When I bumped into Andrew K., a Director of Special Services and former ELA teacher, he already had it pretty Together. His charter school network is very Outlook-y, and he was very much in the habit of scheduling his To-Do’s directly into his calendar – which is essential when you have very little work time to begin with.
Andrew uses Outlook to its fullest potential because he loves how it “connects seamlessly between emails, calendars, tasks, OneNote, and Office. The shortcuts, customization and easy ability to work offline feel ahead of all the other options. My workflow is based on letting everything live as flagged emails or tasks (with specific due dates).”
Andrew recently made one small change he thinks will help him make the most of his time: “I was already parceling out To-Do’s from my task list into free time available in any day, BUT I needed to plan RECURRING blocks of work time to ensure it happened when I felt freshest — not just built around my meetings.”
Here’s a close-up:
As you can see, Andrew has now created explicit and recurring School Work Time blocks. Then he can select which work makes the most sense to do, based on priority, energy and urgency.
As a bonus, he has also has done a few very smart things to help him gain a realistic picture of how much time he actually has available, such as blocking off:
- Travel time between schools
- Meeting preparation
- Time-sensitive To-Do’s
- Email time
If you want to be super-digital and combine your Whats and your Whens, Outlook is a great platform to try for your Weekly Worksheet!
And if you really want to make sure you’re using your digital tools to help you prioritize, take a page out of Mike’s book!