Too Little Time?

I have listened to podcasts from BAM Radio Network for years now, so you can imagine my excitement when I was contacted by Rae Pica to join in on a podcast.  I have joined in on other podcasts before, but I was still nervous for this one!

Over the years I have been learning new strategies to keep myself organized and efficient with my time, while struggling to meet the many demands of the principal role so the topic of "Too Little Time?" was well needed for me.

Click HERE to listen to the podcast

While I had the chance to share a few of my thoughts, I enjoyed learning from the other podcasters as well.  Professor Zoe Chance shared the following research on time management: "when people perform very brief, random acts of kindness, helping others they can feel as though they have more time."  Their studies found that repeatedly, people that help others, it contributes to the feeling of having more time.  She went on to share that "feelings of awe and wonder" feel that they have more time and are more productive. When you have this feeling, you feel present in the moment.

I found these findings very interesting, because even though it takes time each day for me to contribute to my Professional Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter, it has always made me feel good to share with others, because it also requires me to reflect on the ideas I am sharing.  Lisa Dabbs then pushed the idea of "unplugging" and finding balance, which is something that I am working on too!

So, how does an administrator get into that feeling of "awe and wonder" to be present in the moment?  I've said before and I'll say it again, that you can learn a great deal from Getting Things Done and the productivity tips for administrators at Eduleadership.  I have found the app Remember the Milk to be an extremely helpful tool for me to manage the never ending list of everything I have to get done.  My desk used to be cluttered with post-it notes of everything I needed to do, but now everything goes into this app. If something pops into my head, I immediately put it in Remember the Milk so I can get it out of my head and focus on what task or conversation I have at hand.  Remember the Milk allows me to schedule what day I am going to complete a task, prioritize the list, add notes to each, make it a recurring to-do, and create separate lists that I can use for projects.

I'd love to hear your favorite tips to keep yourself organized and efficient with your time so that you can find that state of "awe and wonder" and be in the moment.