In 2010 I decided that I needed to review how I was working, since there were not enough hours in the day.

My role as the sole Deputy Headteacher at Clevedon brings with it a very broad leadership remit, whether it be Curricular, including Timetable construction, Pastoral, including leadership of the Heads of House, Personnel and Self-Evaluation or whole school ICT, systems and procedures.  In 2010 I decided that I needed to review how I was working, since there were not enough hours in the day.

I returned from my summer holiday refreshed and started the mantra, let’s “Get Things Done” with my senior colleagues.  My colleagues certainly went with this new drive and we did indeed start to get more done.  Since I knew that I was not driving forwards all areas of my job as well as I would have liked, one evening I typed, “Getting Things Done” into Google.  I ‘found’ “Getting Things Done” by David Allen and then read into the early hours about new (to me) principles and approaches to productivity, found many other web-sites and became very excited, culminating in my ordering the book.

When the book arrived I spent several hours each evening reading through, very carefully, each time re-organising in my mind how I prioritise and organise my commitments.  I completely changed my prioritisation and organisation of tasks, both electronically and in physical inbox form.  It took several weeks, but mid-term I suddenly started to surge forwards with productivity in a way that I had never been able to before.  The only downside is that despite my urgings, colleagues have in the main stayed sceptical and quite often enjoy a joke at my expense if I tweet a GTD tip.  Oh well, one day they may look into it and see the benefits, or perhaps you need to really need GTD to commit to the re-learning that is required.

Since that time I have become a Magpie about all things connected to GTD and have developed several systems of my own which specifically benefit busy educationalists.  I quite frequently tweet tips and ideas about productivity and will write a longer piece on this site in the future which will go into these areas in more depth.

In the meantime, you don’t work in your email inbox do you?  Shame on you, my inbox is cleared every day with all work going on in a series of @Action folders.  Since 2010 I can honestly say that I have always known exactly what I am committed to do, have become more efficient and have saved many hundreds of hours, whilst getting more done.  I urge you to read “Getting Things Done” over the summer, it will transform your life.