Assistant Principal Mock Interview
Master 40 Assistant Principal interview questions covering discipline, instructional leadership, and school operations.
Question 7 of 40
How do you decide what gets top priority when scheduling your time?
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Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
The interviewer wants to hear you think about your schedule before jumping into it. It is good to start by mentioning how you always keep your calendar up-to-date, your email inbox organized, or your trusty to-do list right next to you. This level of organization will show the interviewer that you always know what is on the docket.
Then, jump into how you identify that top priority! Perhaps you spend 10 minutes each Monday morning determining which items have deadlines that week. Maybe you start each day by categorizing each piece based on the level of urgency.
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
"I spend 10 minutes in the morning jotting down the day's tasks into a notes app, ranking them by urgency. I separate my tasks into urgent, not-as-urgent, and long-term. It's effective because it helps me keep track of my deadlines and prevents me from rushing to finish my tasks quickly."
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
"I usually arrange one or two important tasks to accomplish each day if I can. As soon as there are more than three tasks piled up, I start getting less organized and more panicked, so mentally, it's helpful to organize my priorities by day. If there's a lot to be accomplished, I'll separate my tasks by morning and afternoon."
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
"Time management is critical to the success of our school. When prioritizing, I look at the deadlines first. Then, based on urgency, I decide where to focus my attention first. Most of the time, other daily tasks need attention at the same time, so I keep track of these in my daily calendar, setting reminders and checking things off my lists."
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Anonymous Answer
I always schedule things by the level of urgency. Most urgent items come; first, on-going things come last. I always take time to make a daily schedule so that I know exactly what is on my agenda for the day.
Lauren's Feedback
Great job outlining your organization and time management. Allow yourself to have flexibility too, as this is an essential skill in a potential candidate.
Every day will come with its unique scheduling challenges, but I will prepare as possible by prioritizing tasks by level of urgency. I know there will be unforeseen occurrences throughout the day, but I will have a basic daily outline of my agenda to complete urgent matters first, followed by ongoing tasks.
Anonymous Answer
Time management is critical for your school and community that is counting on you to manage your time. I look at items that have hard deadlines first. There are immediate situations that arise, but I don't like to multitask. If I am on a parent phone call, I would rather give that my full attention and make sure that it is handled properly. I use my google calendar to set alerts and reminders to make sure that priority tasks don't slip through cracks.
Alexandra's Feedback
Great answer! This shows you are organized and understand prioritizing.
Anonymous Answer
I am a stickler for time management. I look at deadlines and prioritize from there. Fortunately, I still have an excellent memory, but I still rely on Google Calendar and my notes on my phone to keep me on track.
Rachelle's Feedback
The detail you offer here is great - these are very helpful tools for staying organized.
Anonymous Answer
In order to manage my time carefully, I use a digital diary in order to plan ahead. I usually have a two-week reminder set on hard deadlines because I want to ensure that I meet them and do so well. In the majority of scenarios, this is appropriate however, on longer-term projects I set myself regular milestones which makes task completion more manageable. It is really important for me to complete tasks well; I can multi-task but to do things well I want to focus on one task at a time.
Stephanie's Feedback
It sounds like you've developed some organizational systems that have been helpful in managing your time, which is awesome! Since this question specifically asks about prioritization, I suggest adding a sentence or two about how you prioritize when faced with competing priorities and/or how you handle pop-ups (which are all too common in school environments!)
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