by Tori Murphy
‘Prior planning prevents poor performance.’
‘Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.’
‘Being organised is being in control.’
‘Getting organised is easy. Staying organised requires discipline.’
I don’t believe that in every circumstance, prior planning prevents poor performance, nor do I think that in every circumstance failing to prepare is preparing to fail. I’m sure many of us can think of scenarios, in teaching or in general life, where we have winged it and it turned out phenomenally well. But in the majority of instances I believe these age-old sayings to be true. Being organised does not always mean you are in control, but for me it definitely makes me feel more confident that I am. A colleague said to me this morning that ‘a tidy office creates a tidy mind’. If your surroundings are cluttered many people often feel less in control. I know I feel calmer when my environment is organised and tidy, with everything in its place.
It is the final quote listed above that resonates with me more strongly. If you know me at all and you were asked to summarise my qualities I am willing to bet that the majority would list ‘organised’ as one such quality that I possess. Some of you will remember my spreadsheet where I micromanaged my own time to ensure I had time to express when I was back at work but still breastfeeding. Some of you will remember calling me the ‘mentors’ mentor’ before I even had any responsibility for trainees and NQTs. Others, particularly students, will remember my equipment baskets, later boxes, where all equipment was categorised beautifully and provided for students to use in my lessons, back when I had a classroom. I have got a reputation for being organised and I love to set up structures and systems for making myself more organised but it is so hard to keep it up!
‘Getting organised is easy. Staying organised requires discipline.’ This is so true. I colour code my planner and timetable at the start of term. Great, you might think. Easy, you might think. Well, yes it is easy to colour code the timetable but then using the correct colours to write the lessons into my planner each day takes more effort. What do I do when I’ve left my pencil case in the last classroom I was in? Do I go back and get it and keep up my colour coding system or do I forget it and use a normal any-colour pen? This is where it becomes harder to keep up even the most excellent plans and strategies!
So I’ve learnt that there’s a balance. I keep up with the things that I think will have the most impact, even if they will require more effort, but I now dismiss strategies that do not make me/the task more efficient or effective. Below are the things I will continue to do to ensure I am as organised as I can be and to ultimately save me time. If you pick up at least one idea from this list then this was worth writing.
Practical Strategies:
Move around the building in the most efficient way. You may laugh. A number of colleagues have laughed at me for doing this in the past, but if it means I get home to see my girls that few minutes quicker then I don’t care! If I need to go to a variety of places in the building then I do it all at once and I work out which is the most time-efficient way. For example, if I am printing some work for students in isolation in Y11 and Y8, I would walk from my second floor office directly up to reprographics on the 4th floor, print all documents there, deliver the Y11 ones to the isolation room on the 4th floor and then walk down the middle stairs to floor 3, then the back stairs to the Sports Hall, then back up the middle stairs and along the corridor to my office on floor 2. This cuts out any unnecessary walking (I do not have a pedometer!).
Set deadlines. If you have been given a deadline by someone else, add your own deadline for a day before this. If you haven’t got a deadline from anyone, set one. Do it. Straight away. If you don’t, you will push this thing back. I guarantee it. But if you set a deadline you can prioritise more successfully. Do not panic if you don’t meet a deadline that you imposed on yourself though - it’s always more important to stick to deadlines that other people set as missing their deadline slows them down and makes the whole Academy less efficient.
Don’t leave any task to do on the day you need it. For example, don’t leave planning a lesson for p3 on Tuesday to p1 on Tuesday when you are free. If it ends up taking longer than you expect then you have a huge issue! I have learnt this the hard way this year. For someone who usually gets in at 6.20AM, suddenly having to take my kids to nursery which opens at 7AM has been a bit of a shock to the system. This was all well and good on day 1 - I set myself up with a new routine and I didn’t plan to do anything that morning that was for that day. All went well. I thought, ‘Great, I can still get plenty done in the morning! I’ll just leave this bit of printing for lesson 1 on Tuesday until tomorrow morning.’ Tuesday morning came and I was standing in the road crying after trying to wrestle my 2 year old into the car seat for 35 minutes. I got to work at 7.40. I know many people aren’t in until after this but for someone who is usually in an hour and a half before this, this felt like hell. Then 3 printers weren’t working. Three. I followed a colleague around as we tried, and failed, to use each machine. I have never had a more stressful morning in my 10 years of teaching! Lesson learnt - don’t leave anything until the day it is due!
Write a ‘follow up’ list. If you delegate anything or have set a deadline to anyone or even just sent an email that requires a response, write down when you will chase it up. I was bought a notepad that has the days of the week on, with a small area below each day. This is a to-do list of chasing up. Any time I send an email that I need a response from etc. I write it down for the day I am going to chase it up. If they respond beforehand then I cross it off. I look at this list daily and that way I keep on top of things. This also means that I can move emails out of my inbox.
Move emails out of your inbox when you have actioned them! This is a big one for me. I have (probably hundreds of) folders in my email account so I can move emails easily and categorise them so they are easy to find at a later date as this also saves time. Only having a few emails in your inbox helps relieve stress and anxiety, I find. I also click the star if it is something that needs doing that day. This way I can prioritise the things that are urgent that might not have been on my original to-do list.
Find procedures/routines that work for you. Whether it’s colour coding your planner, sticking your timetable to your wall, putting a post-it note on your computer or creating a list of things to do each morning when you get to work, find some systems and routines that work for you and try to create a reward system for sticking to them. New routines are more likely to stick if you link them to something as well, such as always doing exercise after brushing your teeth or always checking your emails when you log on to the computer. In time you will associate these things together and the routine will become embedded.
Have a lovely term and enjoy the positives of our new routines.