John Fagan, CEO at Scribe, recently presented at the Scribe Academy on “How to Clerk Smarter, Not Harder”, sharing his 20 top tips for productivity. Before the session began, a poll was run to identify what Clerks believe their task management style is.

Out of 50 respondents, 50% believed they were “firefighters” - constantly putting out fires and busy working on 10 tasks at once.

This was followed by another poll, asking Clerks how they feel in their role. With 53 respondents, and the role of a Clerk at times being very demanding, the results were not surprising.

Only 7% of respondents said they felt well organised and on top of things, while 45% said they were generally happy but felt seasonal stress and 21% they felt stressed & burnout.

“What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important”

These are the words of the 34th President of the USA, Dwight Eisenhower. 

Serving two terms from 1953 to 1961, Eisenhower launched programs that led directly to the development of the Interstate Highway System, the exploration of space (NASA), the launch of satellite-based GPS and precursor to the internet (DARPA), ended the Korean War, and kept the Cold War, cold. All while finding time to pursue hobbies like golfing and oil painting.

So how did he do it? 

Eisenhower had incredible time and task management that sustained his productivity for decades. His most famous productivity tool being the “Eisenhower Matrix” or “Eisenhower Box” as shown below.

This strategy has been widely used by everyday people across the globe, and is undoubtedly a powerful tool in organising and achieving both work and personal goals.

We had a crack at applying this model to the role of the Council Clerk, showing you how you can rebalance your “quadrants” and ultimately rebalance your work life!

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✅ Quadrant 1 #Do it

Urgent and important tasks demand your attention, and will most likely have consequences if you stall on taking action. 

Often Clerks think tasks with hard deadlines like Year End, budgeting, elections and so on belong in this quadrant. This is not necessarily correct - we know about these deadlines (or at least have a rough timescale) well in advance, and therefore these tasks belong in quadrant 2 to begin with.

Quadrant 1 tasks are more likely to jump up on you from external sources out of your control, like an emergency incident or an important enquiry. For example, you receive a call from a mother whose son has just cut his leg on a sharp piece of plastic sticking out on one of the rockers in the play area. This would require you to stop what you’re doing, investigate the piece of equipment and carry out the necessary actions to close it off and arrange repairs.

Quadrant 1 may also contain tasks previously in quadrant 2 (Schedule it) as the deadline approaches, but hopefully you should be well underway with the preparation and workload involved, that the sense of urgency is not so overwhelming. For example, you have a draft budget meeting next week. You scheduled time to prepare for this (quadrant 2 tasks) and have already completed your forecasting for the current financial year, helping you to create your first draft budget for the next financial year. As the meeting approaches, all that’s left to do is print out the draft budget and accompanying reports to present to council, this would be the quadrant 1 task.

Tasks here are inevitable, and happen in our everyday lives as well as at work. It is important not to dwell or procrastinate on if and when these will happen, as there will always be something beyond our control. 

The main thing you want to avoid is becoming a “firefighter”. Constantly putting out fires will quickly drain your energy and overtake the long-term goals that are important to the council and to you. Think about how urgent and important the task really is - can you schedule this for the next day or following week? Can you delegate them to software tools?

Delegation is a powerful tool, and perhaps underestimated in relation to saving you time and unnecessary stress. We’ll take a closer look at this in Quadrant 3.

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📆 Quadrant 2 #Schedule it

The important, but not urgent tasks will help you achieve long-term goals - this is where you want to spend most of your time. This quadrant allows you to stay on top of your tasks through prioritisation, and ultimately decreases the number of problems that pop up in quadrant 1. 

For example, you have been putting off your monthly bank reconciliations and are now approaching Year End. You try to do them all at once because it is both important and urgent, but you come across a discrepancy that ends up taking a lot of time to find and resolve.

Think about the time and stress that could be saved (at an already pressuring time - Year End!) if you had completed monthly reconciliations, and resolved discrepancies, as and when they occurred.

Scheduling is not just about finances such as Year End, budgeting and precept setting, but may also include:

• Preparing the agenda for your council meetings
• Publishing the minutes
• Obtaining quotes
• Communications with councillors and residents etc. 

Or may go even further:

• Planning community events
• Applying for grants
• Organising a revamp for the village hall
• Modernising and adopting technology
• Updating your council website to be fully accessible

You should also take the time to schedule self improvement. Plan some down-time, where you can:

• Go for a walk
• Get some fresh air and mind space
• Attend training
• Complete your CiLCA qualification
• Attend conferences and networking events. 

Quadrant 2 is not just about how you can achieve the long-term goals of your council (e.g. completing a successful external audit first time), but also how you can achieve your personal long-term goals such as maintaining and improving knowledge, keeping fit and healthy, remaining social and up to date with the industry.

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👉Quadrant 3 #Delegate it ‍

This quadrant is often described as the “Urgency trap” - you are driven to complete these tasks because of real or assumed deadlines, but they are of little meaning to you. 

These tasks are often based on others' expectations and priorities, but the good news is that these tasks are not of significant importance and most likely will not require your specific skill. 

When we think of delegation, we tend to picture handing over tasks to other employees. This may not always be the case, especially for smaller councils where you, the Clerk, are the only member of staff.

So let’s think about other forms of delegation, more specifically, to software tools. There is such a vast range of useful tools out there, invented for the sole purpose of making your life easier.

Let’s say you have a Planning Committee meeting or Extraordinary meeting that needs to be arranged with your councillors. Often this may involve multiple back-and-forth communication with each councillor before you eventually figure out a date that works for everyone.

Well, there is a software tool for that! Instead of spending time and effort on figuring out a date to hold the meeting, you could delegate this to a tool like Doodle. This allows you to send potential dates for the meeting to a group of people and they can simply vote for the date that works best for them. It is now in the hands of Doodle and your councillors responding to set the date!

Another example includes collating Year End data for the AGAR. Perhaps you are working on a spreadsheet, and spend hours identifying and totalling the correct figures for input in the Annual Return. Software, such as Scribe Accounts, allows you to produce your Annual Return at the click of a button, and view a report that breaks down all of the transactions making up these totals.

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🗑️ Quadrant 4 #Delete it ‍

While delegating tasks frees up some of your time, it’s the quadrant 4 “Delete it” that will open up your schedule. There is no faster way to do something, than to not do it all!

Quadrant 4 contains tasks that are both not urgent and not important. They are time-wasting activities that don’t contribute to long-term goals, can often make you feel unproductive and therefore should be avoided.

Let’s think about examples of personal long-term goals - staying fit and healthy. This includes eating healthy meals throughout the day, but you may become so busy that a quick and unhealthy snack becomes your go to. You want to avoid this, but how? 

Hopefully, through scheduling and delegating tasks, you find that your calendar begins to free up and in turn you can enjoy a healthy lunch at a local cafe or go on a walk during your lunch break. You may also decide to make a wholesome meal the evening before so you are actively ensuring you are getting a good lunch the next day.

Other tasks that should be avoided include scrolling through social media, watching the TV and news, gossip and speculation, perfectionism and over analysis - add some of these to your calendar at the end of the day, and consider the value you really gain from them. Not all of these examples may relate to you, and you will most likely know your personal activities that should be avoided.

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