eWalkThrough Fuel
The latest on eWT from Dr. Gillespie
From the CEO...
The Digital eWalkThrough® System is a research-based model for effective and efficient instructional leadership. If student success is the destination, education is the engine, and eWalkThrough® is the fuel.
Expect the eWalkThrough Fuel quarterly from Dr. Kelly Gillespie, CEO of Southwest Plains Regional Service Center. Our professional learning team is dedicated to the design of innovative solutions that will deliver the results you require for your staff and your students.
eWT Fuel - Volume 3 Number 3

The Urgent vs. The Important
It’s that time of year! Deadlines are stacking up! Projects are due. Year-end events are on the horizon.
Administrators and educators always want to do what is best for students. As we focus on this target, one of the most difficult tasks faced on a regular basis is to separate the urgent from the important. We want to do it all!
In the book, First Things First, the authors urge us to be disciplined about time choices. One of these choices is “NOT doing tasks that don’t have priority.” Sounds simple, but it is indeed often the downfall of good intentions.
Urgent events are pressing in on educators! A phone call must be returned to a textbook company by 3:00 p.m.; a co-worker drops by the office to share a frustration or struggle; a parent sends an email that deserves an immediate response. These all appear to be urgent, but are they important?
As educators we must consistently question ourselves about use of our time….is the task urgent or is it important? Important events are driven by ethics, principles, and values. Urgent matters easily press personal and professional goals (what REALLY matters!) to the back burner. Urgent tasks can take over. A strategic and deliberate filter, consistently applied at all times, can stop the urgent from taking over the important.
1. Coherence Keep a list in your planner actually naming short- and long-term goals. List your role(s) in each and any essential details. | 2. Balance Professional and personal goals (e.g. health, family, and personal/professional development) should be balanced in the overall schedule and daily use of time. | 3. Focus Organize on a weekly basis in order to ensure that all roles are included in the bigger picture. Shifts and adjustments can be made on any given day or as the days pass. Weekly planning, and even monthly planning, provides a more robust, more realistic, overview. |
1. Coherence
2. Balance
4. Subordinate Schedules To People When people, teams, and organizations come into play, it is critical to realize that relationships always take precedence over scheduled activities. People matter most! | 5. Flexibility “Your planning tool should be your servant, never your master,” says Covey. Plan as it suits you and how you live, not as you think you should. | 6. Portable Keep your schedule with you most of the time. It is empowering to be able to check the schedule at any point, or the goals in it. Continuously compare what you have planned with new opportunities that arise on a moment-by-moment basis. Flexibility is important as long as overall progress moves in the intended direction. |
4. Subordinate Schedules To People
5. Flexibility
6. Portable
TAKE ACTION!
[from First Things First by Stephen Covey, Roger Merrill, and Rebecca Merrill and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.]
