Four Tech Hacks to Maximize Your Productivity

Leading in schools is always an exercise in managing priorities. No matter what, there’s more to do with the limited time you have.

Schools are often inundated with bureaucratic red tape that can really slow down the “real” work of educating children. Permissions must be given, forms must be signed, and meetings must be held. However, you still have to find time to get things done.

In today’s world, it has become essential to use technology just to keep up.

The best educational leaders use technology to streamline processes in order to invest more time with people when they’re at school or in the office. While teachers and students are at the school, put in as much face time as possible.

Use these four tech hacks to maximize your productivity so that you can free up time away from your paperwork to use regular school hours for “people-work.”

Go Paperless

My colleague Randi Stewart has said many times, “I wish I could get rid of all this paper!” She is highly organized, and she likes to keep up with important documents in binders. She has an effective way of printing emails and keeping up with invoices.

I have found, however, that you can easily do the same thing with all of your documents online. Save all of your files, create a digital filing system, and move your files to an online drive so that you’re able to access them anywhere.

Take one day a month to organize files on your computer. If this is new for you, take time to create a filing system so that you can easily find your files later. Stay consistent with naming your files and putting them in their proper places so that whenever you need to retrieve something, you can always find what you’re looking for.

I use the iPhone Notes app to scan printouts and save them as PDF files. I typically use Google apps for documents and spreadsheets because it’s easy to send these files and collaborate with others online.

I also keep track of all my ideas and notes using an iPhone app called Bear. This app allows me to use hashtags to organize my notes, and it synchronizes across all my devices. It has been very beneficial to have my ideas at my fingertips at all times.

Keep a Digital To-Do List

I’ll never forget my former administrator, Mr. Eichelberger, walking around with a small notepad and pen in his front pocket. As he noticed things that needed attention around the school, he would pull out his notepad. I glanced at his notepad one day, and I saw page after page of crossed-off tasks. Now this was a man who knew how to get things done!

Many authors have tried to improve on the practice of keeping a to-do list: Stephen Covey wants you to organize your tasks into quadrants of varying importance and urgency; Michael Hyatt urges you to create a not-to-do list; and Craig Groeschel wants you to divide your list into “to-do’s” and “to-decide’s.”

I think there’s a lot to be said for just putting all of your tasks down in one place without trying to overthink it. My idea of a to-do list is more like brainstorming and less like refining a product. No one sees my to-do list but me anyway, so I might as well make it quick and easy.

Use technology to make your to-do list even more effective. I keep my to-do list on an iPhone app called Clear. Clear offers a simple but effective way to type in everything that needs to be done, and a quick finger-drag allows you to reorder your entries. You “clear” an item from your to-do list by swiping right to cross it off and move it to the bottom of the list.

I suggest reviewing and organizing your to-do list daily. Move your biggest three tasks to the top of the list, and try to get your list down to the fewest possible items every day. If you are crossing items off your list, you are making progress.

Schedule Emails for Perfect Timing

When I wake up early in the morning, sometimes I get inspired. I jot down my ideas and think, “I need to let XXXX know about this!” I just don’t want this person to look at my 4:30 a.m. email and think I’m overstepping any boundaries.

The solution is scheduling emails. Most platforms have an option to “schedule send” your email. You can choose the date and time for your email to be sent out. When inspiration hits over the weekend, I make sure to schedule my email for the following week. (I also like to be able to review my scheduled emails from the previous week before they go out to ensure they are actually aligned with my big goals.)

I use email scheduling weekly to send out my Friday Wrap Up emails. In these emails, I select five teachers to praise in the “Friday Five” section. Composing and scheduling that email early each week frees up my Friday afternoons.

Pro Tip: Schedule emails to yourself to take things off your to-do list. If you can’t get to a task right away or need for time to pass before you are able to take action, schedule an email to yourself and mark that task off your to-do list. You can always put it back on your list later.

Use AI

At the time of this writing, using AI programs like ChatGPT is controversial. Some educators embrace the possibilities that AI brings, while others believe that AI makes it too easy for students to cheat.

In any case, AI can certainly decrease the amount of time needed to compose routine communications. Do you need a beginning of the year speech or a message for parents? Try AI and tweak the output to fit the occasion. Saving time by using AI will allow you to do more of the work that truly matters–working alongside other educators to provide the best instruction for students.

What about you? What are some tech hacks you use every day to improve your productivity?

Let me know in the comments below!