The Dean's List #12

How do you decide what to delegate?

Actually, I delegate a lot. Our budget is something I delegate, and we talk about it and review it. I use our admin a lot. There's so much to do that if I don't delegate I don't know how I would make it. I delegate to the department chair a lot and we talk about what needs to be done.

I'm the messenger of the department if things need to be taken forward. I am the person if things are not going well. Let's say there's an upset student. I take care of that. I find that a lot of those things are much easier to resolve at that point rather than passing them on to someone else. When I look at my day, there's so much delegation. Something suddenly comes through, and I'll adjust and ask, “Oh, can you please take care of it and let me know it's done?” I make sure that there are two or three people who are able to do each thing. Like, our admin is out one day a week, so I become the admin and I do all the admin stuff that day. I don't have a specific way to delegate. I just look at what needs to be done and who's the right person to do it, and then I pass it on to them.

How do you keep track of what you have to do?

I work by email. Most of our communication during COVID has been through emails. I mark the emails as unread until I accomplish what I need to accomplish. I used to use a follow-up folder, but I realized my follow-up folder ended up with 1,000 emails. I don't follow up because I don't go to that folder. That's just not me. What really works with my personality is that it's very annoying for me to see an email showing up in bold, so I take care of it. I have a goal every week to complete all of my emails and assignments by the end of Friday and, so far, I've been able to manage. The few remaining items go to post-its on my desktop, or as unread emails in my Outlook. The emails that are left behind at the end of the week — I go to them because they're still unread, and then I forward them to myself and bring them to the top of my inbox. So Monday morning, there are five or six emails that are sitting in the top of the inbox, so I never have to scroll down past a week.

What is the best productivity or time management trick you’ve learned?

I haven’t learned one yet. Work at night? I don't know. I don't feel overworked. I don't feel like, “Oh my gosh, life's out of control.” There are days when I feel tired or like there's too much happening, but I really don't feel overworked. My time management trick is, when my brain is tired, I stop because then I won't be going in circles, and I just function differently. So, if at three o'clock, I feel like I'm not being productive and I'm sitting here at home in front of my laptop, I’ll go cook dinner then. Then, I'll come back and I'll work till six or seven. So I do my thing, and I make sure that I give it 100%. If I can't, I shouldn't touch it yet. Night time is a very good time for me. I actually have found that to be a very good time for me to respond to people, to process information. The only thing is, I have to stop at eight for sure. Just so I can read or do something so my head has something different in it. There are some people whose emails I don’t read at night. They're dangerous for my mental health.

What tips would you offer to a new manager? Hard skills? Soft skills?

I would say to anybody new in the job to keep their ears and eyes open. Watch and listen to learn. Find your team, your go-to’s. Finding your people, I think is a very, very important thing. I also don't have any expectations. That's just my personality. I go in with a clean slate, and it really helps because then I don't take anything personally. I have colleagues who I've worked with, and they're just beaten down by people. So I think some people are not able to do that. They're just very sensitive. I'm very sensitive, but you know, I'm sensitive when it comes to my family, right? I am sensitive—but it's a job.

What did you think the role of the dean was before you were in the role? Has that changed?

I’ve been working in the District for a long time in many different capacities. The deans were pretty secluded in my early years. Their admin assistant would be sitting up front, the dean would be in the back. You can’t get to the dean until you talk to the admin. Today, deans are like the worker bees. I look at the Dean's position today and I say this is probably the hardest position in our district. You are right there with faculty and staff who directly report to you. And then you have all of this management where they come up with great ideas and then they tell you go ahead and let everybody know.

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Something to think about:

“If you understand how frequently people cope by projecting, you’d learn to take absolutely nothing personally.”

— Octavia Butler

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The Rabbit Hole (resources, content, etc. that are relevant to the job):

James Clear: Three Ideas On Inversion

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