💡 Seeking clarity and prioritising 💡

I worked with a trust senior leader recently, let’s call her Zoe.   She was juggling a number of different priorities, all of which were important, but required different approaches to move forward. Zoe used our session to seek clarity about the process that she would take to manage each of these priorities. 

She recognised that some of these priorities would need to trump any other – for example, if one of her schools were in urgent need, she would prioritise time in that school in her diary over everything else. 

Zoe knew that other priorities required her undivided attention and focus. However, she recognised that these were the areas of her work that she focused on the least, and that this was becoming an increasing problem for her. She avoided this work as she wanted to be available to her schools. 

Therefore, Zoe identified that she would need to ensure that she created the perfect conditions for this focused work so that she could get on with this without interruptions.  She recognised that, for her, she would need to do this later in the day, say 3pm – 5pm.

Finally, Zoe was working on a big project. She was developing, and future proofing, an additional service for all her schools. The coaching session allowed her to identify that she didn’t have enough information from other trust senior leaders to move this forward effectively or efficiently. There was a risk that she would be spending too much time on elements which may not be required. The coaching session allowed her to identify the gaps in her knowledge, how she would seek to fill these, and to plan her process for developing the project further.

🤔 Do you ever struggle with prioritising or developing real clarity for your development planning? What strategies would you use?