurring problem.
Just one.
Start there.
Because you don't need to fix everything at once.
You just need to stop solving the same problems over and over again.
I hope you found this episode helpful. I'll link the mini-course below, and I hope you have a great week!