Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

The Principal Coaching Clinic #4

How do you waste time?

I am sure that you think about this question all of the time.  Then you make some resolutions and swear that you will change your ways and you won’t get into this time-wasting predicament again. Over the course of my career, I would go into work on a Sunday just to organize. Countless Sundays were wasted.  I allowed these days to be stolen from me and my family all because of my time-wasting behaviors.  I would make some changes and several weeks would pass. Sadly, I would be right back to square one:  wasting time.  So, let’s take a moment to think about this together.

In a recent Harvard Business Review, a small chart summarized a study that was conducted on this topic.  The study was actually conducted to see how one’s time-wasting behavior would impact the bottom line: making money. When you waste time, you waste money.  Sometimes for those in the public sector this concept is hard to realize, but it is nonetheless true. 

HBR cites dealing with bad hires as the number one-time waster.  This is followed by difficult negotiations with clients and then unproductive meetings.  And do not forget that in a school our clients are the students. 

I will argue that school principals do not invest the right amount of time and energy in the hiring process.  This is especially true when you hire your support personnel.  And believe me, dealing with the personnel issues of your support staff will consume your time.  So, instead of going through the motions with these hires, invest your time in the hiring process rather than in the firing process which I guarantee will be much more time consuming and more costly.

As far as the negotiating with our client base, I would suggest that we stop digging our heals in and do a better job of listening.  I would also argue that the time you invest working on your culture and climate will pay huge dividends.  You will spend less time negotiating petty things.

And finally, work to make your meetings productive.  Most meetings in schools are nothing but a waste of time.  I have participated in many of these meetings both as a leader and a participant.  In the later portion of my career, I diligently worked to make my meetings more meaningful.  However, let us not forget that how one judges a meeting becomes a two-way street.  How much did your personally invest in the meeting?  I tend to find that you get more out of a meeting if you also bring something to that meeting.  A simple start is to bring a good attitude!

Those three concepts represent some global time wasters.  But what are your personal foibles?  For me, it was never being able to find what I was looking for.  I knew that a certain piece of paper was in my office, but I just could not find it.  I am sure that as far as time goes, over the course of my career, I cumulatively wasted days, and weeks looking for a “missing” piece of paper.  And no matter how I would try to change, I would always revert back to my unproductive wasteful habits.  Usually my hunt and find activities would result in me taking a tantrum of some sort, messing up my entire office or yelling at myself or someone else.  And yes, I sadly I must confess, that at times this frustration led me to throwing paper and files about my office.  This behavior never helped and only compounded my frustration.  Not only was I angry for not finding that piece of paper or folder, I now became angry at the time I wasted looking for this item.

A wise man (my father), once told me (as I bellyached to him about wasting time), that you only touch a paper once.  In that one touch, you deal with it, delegate it or get rid of it.  He was right, but just like most sons, I had a difficult time acting on his advice.  I tried many times but it just led nowhere.  This was clearly my fault, not his.  He had the right idea of how to manage paper.  I was just too thick headed to see it.

Another personal time waster for me was managing my to-do lists. I would re-write, prioritize and color code, but instead of managing my lists, these lists managed me. I got better at this aspect of time management when I decided to let go of many of the items and worked to accomplish one or two things a day and then move on.  Ultimately, I think more things got done.

Finally, let’s talk about a new item that I did not have to deal with during most of my career.  How much time is wasted on social media sites or “playing” on the Internet?  If you actually conducted a study on this item, I am convinced that you would be amazed at the amount of time wasted here.  My recommendation would be to use your technology when you need it and then get off of it.  If you “hang-out” there, your minutes will quickly turn into hours wasted.

I could go on and on discussing time wasting behaviors.  Thousands of books have been written on time management and people have gotten rich presenting workshops on this topic.  I challenge you today, to pick one item that wastes your time, work on it for several weeks and see if it frees up any of your time.  When this happens however, be careful not to let other time wasters leak into this now free time. 

Time is the one thing that we can’t change.  We can’t change it for ourselves and we can’t change it for our teachers.  However, there is one thing that I am sure of.  We can stop wasting time for ourselves and we can stop wasting it for our teachers.  Always remember that time is sacred!

**  This Coaching Clinic will be taking a time-out next week with the hope of re-charging my battery.  See you in two weeks.