The thing with being the Headteacher is that everyone wants to talk to you all the time. This is nice – we’re sociable people, us Heads. However, to manage your workload as a Head, you’ll need to manage your time. And that isn’t as simple as it seems.

So again forgive me for stating the blindingly obvious, but for those of you who are new to the job, here are my top ten tips for managing your time so that you can actually get the job done.

1. Prepare for a lot of ‘white noise’.

As a new Headteacher I was shocked by the amount of ‘white noise’ that surrounds you every day. Emails/ letter/ phone calls/ meetings fly at you constantly, demanding your attention and screaming that the task, activity or initiative which they espouse be the thing that must demand your complete attention. 

When I was first a Headteacher I assumed that if someone took the time to email or write to me, or invite me to a meeting, then it must be important and therefore must be something that I treat as a priority. However, someone once told me that ‘you can’t chase every rabbit’ – if you try to treat everything as a priority then you’ll end up getting nothing done. Decide: ‘does this involve keeping children safe?’ (in which case it is an urgent priority); ‘Is it a statutory or financial obligation?’ (in which case you need to get it done soon);  ‘does this fit with the school’s current needs or priorities? (in which case it might be a priority) or ‘is it something else?’ (in which case it might just be white noise).

2. Everyone wants to tell me things all the time. Listen – but don’t commit before you’re ready.

Welcome to Headship. From day 1 expect everyone to want to tell you everything all of the time. This is to be expected, you’re their new boss and they are keen to check-in,  inquire, suggest, complain, off-load and up-load. And so they should! You are ultimately responsible for everything that happens in school and it is only right that your staff should want to explain their thinking.

However, if not managed, you can easily spend a whole day (or week) following up on other people’s concerns, questions, suggestions or observations. This can eat into time which you have set aside for strategic tasks.

Ask yourself:

• Is this linked to H&S or safeguarding? If yes – deal with it straight away. Keeping everyone safe is your number 1 priority and trumps everything.
• Will this situation get worse if I don’t deal with it right away? Sometimes, a timely 5 minute intervention from the Headteacher can defuse a thorny situation. If it looks like the situation is spiraling out of control then make it a priority – you’ll only end up spending a lot more time on it later if you don’t. It’s worth noting that parental complaints often falling into this category. Seeing a parent straight away (or calling them) will save you hours later on if the problem’s been allowed to fester.
• Does this need thinking about? My favourite (and most used phrase) is ‘Let me have a think about that and get back to you’. Most staff (or parents) want an answer straight away but most enquiries don’t need an immediate response. Allow yourself time to think about what you want to do before committing to an answer.
• Does this require an action? Lots of non-urgent enquiries will need a response and it is important that these aren’t forgotten in the maelstrom of activity which takes place on any day. If is requires a response, write it down and prioritise which need a response first, second, third etc. Then be disciplined in working through this list.

3. Decide what is urgent and what is important.

This well-known ‘Urgent vs Important’ matrix is a good way to decide which tasks and activities should be prioritised and which need to wait.

The ‘Urgent and important’ tasks are easy – and will come at you thick and fast! You will never run out of these in a busy school and most (although not all – see above) will require some of your immediate attention. However, just doing these tasks at the expense of all else means that you will forever be reactively fire-fighting.

4. Beware the heroic fire-fighter.

Now fire-fighting can be an addictive activity. Making decisions on the fly, getting things done – it feels exciting (particularly when your quick-thinking overts a crisis).

However, Headteachers can quickly find every minute of every day filled with this seductive occupation. I know of many Headteachers who profess to have ‘no time’ because they are dealing with a crisis.

Sometimes this will be true. But sometimes this will be true because there has been no forward planning – leaving only crisis management. If you build in time for pro-active planning you will find that there is less need for fire-fighting – and more people (other than you) who are capable of fighting the fire on your behalf).

5. Timetable the important.

The most common mistake new Headteachers make is that of failing to build in solid blocks of time for the important strategic work which will drive your school forward. Too often, that large strategic job (such as writing the SEF or SDP evaluation) will sit on your to-do list being demoted from your daily priorities by the avalanche of ‘urgent/ important’ and even ‘urgent/not important’ tasks which distract you.

In order to make time for these longer tasks, which must make up at least 75% of your working week, timetable them in to your diary like you would any other meeting or event. This, again, is blindingly obvious but often neglected and physiologically those empty diary windows will be filled by ‘stuff’ unless you fill them with important tasks. If, like me, you keep an electronic diary which the office have access to (so that they can book in meetings for you) it is essential to block your time in this way. Fail to do so and you’ll quickly find that the free morning which you’d set aside to start the SEF has been filled with meetings which you didn’t previously know about.

6. The RAP is your best friend.

The RAP (Raising Attainment Plan) is the single most useful tool for school leaders to ensure that the important stuff gets done. Ideally this is a single document, either digital or (as I prefer) written on post-its on the staffroom (or SLT office) wall. It commits you and your team to completing the key jobs which will drive the SDP and therefore the school forward. It gets things done!

At my school, the RAP is the focus of all SLT meetings and we devote an SLT day at the beginning of each term to creating/ reviewing it. By using post-its we can move things around if changes are necessary and tick off tasks as they are completed. It holds us all to account and, as we get more and more tired as the term progresses, ensures that we fill our time with the important tasks which improve the school.

7. Turn off your email.

In 1999, as a young KS leader, I explained to my Headteacher that very soon email would be the only method of communication with the LA and beyond. She didn’t quite believe me, but within 2 years it had become the blessing and bane of every headteachers’ life – as it is today.

In the last year, as an Executive Headteacher, I would typically get 50-70 emails a day. In our digital age, everyone can tell everyone everything by simply copying them in to a message. Managing this can quickly soak up any quality time and that unhelpful ‘ping’ or notification at the bottom of the screen can result in you spending an hour reading things which are neither important nor urgent.

So turn it off. If you have something which requires your full attention, having your emails open in the background will ruin your flow.

Likewise, for years I thought I was being very efficient by having work email notifications pop up on my phone, reveling in the fact that I could house-keep my inbox from my sun-lounger on the beach. This too is a bad idea. It isn’t fair on you or your family for a start. Now I still have work emails on my phone but I have turned off the notifications and moved the icon to a screen beyond the home screen where I can’t look at it without consciously seeking to do so.

8. Stop – Time Thief!

As Headteacher, you are likely to be both the victim and perpetrator of this particular crime. If you are the sociable type who likes nothing better than interacting with your staff, children and parents (and most of us are) then unless you learn to timetable and manage this you will end up working until midnight wondering why there’s never time to do anything during the day.

Now no body likes a leader who hides in their office churning out data reports, never speaking to a child. Leadership is visibility in many instances. Walking the school, watching learning, welcoming children at the school gate, discussing children’s work, supervising the dining hall/ playground etc etc etc are all things a good headteacher does. However, there are times when you need to hide away and get those big jobs done without interruption. I find that closing my office door is usually enough of a signal of busy-ness to deter most people from interrupting me (apart from Reception who will literally walk in on any meeting to show me their latest writing/picture/ model – which I kind of like). The office and I also have ‘I’m really busy’ signs for our doors which basically (and politely) tell everyone to go away unless the school is burning down. Still, there are a few people who don’t get these enormous ‘do not disturb’ hints and for these people I have learned that carrying on typing and only offering the occasional ‘okay’ and ‘ahah’ keeps these interruptions short!

That said, very often it is us Headteachers who are the worst time thieves in the school (especially to our long-suffering Office and SLT teams). Very often a thought, priority or enquiry will pop into our heads and we’ll immediately march into the nearest office and energetically demand an immediate audience with whoever’s inside. I know I do it constantly and I know it drives my office team mad. Just as you have priorities and large, complex tasks that need to get done, so do they. Only they are often too polite to tell you when you are hoovering up their valuable time. Communication is key here. Encourage your team to be honest with you and to tell you to come back later if they are too busy. Remember: your urgent priority may not be theirs!

9. The best time management is achieved through delegation

I spend most of my day working on strategy and teaching and learning. Some of the Headteachers I work with look at me disbelievingly when I tell them this as they can’t understand why I’m not running around fire-fighting and then snatching the odd precious hour for strategic work.

The simple answer to this question is that I have the most wonderful and capable leadership team supporting me. I have an experienced non-teaching DHT who can run the operational side of the school standing on his head and who is un-phased by any crisis or incident. I have a School Business Leader who takes strategic responsibility for all Premises, Finance, H&S and HR management – saving the school a fortune in the process. I have an AHT (also non-class based) who leads our AS Resource Base and inclusion throughout the school – but who can also run the school expertly in my absence; and I have 2 Key Stage Leaders who capably run their key stages.

‘Lazy Bugger’ – you must be thinking.

And you’d be right in noting how lucky I am to be leading a large school with the resources to provide this team. However, when I was Head of a smaller school I still devoted most of my time to strategy surrounding Teaching and Learning. How? By creating leadership teams who are capable and are trusted to make decisions autonomously.

All too often I find Heads on the edge, exhausted by being everything to everybody everyday. In taking on the mantel of Head they assume that they, and only they, must take every decision and single-handedly pick up every bit of slack. The result? They spend each and every day fire-fighting, forgetting that they have very capable leaders working alongside them who are ready, willing, and often better suited to the task at hand.

The general rule of thumb should be: spend most of your day doing the jobs that only you can do, and (as importantly) when someone else can do a job better than you – let them do it. Whilst I have managed a school budget on my own in the past, this is not my strength. However, I have a SBL who is an expert in this field so why would I ‘dabble’ (which would be offensive to her considerable skills-set) when she can do this better than I?

Building a leadership team where leadership responsibilities are truly distributed according to skills and capacity takes time – years in fact. But it is the most powerful way to create an efficient and effective school and is therefore a task which you must devote time and resources to. In the long run it will have more impact on your time management than anything else.

10. Finally – Sometimes all we can do is put up a display or read to small children.

Whilst we strive to be efficient with our time, I have learnt that I must also feed my soul. I teach Enrichment Engineering every Friday and frequently find myself putting up displays around the school at the end of a tiring day when I’m good for nothing else. Likewise, if a child turns up at my door with a piece of work I will never turn them away.

These tasks are neither Urgent nor Important (in the purest interpretation of the priority matrix). Is this the best  use of my skills-set and most cost-effective way of completing these tasks? Probably not. But they feed my soul and remind me why I do my job.

So remember to build these magic moments into your day. Your children will know (and care) nothing for the efficient data reports you created – but they will care rather a lot that you took the time to read them a story or listen to that poem ‘what they wrote’.

So lock yourself away when you have to. But don’t forget that we are in the business of creating amazing young people – and you can’t do that sat behind a computer.