A few years back, a storm was brewing with a community group connected to my school. In my head, it wasn't just a problem; it was a PR nightmare in the making. We have to strategize, I thought. Mobilize. Build a war room.
I fired off an "Emergency Meeting" invite for the next afternoon.
When the team gathered, they didn’t look like a strike force. They looked at me the way a pack of puppies looks up from a nap—heads tilted, curious, but generally unconcerned.
"Yes?" their faces said. "Did you need something?"
In the twenty-four hours since my panic, the problem hadn't just shrunk—it had evaporated.
I had built a mountain in my mind, but time had leveled it back into a molehill before the first person even sat down.
As a principal, your brain is a switchboard. You’re toggling between so many things—cafeteria logistics, teacher evaluations, duty schedules, and crisis management. When you're in "high-alert" mode all day, your internal compass for what constitutes a "crisis" gets magnetized.
I realized my weakness wasn't a lack of organization; it was a tendency to over-imagine.
To combat this, I started leaning on the Eisenhower Matrix. Most people know the four quadrants: Do, Schedule, Delegate, and Delete.
My struggle wasn't the bottom half—I knew how to delegate and delete. My trap was the top half. To me, Important and Urgent were twins. If it mattered, I felt I had to fix, solve, or eradicate— now.
Had I run that "community crisis" through the matrix, I would have seen it for what it was: Important, but not Urgent. It didn't need a war room; it needed a slot on the next month's PTO agenda.
You might have a different weakness than mine— you might instinctually filter important things into “Do” or “Schedule,” but struggle with those non-urgent tasks. It might be hard to answer the question, “Is this something someone else can do? Or something I ought to disregard altogether?”
We’re all different. This matrix might help you identify what action you need to take.
Schools are high-emotion ecosystems. They thrive on the "now." But when everything feels like an emergency, very few things actually are.
Your most important decision today might just be the one where you choose not to overreact.
I wish you all a great week. Stay curious,
Jen
P.S. Any typos are the fault of the Olympics. Who can type, think, and watch gold medals being won, all at once? It’s too much. Waaaaaaay too much. These athletes are astonishing, no?
P.P.S. Please tell your colleagues about this newsletter. The subscription list continues to grow, and most of that is through referrals. Thank you for that ❤