As expected, time management tips are usually given out to students with the aim to help them study better, prepare well for exams as well as help them learn this important life skill within a structured environment. Why then would something like time management be important for school administrators? After all, these are adults who are in charge of students and would have mastered this basic life skill by their age.
Looking inwardly, most workers will tell you, time management is a constant battle. With growing distractions, increasing responsibilities, and the stress of the day to day activities at any job, time management goes from just being another good quality for an adult to possess to a necessary trait for anyone who wishes to reduce the stress in their work life. This also applies to school administrators, who are exclusively tasked with the job of running an entire school without coming up short. The stakes are high and school administrators unlike plenty of other job roles most of the time cannot afford to falter. It is in this high pressure and high stakes scenario that time management comes in to save the day. For a school administrator, the difference between a smoothly functioning school and a disastrous, enormous flop might just come down to how well they manage their time.
Time management is crucial for school administrators to effectively carry out their responsibilities and maintain a well-organized educational environment.
Highlighted below are some tips to help school administrators manage their time more effectively as well as improve administrator productivity and growth:
Make a to-do List As simple as it might sound, effective prioritization and articulation of daily goals is definitely one of the most impactful things a school administrator could do to run their school efficiently. Creating a simple to do list is step one, listing out all the tasks along with deadlines put against each of the items is how the day should be started. It is also important to utilize a scheduling tool. Such tools help greatly to organize all items stated on the to-do list by order of priority. This ensures that not only do school administrators get to everything they have to finish, but also do it in the most efficient way as possible.
Build an EFFECTIVE Team In any organization, it is said that a leader is only as effective as their team. This means that it is important for school administrators at educational institutions like schools and colleges lean on their staff and their team to help perform the best job they can. This is done primarily by delegation. Remember the to-do list from the previous recommendation? Delegating tasks to capable staff members ensures that work is evenly distributed and the pressure is reduced on just one person to do it all. Building an effective team is key to ensuring a manageable workload that is conscious of the time and effort that needs to be put in when running a school.
Establish SMART Goals It is not enough to merely make a to-do list. For a large organization like a school or college, ie an educational institution to function efficiently, it is important to establish long term and short term goals. When establishing these goals it is important to make sure they are SMART. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. When considering a goal for your school , think. Is this goal SMART? Does it meet all the parameters? Only then can it become a goal that your school works towards. Having SMART goals makes sure that all the hard work a school administrator puts in is a sensible expenditure in terms of their time and labor, instantly making it more time efficient. Time management is not just about cutting down wastage of time but also using time more efficiently, and SMART goals help with that.
Leverage the use of TECHNOLOGY Using technology to your advantage is one of the low hanging fruits that every school administrator must reach for today in order to better manage their time. Technology solutions like school management systems does the job of reducing the time burden on school staff as well as the administrators. How do they do they achieve this? School ERP systems can take over a variety of processes currently being performed by human employees at a great time and labor cost. For instance, taking attendance, transport management, class scheduling and a whole host of other functions can be managed by a school ERP system with minimal input and guidance from a school administrator. Talk about a time saver! This simple solution should be step one for any school administrator seeking to improve how they manage their time.
