Using your time wisely.

A major component and influential piece of advocating effectively for your school counseling program and kids is showing how and where your time is spent. There are a few different ways that I know people track there time – from Google Drive Forms, School Counselor Central, and SCUTA Pro to old school pen and paper – I use a free and, what I see as, user-friendly tool called EzAnalyze TimeTracker. After a brief overview – please check out the video blog embedded below for a demonstration and further details about EzAnalyze TimeTracker (henceforth referred to as TT).

ASCA National Model Focused

For those school counselors working on RAMPing, Re-RAMPing or simply trying to align more closely to the ASCA National Model – TT is a very useful tool. A MS Excel macro-powered tool that runs inside an excel spreadsheet – TT allows you to track domain aligned tasks, time with individual students and groups, as well as run reports that are useful when giving data and presentations to your administration, school counseling advisory team and/or district leaders. After using TT for the last 3 years consistently – you can see some of the impact that advocating for more appropriate use of time at my site has impacted. Included is school years 12-13, 13-14, 14-15 and the current 15-16 school year to date (as of 12/16/15).

Secure

The TimeTracking file has the ability to be password protected. While I would not hold this password protection up to high level attempts at breaking into the file, it will keep prying eyes out. For the best security – put the password protected file inside of an encrypted folder on your computer (click this link to see how). I do this and keep my counseling notes inside of the notes area of TT. I do still keep notes vague and use abbreviations as typically suggested to counselors.

Free

I love the F-Word…Free! The only requirements to use TT is that you have MS Office Excel installed on your computer (easiest on a Windows PC) and that you have the ability to use Macro Enabled files. Some districts lock this second requirement down and this is when those coffees and cookies to the IT department pay off. Ask, beg and advocate to be able to use this tool.   Check out the embedded video below for a full look at how school counselors can use TimeTracker to better track their time and advocate for their roles, students and activities throughout the year. Be sure to share with your friends!