‘Help! I’ve got too much paperwork

As a nursery manager are you struggling with the amount of paperwork?

Being a nursery manager comes all the roles and responsibilities of running a nursery as well as all the paperwork. Did you ever think that there was this much paperwork when you decided to accept the job? Finding ways to deal with all the nursery paperwork can have its challenges, it can sometimes get on top of you and you can become stressed. In most nursery managers eyes the most important factor in running a nursery is making sure all the childcare are safe and secure. Majority of the paperwork is all about ticking those boxes for Ofsted.

Many nursery managers find that their to do task list is forever getting longer and never actually getting it all done. This can sometimes make you feel as if you haven’t achieved anything and begin to bring your moral down. Unfortunately in the childcare industry paperwork is going to be with us for the upcoming future. For some nurseries they may have admin people who look after all the paperwork; however for many nurseries this isn’t the case as they are not financially able to do this. On a nursery day managers many have several urgent pieces of paperwork that require their attention and missing those deadlines could have serious consequences, so how can managers juggle their responsibilities, maintain high standards, complete paperwork and remain positive?

So how do nursery managers cope with all the paperwork?

Is there are magic wand that managers are able to use to complete that long list of jobs ? Even for people who feel they are organised it can set challenges. Let’s look at an effective way to deal with this amount of paperwork

Time management Grid

How many of you have heard of this great management tool? This grid consists of four quadrants organised by urgency and importance. see grid below

For managers it is important to understand this grid as you will be the ones deciding which box your tasks fits into.

• Quadrant 1 is for tasks that are immediate and have important deadlines
• Quadrant 2 is for tasks that are long term
• Quadrant 3 this is for tasks that are not important but someone want it doing now
• Quadrant 4 this is for tasks that are not urgent and bring little value, these can be completed if you want to take a break from the time pressured tasks.

As a nursery manager you will automatically find that you are putting most of your to do tasks in boxes 1, 3, however many people seem to forget about quadrant 2.

Using the time management grid.

• Start with looking at your to do task list and sort out the tasks into the appropriate grids
• Assess your time for each task and if you feel you won’t have enough time to complete these tasks, look to see if you can delegate any to your senior management team.
• To help you get your weekly grid, make 5 copies of this grid and use one grid for each day of the week.
• Define your tasks daily on each grid
• You can either use your daily grid sheet or take all the information from all 5 copies and combine them on a weekly management grid

For some nursery managers they find a daily grid sheet is easier whereas other feel the weekly management grid sheet is more effective as you can see a bigger picture of the urgent and important jobs.

You may be thinking how will this help me with the forever ending paperwork, what this management tool allows you to do is organised your time for effectively and you will begin to see that you are achieving more of your tasks.