‘About Time For Teaching - 120 time-saving tips for teachers and those who support them’By Robyn Pearce
Contents
1. Now where did I put that? Tips to manage your space, your paper, and the ‘stuff’
2. Tips for managing myself!
3. Yes, there is life outside of school! Tips on work/life balance
4. Delegation tips
5. Communicating effectively with colleagues, parents, students and your Board.
6. Email efficiency tips
7. Tips for phones, computers and time-saving programmes
8. A smorgasbord of timely tips for specialist portfolios
Introduction to Chapters 9 – 12 – Helpful tips for school support staff
9. The school office environment - who uses it and how it’s used
10. Support staff are professionals too
11. This office goes fast! Best-practice ideas and tips for day-to-day tasks
12. Efficient communication tips for the administration staff
Below, you'll see just six of the tips
Tip 1 Look outside the obvious - what other space can you create?
I was running a couple of courses for Miep Carstensen at the Gisborne Education Resource Centre. At morning tea she turned to me.
‘While I’ve got you here, could you suggest some improvements for our work areas?’
I encourage you to do the same with someone from outside your environment. Outsiders, especially those with an efficiency or systems mindset, notice in a flash the layout and poorly positioned equipment that’s become invisible to you.
There was a bookcase with files that her assistant often needed to reference; to get to them Jenny had to walk across the room behind Miep’s chair. They shifted that to the other side of the room, right beside the open access nearest to Jenny’s desk. Now she has two steps from her desk to fetch them instead of at least six, and is less likely to interrupt Miep. They shifted a phone to another desk, which meant Miep now doesn’t have to stand up to answer it.
She also moved her computer screen a little so she wasn’t facing the customers Jenny serves; in fact she now has her back slightly to them. Benefit – again they’ve minimised unnecessary interruptions. Miep is still handy when extra help is needed at the counter, but by avoiding eye contact she’s not drawn into as many casual conversations. Over a week this saves her an enormous amount of time.
Next we looked at their small order processing room. By putting up extra shelves they could free up work space. People often don’t see walls as storage space.
What extra space can you find?
In your own environment, look in the air. Check your walls. And what space is under your desks and tables?
Ask yourself what can be suspended from walls or ceilings. Is there space to create a mezzanine or loft for seldom-used items? They don’t have to be expensive - you can get kit-set pull-down ladders installed in such spaces.
- The following clutch of ideas might also help get your creative juices going.
- Are there doors you don’t need? What space is created if you take one off?
- Knock walls out.
- Make a counter out of tote trays.
- Move the work bench off the floor onto the wall - use the wall space to suspend it and free up the floor space.
- To save people coming into your space, is there a window you can install?
- Put a wardrobe across a whole wall if you can’t get built-in cupboards.
- Use flat screen computer monitors –you’ll gain a lot more desk space.
- Create structural barriers - use a compactus for storage.
Tip 8 Physically separate your work so you can see what you have to deal with
From a school advisor to one of her new principals: ‘Have a ‘must do, should do and could do’ shelf.’
It’s a great idea to sort all your paperwork into categories. Somehow, once it’s all in piles of similar urgency, or similar types of tasks, or whatever sort method is relevant for you, the task never seems as daunting.
However, there is a potential hazard with this tip, good as it is. A shelf can turn into a trap in the same way as ill-managed in-trays can become rats’ nests of miscellanea. They’re fine if they’re used in the way intended, but they’re much too easy to fill up. Unfortunately, if things cuddle up on a shelf or tray for long enough they’re remarkably hard to shift. It becomes easier to ignore than to constantly thumb through, keeping familiar with what’s there. Try either suspending or placing items upright – then you can see your tasks at a glance.
You’ve got several types of equipment to choose from:
A suspension file in an under-desk drawer or mobile. In this you hang your labelled files. (I recommend an alphabetical sequence.) The files could be the same names Jo mentions, or you could try ‘Action – Current’; ‘Action – Later’; ‘Action – Maybe’. This clumps all the Action type folders together. At the back of the drawer is the ‘1/2 way to File 13’ file, discussed in Tip 6. Other files will be projects you’re working on that require their own dedicated folders – also filed alphabetically.
A step file. This is known by various proprietary names in different countries. I love the Quefile http://www.gettingagrip.com/products/management/index.asp It stands on your desk or on a nearby surface and holds your current action and current projects in named manila folders on their side. Everything is at your fingertips and your eye flows swiftly up to find the correct file. It takes a fraction of a second to not only find what you need, but also to put it back it in its correct place.
One of the big benefits of any version of a step file is that it works well for visual people – they fear losing information or documents once they’re placed in files out of sight.
Periodicals boxes. This is a good one for teachers with little cash. You can easily convert old soap boxes to quite elegant storage by cutting them down and covering with recycled wrapping paper. Label the boxes (of course!). With this equipment you’ve got your files standing upright – easy to see, easy to retrieve, and very quick to replace.
With both the Quefiles and the periodicals boxes, just make sure you’ve still got some working space on your desk, however. Where possible have them on a desk return or a shelf just behind you – out of sight whilst you’re focused, but at your fingertips at any moment.
Tip 17 Don’t waste the gaps
From Don Dickins: 'Use the little bits of time between other bigger bits of time. Do stuff while you wait for those who do not value time as you do.'
‘Think, plan and stay focused while you walk and travel, eat and photocopy. You can do a lot of thinking while performing the routine tasks in life. Use a small tape recorder to record your insights. It saves time at your desk.’
And Jarvis Finger has further ideas to help you save travel time.
‘How many hours do you spend in travelling to and from school each day… each week… each month? Add them up. And how many hours each week do you spend travelling to meetings elsewhere? How do you usually spend this time? You may be surprised at how extravagantly you're currently using these valuable hours.
‘Don't waste this precious time. Do something profitable. The key is to choose an activity that matches your mode of travel. If you commute alone by car, there are safe, work-related activities such as listening to audio-tapes and audio books. If your mode of travel makes reading an option, book summaries - or the real things - will prove an invaluable source of information. There's even value in talking to the person seated next to you! Take advantage of the time you have when travelling. Remember that former US President Herbert Hoover wrote a book during the time he spent waiting in railroad stations, and Noel Coward wrote his popular song, 'I'll See You Again', while caught in traffic.’
One further expansion I would add. Sometimes the best use of your time will be to relax. Don’t ever feel guilty for doing nothing, if that’s your choice.
Tip 82 How to catch the pencil thief
How many of you, especially receptionists and secretaries, find that some of your colleagues, much as you like them, drive you nuts by treating the equipment in your top drawer as public property. (It must be quite common - many secretaries have bold black statements on their staplers and paper punches like 'Take this and you DIE!')
Joan was on one of my 'Time Management for School Secretaries' courses in Gisborne. She'd been a school secretary for some years.
She was fed up with stationery equipment from her top drawer 'walking'. It didn't seem to matter what she did or said - Mr (or Ms) Nobody must have been the guilty party, for no-one ever owned up and things continued to disappear.
So, she came up with a cunning plan. In her top drawer, snuggled in with the pencils and paper-clips, she placed a G-string and two condoms - and then waited.
Sure enough, the joke was too hot to keep. Within hours the staffroom was rocking with laughter, and she knew exactly who'd been in her drawer!
Tip 107 Who can help with routine tasks?
Delegation is a business skill of relevance to all levels of a school or institution, including the office staff. Any task that could be done by someone at a lower pay rate or by a volunteer is something you probably shouldn’t be doing, especially if doing it blocks you from other higher-value work that only you can do.
- Use the school newsletters to seek helpers.
- Is there a teacher aide (on even lower pay!) who could do some of the routine tasks? One of my jobs (when I was that lower paid person) was running off the newsletters. I also used to mind the office when the secretary needed release time.
- Is there anyone in your community needing work experience a few hours a week?
- Is there a high school student who could come in straight after school for some routine tasks? They’re always seeking after-school work.
- See Tip 71 about finding volunteers in the community through a skills audit.
In my own office, some years back I employed Kate. One of her tasks included the bi-monthly newsletter. It was in the days before my free electronic newsletter (for which you can now enrol at my website and which now goes to many thousands) so Kate was a godsend, for the recipient list was constantly growing. I wrote the newsletter and then she took over – she formatted, took the original to the copy shop to run off, folded the 600+ newsletters, ran the labels out of our database, stuck them on envelopes, stuffed the envelopes, stamped and delivered the finished product to the post office.
One day she came in, bubbling over with a good idea.
‘Robyn’, she said, ‘most of this newsletter job isn’t good use of my time or your money. I’ve got a better idea. How would you feel if I get my 12-year old Dylan involved? If you agree, I’ll just do the formatting and run the copies off. For the rest of the job, the more manual stuff, I’ll time myself to see how long it takes to complete one newsletter. That will give us a per unit benchmark price, because we know how much I’m earning per hour.
‘Dylan would like to put in a tender. For a lesser fee he can do the rest. If he takes longer than me to do the work it doesn’t matter, for you’ll only pay him per item. And as to quality control, he’ll be doing it at home under my supervision, so I know the work will be to our standards.’
Well, that seemed like a pretty good idea, so we set the wheels in motion. A few days later Kate came in looking very happy. ‘Job’s done’, she announced as she gave me Dylan’s invoice.
‘That’s great,’ I said as I looked at a very minimal amount of money (in comparison with what she would have earnt for the same work). ‘What a great example of out-sourcing!’
‘Oh, it gets better than that,’ she said. ‘Dylan decided he could out-source too. He got his 6 year-old brother doing the stamps in return for a burger at MacDonald’s, and also roped in one of his mates who did the same work, to the same standard. His mate he treated to a full lunch, also at Macca’s!’
Tip 119 What NOT to communicate
Confidentiality is a critical issue. Be very professional about anything you hear and handle at school.
A principal had just finished performance appraisals. He’d met the people, everything was discussed, and all parties had signed off. He wanted to keep the original documents in his secure confidential filing drawer and return a copy to each staff member for their records, in a sealed envelope.
He asked his secretary to run off the photocopies and put them in separate envelopes for each teacher. She went to the photocopy room, put the appraisals down on the table, and began the work. Part-way through, with documents spread around, she heard a ruckus in her office. Leaving the work there she dashed off and, caught up in events, completely forgot about the highly confidential information she’d left unattended.
Shortly after, two or three teachers came in to do some photocopying, saw the papers lying around, and started to read. As soon as they realised what they were looking at, all hell broke loose!
- 'Why’s the secretary reading these?'
- 'We thought this was confidential, and only the principal would know what’s in them.'
- 'Why are they left on the table?'
- 'Why are they being photocopied? Are they going to parents, the Board, …?'
Within a very short period of time a gang of angry upset teachers were at the principal’s door. What had started as an innocent request, with the best of intentions, turned into a major crisis, purely because the secretary wasn’t security- and privacy-conscious enough.
|
|
