One of the biggest issues raised at a recent Youth Services Idea Swap was the perennial issue of TIME, and the lack thereof. We discussed the challenges of keeping up with newer media (blogs, facebook pages, flickr, websites), while still staying true to other key youth services (programs, reference, knowing your collection so you can put the right book into the right hands at the right time, creating face-to-face relationships).
It seems we keep adding things, but forget that our time isn’t infinitely expandable. How do you manage to balance everything out?
Here are some strategies I’ve tried:
- Prioritizing, with the help of feedback from the people I serve
- Making a schedule for myself (which can get completely skewed by what comes in the door, I know, but somehow this helps me stay calm and sometimes keeps me from obsessively checking my email)
- Looking at our long range plan to see if there are some guides there to help me decide what is most important
What do you do?? Please comment so everyone can learn from each other.