Time spent well

I’m late to weeknotes club and as I don’t really have extra time today I’m still aiming to be done and dusted before the session is out! What can I do with 15 minutes?

Two things I’m thinking about this week

My time is short my time is slow

In the spirit of what can I achieve in 15 minutes I have been thinking a lot about time this week. I have (just about!) shaken off my grump about bank holidays stealing my time and even managed this week to plan an elusive low-meeting day. (Fun fact — a low-meeting day is when I’ve tried to block out a no meeting day but inevitably put in 2/3 check-ins!) Things that I’ve noticed about my attitude to time and tasks:

• If I have a short gap before something starts it feels impossible to start something. Fifteen minutes until my next meeting what on *earth* could I achieve?! I may as well stare into space and have a coffee.
• If I have a short gap where I need to get something done I can smash it out no problem. Fifteen minutes until I unexpectedly present and an urgent inbox? Slides, 10 emails and a loo break all fitted in no problem.
• “Scoping the task” is a great practice I’ve been trying. Chunky tasks loom like giants if Ihaven’t put in the pre-task of figuring out exactly what it will be. When I’ve done some scribbling and mindmapping on my aims and outcomes (I’m hoping to get X insight, from that I might expect X and Y document) it’s easier to tackle things.
• Intention setting for my day. Sounds super “woo woo” but if at the beginning of the day I think my aims are to *be* strategic, supportive and calm it is a really great lens for prioritising. Gold star to me if I come back at the end and rate how I did.
• These experiences of time are my reality but I’m curious — does everyone feel this way? I recently learned that time is something that neurodivergent people don’t really notice time (and therefore often struggle with it) and have only two settings: now and not now. I guess that’s why my alarms and reminders on my phone are EXTENSIVE.

How much can you quantify other people’s time

I am resource planning for next year. Resources, bluntly, are people. I keep returning to how much you can actually quantify the work that goes on behind each session?

• Planning — how individual is this? What’s the gold standard? How much would this go down if we had more pre-planning in the summer?
• Pastoral — behind every session are calls, attendance queries, relationships. How to quantify?
• Schools/projects/volunteers — could we really predict how much time and people each of these key bits of infrastructure would need by numbers of sessions we deliver?
• Enjoyment — people come to the Ed Team often because they love the idea of creating a programme — does that mean we have a tendency to spend more time creating than we should? (Myself included!)
• Skills — we’re all better at some things than others. Quicker at planning slower at spreadsheets… how does that affect it?