10 Strategies To Help

Transcription

1 10 Strategies To Help The Overwhelmed Director! workbook ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 1

2 Table of Contents #1 Calm Down 3 #2 Centralize Your To Do s 3 #3 Director Management 5 #4 Classroom Management 5 #5 Get Rid Of Clutter 6 #6 Set Goals 6 #7 Time Block 7 #8 Management 7 #9 Find Time To Think 9 #10 Evaluate 9 ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 2

3 Overwhelm when I googled the definition it said drowned beneath a huge mess. Sometimes all the paperwork forms s phone calls tours marketing leading hiring cheerleading cleaning fixing growing feels like a huge hill you can t get control of. I can t give you a system that reduces the work but I want to share with you different strategies to organize and get it done more efficiently so you feel less overwhelmed. We need to work smarter not harder.one of my favorite quotes. From time to time when you feel overwhelmed you have to stop and evaluate what s not working or maybe you are a new Director and you just haven t found the system that have worked. In this training I m going to provide you with tips and ideas to help you take charge of your job as a Director and your life! #1 Calm Down! First calm down. Yes there is a lot but we ll figure out how to get it organized and a system in place to help you feel more on top of it. Sometimes when you feel like this you just need to take 5. Go for a walk. Stand in front of an open window. Shut your office door. Don t forget it s so important to take care of yourself too! Selfcare.as women we rarely do this but sometimes you just need to take a day OFF not take a day off and work from home or run a few errands for the Center take a day off and just be with yourself and do what you love. When we take care of ourselves it reenergizes us and makes us a better Director better women.wife.girlfriend.mom.whatever it is you are. (Note to self go back and read this once in a while!) #2 Centralize Your To Do Piles #2 Centralize your To Do List! My To Do list is part of a system I ve created that incorporates my life as a Director and my personal life. I find if I separate the two I m going crazy with all these lists and systems. When I merge the two it s easier for me because I see it all together. I start with a calendar system. Mine is a week at a glance. I write all my To Do things as people tell me I need to do things. This also has my ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 3

4 calendar on it on one easy page. Then I have an organization system that holds all the things I m working on. It s a 3 ring binder. In it is 3 hole punched 2 pocket folders. One folder for each area in my life. These folders sometimes stay the same sometimes I add one sometimes I take one out. It depends on what s going on. 1. Administration this is my in box, my client care list, and my employee care list 2. Enrollment this is all my potential client forms I m working on my enrollment tracking list so I know what spots are open. 3. Flip My Center I put all my notes on training paperwork I m using to create trainings printouts of my trainings I m working on. 4. Articles & Resources this is anything I see I know I want to read or a flier someone dropped off for a class they offer to my students. 5. Personal this is for my home life. Right now I have camp paperwork for various camps my daughter wants to go to this summer and paperwork I have for a volunteer position I have at my daughter s school. A legal size pad of paper. As I take notes on things or I write down trainings or I need to do things I pull the paper off the pad and put it in the correct folder. To and from work I put the legal pad in the binder and carry 2 binders 1 for the calendar and the other binder with the folders. As I work on things I just take the 2 pocket folder out of the binder and do what needs to get done. I don t have an in box I either do the work when I get it OR put it in the folder it goes in. Prior to using the binder for all my work I used to put it in a file folder system like the one show. This was super easy to carry around too. I ve used file folders and keep them in an organizer on my desk. Or you could use hanging folders in your desk. I prefer to keep the work in a carry and go system.and I ll tell you why later on. I ve also used a.99 notebook from Walmart and put tabs in it and that worked really great! There are so many things you can try to get you more organized. The key is knowing what you like best and then creating the system for you. Check out our new Pinterest Board Paper Organization For The Child Care Center Director. We ll keep pinning various systems keep checking that! ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 4

5 # 3 Director Management I have a binder that s all about my role as Director in the Center. Any report I have on the Center goes here. Right now the following tabs are: 1. Children s Checklist (State Required report) current month 2. Staff Checklists (State Required report) current month 3. List of Staff, position & salary 4. Employee yearly goals list 5. Parent Contact Report s and phone numbers 6. Children Watch List Report by the month 7. Kindergarten testing report by the month 8. Media List of children Each month as I get a new report I take the previous month out and put it in a file and keep the latest in the binder. This way when the State comes in for licensing I can just grab the folders and whatever they need is there. # 4 Classroom Management We have 1 set of binders on each classroom so we have 9 in the office. It contains: 1. Team Meeting agenda s and notes 2. Staff observations 3. Student observations Anyone who wants to know what is going on in a specific room just pulls the binder out. When the State comes in we just give her the binder plus the required reports. To make life even easier and so we stay on the state mandated schedule of observations every other month we put blank observation sheets in the binder so it s ready to go! ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 5

6 # 5 Get Rid Of The Clutter!! Once you decide what type of organization system will work for you I want you to get rid of all the clutter and organize everything into the system. There shouldn t be a pile of needs attention it should have a home. Clean and organize your office. Everything will have a place and you will feel so much more organized! So take a day get rid of that pile of paper you have sitting there and clean and dust. Start fresh. I recently spring cleaned my office and it felt great! # 6 Set Goals! Pick a day each week you will set goals for the next 7 days. I do this one day over the weekend usually Sunday evenings. I sit with my calendar and review what didn t get done last week and create next weeks plan. All my appointments are on the calendar. Then in the empty blocks I block off working time for specific tasks I ll get into that during the next section. What goals do you need to get done this week month? Be realistic! Don t schedule yourself every minute it s not realistic. This is also the time to set goals on projects to get done. NOTHING will improve in your Center you won t build enrollment inspire your team organize a closet clean out the lobby without a plan! If you just go to your Center everyday and get stuck in the day in day out schedule expect the same forever.if not worse because you didn t try to fix it. ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 6

7 # 7 Time Block! I believe in blocking out time to get things done. I m a multi-tasker.but multi-taskers are not always efficient when it comes to the volume of paperwork a Director has to deal with. You can t sit at your desk, answer the phones, answer the questions, and work on paperwork and expect to make a dent. You have to time block to get specific things done. You could block time to: Administrative Paperwork Write Social Media Connect with employees Connect with customers Connect with the kids Market I write this block of time on my calendar. When I get to the time I SET BOUNDARIES. I tell everyone I m going into my office for 1 hour and I set a time on my phone. I don t look at any social media s etc and I just work on the goal. While multi-tasking capabilities are great for certain things as a Director getting all the paperwork done is not. Focus on 1 task at a time. Let s say you have to do staff observations..be realistic it might take 30 minutes per classroom. Block the time and do it. You could use your phone timer. You could use a kitchen timer. There are also multiple apps on your phone to help you focus for a certain amount of time. # 8 Management This can get overwhelming!!! I get 100 s a day and it s a bit much sometimes. Here are some tips on managing your inbox! I have used this system when they first introduced when I was working at the bank in 1993! But back then we had dial up thank god for high speed internet. ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 7

8 I check my two times per day and sometimes once if I m super busy. On days when I don t have as much going on I ll pop in there a bit more. is not meant for instant response all the time remember that. First I create folders that the s will go into here are mine: Action this is an that will take more than a couple of minutes to respond to or it might include me to do some research. Let s say a Parent has a question on a particular child I might need to go check with the Teacher. I put the in Action because I need to take action on it. Then I write Brown family question.. on my to do list. Once I have the research done I ll go to the folder and respond. When I time block Administrative Time this is when I ll go into this folder and work on the responses. Waiting this is the folder where I might be waiting on a response from someone. Training I sign up for lots of training and because of that I get educational based s from companies. Just like the Flip My Center training s this type of I might not read it right that second OR I want to save it I put all that in my training Parent Compliments whenever I get a compliment from a Parent I save it. I use these compliments on Facebook or in my marketing material. It s nice to have a go to area of nice things to read.especially on days when you are the bad guy! Parent Issues I save any s where I have had an issue with a family whether it was the Centers fault or the Parents in case I need to refer back to them. Employees any s I want to save for employees goes here Deals you know those s you get save 20% off. May deals are this.you can store all these so when it s time to shop you can go into the folder and see what you have that can save you a bit of money. Potential Clients Every potential client I get including the s that get generated from interested clients on my website go into this folder. This way if I need to reach out to them I can go in and get their information. Wait List Whenever I have a potential client that wants to go on the wait list I put it in this folder. If they didn t me I it to myself! Jane Doe 2 year old M, Tues, Thurs DOB 1/1/ xxx xxxx wants to be on the wait list. Then when I have an opening I start at the bottom of the folder (oldest is first on the list) and try to find a family to fill the upcoming opening. Designate times you are going to do in your time block! Once in the morning maybe and once in the late afternoon. Go in and respond to the quick s, delete those you can, and move the rest into folders. If you have s you just don t read simply unsubscribe to them (not Flip My Center s! LOL!). ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 8

9 # 9 Find Time To Think! Find time each week to think about what worked for your Center this week what needs to be worked on. Keep a list of what isn t working so when you set your goals you can maybe tackle one of these! If you want to improve your Center or build enrollment or make changes. Maybe you are overwhelmed with life and all of your responsibilities you just need time to think and be. # 10 Evaluate! Always evaluate your systems. I do this all the time. I have my binders which work for me but when the paper is stacking up on my desk I have to stop and say why isn t this working. Why is it out of control??? Usually it s because I haven t time blocked filing- Seriously hate that! So to fix that I have a Teacher in the afternoon come out of the classroom which she loves a break and she files for me and answers the phones for an hour. Maybe you have used an organization system that has worked for you in the past re-start it. When you feel defeated just take a break and think what will work for me and try it out! In the life of a Director it s so easy to feel overwhelmed! We have a lot to do and there is nothing that will take it all away. Multi-tasking is a skill we all need to have but it doesn t always make you more productive! Take a step back this week and see what areas you can address to make you feel like you have more control and less overwhelm! ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 9

10 Notes ScribbleTime A Center for Early Learning All Rights Reserved 10