Time Audit Continued - Another Month in the Work Life of a Children's Librarian

 

In a previous post I described conducting a time audit and the results of the first month (November). I found the time audit helpful and decided to continue tracking my time. I made a few changes to make it easier and less time consuming, and combined some categories. Before I was logging everything on paper and doing calculations by hand, which took a lot more time that I had expected. I liked being able to have a paper log on a clipboard that I could keep handy, so I came up with a hybrid method using a simplified paper log to quickly jot down what I was doing and for how long, and then would enter it into a spreadsheet later, and set up a pivot table to figure out all the totals, and a pie chart that I could update as I went along.

Once again, the categories and sub-categories I used are below:

• Programming
• Researching - Looking for ideas, checking out performers, testing activities, etc.
• Planning - When, what, and how activities will be done, making written plan, ordering/buying supplies
• Prep/Set Up - Prepping materials, setting up room, putting things out, making signs, writing & printing directions, making slides, etc.
• Execution - The actual program
• Clean Up/Take Down - Putting things away, cleaning, putting furniture back
• Administrative - Putting events in calendar, recording attendance, compiling stats, marketing 
• Outreach
• Researching - Looking for potential clients/partners and making initial contacts
• Planning - Planning specific activities and making written plan
• Preparation - Getting everything ready to go, pulling books to take
• Execution - The actual outreach visit or event
• Administrative - Scheduling, recording attendance, compiling stats
• Collection Management
• Maintenance - Weeding, ordering replacements, un-"NEW" ing
• Development - Selection, patron requests, ordering
• Marketing - Displays, bibliographies, reviews, social media spotlights, etc.
• Customer Service
• Children's Desk - assigned to children's service desk
• Main Circ Desk - assigned to main circ desk
• Spontaneous - When stopped by patrons needing help while on the floor or walking through, stepping in at desk during busy times to help.
• Professional Development - conferences, webinars, courses, workshops, reading professional journals, trade magazines, blogs
• Training & Supervising of Staff - Providing training for, giving instructions to, answering questions from, or evaluating direct report and other staff
• Administrative - Time spent on time audit and any other paperwork, reporting, or managerial duties not specifically related to programming, outreach, collection work, or supervising direct report; general meetings, email, and phone calls.
• Breaks - brief paid breaks taken on the clock, not counting quick trips to the restroom less than 5 minutes
• Other - All the unexpected miscellaneous stuff that comes up, all the conversations with coworkers not directly or exclusively related to any of the other categories, decorating the department, cleaning, organizing, etc. Anything that doesn't fit the above categories but is still work-related. Conversations that were exclusively social in nature are recorded as breaks.

And here are the results for January, which ended up being closer to 3 weeks than 4 due to holidays and snow days:

This month was more balanced that the previous one, with a little less time spent on programming and more spent on collection work and outreach. This is pretty close to what I think it should be, though ideally, I would like to spend more time on customer service and less time in meetings. Logging time spent at the service desk was also a bit of a conundrum, since I often work on other projects when it's slow. I ended up logging time spent on projects while at the desk under the relevant categories, so the actual time spent at the service desk isn't accurately represented here. 

Taking a closer look at programming shows once again that time spent in the execution of the program is only the tip of the iceberg:

Compared to November, I spent even less time on the execution of programs and more on researching and planning. This is due to one of the weekly storytimes being taken over by another staff member and my spending a lot of time on booking performers for summer and researching ideas for in-house programs for summer, in addition to planning programs for March and April. During this time period I did the weekly toddler storytime, monthly Pokemon and Lego programs, a family craft program, and 2 Kidbrarians for a total of 8 programs.

I really found continuing the time audit to be very helpful. Updating the pie chart each day was very helpful in setting priorities and deciding what to focus on when I found I had a nice chunk of un-scheduled time with no urgent deadlines, This kept collection work and professional development from being inadvertently pushed to the back burner, and forced me to be more decisive in programming and collection development, rather than over-researching and going down rabbit holes.

Now that I have a system set up that works for me, I am going to continue until I have a year's worth of data. I think it will be interesting to see how much the distribution changes from month to month, and the yearly averages over all. 

Time Audit - A Month In the Life of a Children's Librarian

 

As I mentioned previously, we were recently required to do a time audit where I work. If you aren't familiar with time audits, it involves tracking how much time is spent on different activities, tasks, and/or projects and analyzing to spot trends and improve efficiency. Time audits are a bit tedious, take time in and of themselves, and can make staff feel distrusted and micro-managed when assigned by management, but I do think they can be valuable. In fact, I'd coincidentally started doing one on my own shortly before all full-time staff were asked to do them by the director. I'll give a breakdown of how I did my time audit, how my time was spent over a four-week period, and how I hope to use this information.

We were asked to record everything we did all day long by task, duration, and category, and total each category by day and by week. I took it a step further and did totals and percentages over a month, as I felt that would be a more accurate representation since there is so much variation day to day, and even week to week. We were allowed to decide if we wanted to record on paper or set up a spreadsheet, and to set whatever categories made the most sense for our department and jobs. I found it easier and more accurate to set up a chart on paper on a clipboard I could keep handy, but then I had to do all the calculations myself, which was time-consuming.

The categories (and sub-categories for some) I used are below:

• Programming
• Researching - Looking for ideas, checking out performers, testing activities, etc.
• Planning - When, what, and how activities will be done, making written plan, ordering/buying supplies
• Prep/Set Up - Prepping materials, setting up room, putting things out, making signs, writing & printing directions, making slides, etc.
• Execution - The actual program
• Clean Up/Take Down - Putting things away, cleaning, putting furniture back
• Administrative - Putting events in calendar, recording attendance, compiling stats, marketing 
• Outreach
• Researching - Looking for potential clients/partners and making initial contacts
• Planning - Planning specific activities and making written plan
• Preparation - Getting everything ready to go, pulling books to take
• Execution - The actual outreach visit or event
• Administrative - Scheduling, recording attendance, compiling stats
• Collection Management
• Maintenance - Weeding, ordering replacements, displays, un-"NEW" ing
• Development - Selection, patron requests, ordering
• Customer Service
• Children's Desk - assigned to children's service desk
• Main Circ Desk - assigned to main circ desk
• Spontaneous - When stopped by patrons needing help while on the floor or walking through, stepping in at desk during busy times to help.
• Professional Development - conferences, webinars, courses, workshops, reading professional journals, trade magazines, blogs
• Training & Supervising of Staff - Providing training for, giving instructions to, answering questions from, or evaluating direct report and other staff
• Meetings - General meetings; any meetings specifically about programming or outreach are recorded under those categories
• Email/Phone Calls - general; emails/phone calls specifically about programming or outreach are recorded as administrative duties under the respective category
• Administrative - Time spent on time audit and any other paperwork, reporting, or managerial duties not specifically related to programming, outreach, collection work, or supervising direct report.
• Breaks - brief paid breaks taken on the clock, not counting quick trips to the restroom less than 5 minutes
• Other - All the unexpected miscellaneous stuff that comes up, all the conversations with coworkers not directly or exclusively related to any of the other categories, decorating the department, cleaning, organizing, etc. Anything that doesn't fit the above categories

I was told I should be spending 40% of my time on programming, 25% on outreach, 20% on collection management, 10% on professional development, and 5% on administrative tasks. However, this doesn't account for meetings, training & supervising direct reports, customer service, communication, all the "other" things I do as part of my job like decorating, cleaning and organizing, talking to coworkers, and yes, breaks. The math simply doesn't math, and I don't know how I'm supposed to reconcile that, but hopefully the time audit will help.

After tracking my time for 4 weeks, I totaled everything and calculated percentages, which I've shown below for all the main categories. As you can see, the reality was very different from the expectations we were given:

Since over half of my time was spent on programming, let's take a closer look at programming specifically, and all that it entails. During this 4-week period I was responsible for 15 programs: 6 regular storytimes, 2 special expanded storytimes, Pokémon Club, Lego Club, homeschool hangout (in collaboration with YA librarian), a special STEM program, a Halloween party, and two Kidbrarians. In addition, I had the ongoing passive Dinovember program, which required staging our toy dinosaurs and posting photos twice a week, and had to plan upcoming programs. 

We all know that there is more that goes into programming than just the time spent in the actual programs, so I used multiple sub-categories in my time audit to reflect that and really get a clearer picture of where my time was going. Below is the breakdown of how much time I spent on each aspect of programming:

As you can see, the time spent in the actual program is only the tip of the iceberg, and more than two hours of additional time go into making every hour of program happen. And that's not including the labor from other staff assisting. If I didn't have any help, it would be at least a 3:1 ratio, if not more. This was no surprise to me, and I'm sure it is not a surprise to anyone else who regularly does programming. 

I'm not at all surprised by most of these results, in fact. I already knew I spent a significant amount of time on programming, at the expense of collection management, outreach, and customer service, and I also knew there were many "other" aspects to my job that the expectations above didn't account for. But now I have some data to back that up. 

I do feel the time audit has been useful, and being forced to write things down has helped me stay more focused and on task. I know I still need to work on better organization, time management, and advance planning, and as I improve in those areas I will be able to shift some more time back to collection development, which had been pushed to the back burner over the last year due to staffing issues. I am also turning the weekly preschool storytime over to the part-time children's assistant, as well as some of the summer programs, which will free up time for me to add 1-2 more outreach visits per month. I am expected to add more programs for 4th-6th graders in the fall, and I hope by that time I will be able to delegate at least one monthly program in order to free up time for that.

I'm told that I need to delegate more of the "other" tasks and more of the programming prep, and I'm trying, but it's hard to delegate when you don't have enough reliable staff with the right skills available when you need them. I really think we need additional qualified youth services staff besides myself and one part-time assistant to pick up some of the programming and "other" duties, as well as cover the children's service desk consistently to provide better customer service by having the desk staffed when people are in the department. Currently, the children's service desk is rarely staffed, and I think that besides not being very welcoming, it hurts our circulation by not having a qualified person readily available in the children's department to provide reader's advisory and other assistance, and doesn't allow us to build relationships with, and get valuable feedback from, patrons that use the children's department. In addition, I have observed that having a consistent staff presence also encourages more appropriate behavior and results in much less mess and destruction.

I plan to continue tracking my time to get a more accurate picture of how I spend my time by tracking over a longer time period, since every month is a bit different. One month might be heavier in professional development if I attend a conference, summer is heavier in programming, and some months just seem to have a whole lot of "other". This particular month was heavier in programming because of Dinovember, and heavier in "other" because of changing seasonal décor and unpacking and setting up the furniture and accessories for our new dramatic play area. My hope is that once I have improved my organization and time-management and I have more data I can demonstrate everything I am doing, how much time programming really takes, and that we really do need more staff in order to do more programming and outreach (which I agree the community needs). 

Has anyone else done a time audit? How did it go, and were you surprised by the results? What do you find taking up the bulk of your time? How were the results used? Any great time-management tips? Anyone know a great, flexible time-audit form/template that is easy to adapt to the categories you need and does all the calculations for you? I am finding doing it by hand takes far more time than I'd imagined, so I'm planning on switching to a digital format.

A Day In the Life of a Children's Librarian

As I've said before, there really is no such thing as a "typical" day as a children's librarian; every day is different. One day is mostly researching and planning programs, another day may be mostly meetings, another may be a combination of customer service and collection development, and another may be a little bit of a whole bunch of different things. The only thing they have in common is that I rarely get everything done on my to-do list due to things taking longer than expected, or all the unexpected things that inevitably pop-up and require my attention, and pretty much every day has at least some time spent on programming-related tasks.

Since we were recently required to conduct a time-audit, I have an almost exact, down to the minute, accounting of how I spent my time over a 6-week period, so I'll be able to give a very detailed report of this "typical" Wednesday in November:

• 9:00a - clocked-in, and immediately went to work staging a photo of the toy dinosaurs getting into mischief as part of "Dinovember" (45 minutes)
• 9:45a - checked email (10 min)
• 9:55a - completed policy acknowledgement form (required of all staff anytime a policy is introduced, or changed) and turned in (5 min)
• 10:00a - Worked on book order for patron requests and upcoming programs (25 min)
• 10:25a - Going over storytime planning, resources, and early literacy skills with staff member who will be taking over preschool storytime in Jan (50 min)
• 11:15a - Browsed catalogs with co-worker, looking at furniture and items for proposed dramatic play center (30 min)
• 11:45a - Stopped to answer questions from staff member (15 min)
• 12:00p - Met with teen librarian regarding programming in general, and specifically about a new program launching in 2 weeks that we are collaborating on, and another new program we have been asked to develop (1hr 15 min)
• 1:15p - Lunch (unpaid, 1 hr)
• 2:15p - Walked through children's department to check on things, realized we were out of scavenger hunt sheets, and printed more (15 min)
• 2:30p - Edited staged dinosaur photos from earlier, created a social media post drafts with dino photos and results of kids' vote for favorite dinosaur character from previous day, emailed marketing specialist to let him know they need to be published, and followed up in person (1 hr)
• 3:30p - Kidbrarian appointment (gave kid tour, helped them select books for a display and design a sign for it; 1 hr 15 min)
• 4:45p - Pulled books for monthly book bin to drop off at daycare during outreach visit the next day (40 min)
• 5:30p - Clock out & go home.

This was one of those days I did a little bit of everything: program planning, program prep and set up, program execution, program admin & marketing, outreach prep, collection development, training & supervision of staff, and miscellaneous admin, though just over half of my time was spent on programming in some form or fashion.

I did end up working half an hour over, because I just couldn't quite get everything done in our normal 7-hour workday, and pulling books for the outreach visit had to be done before the next morning. One thing the time audit has helped me realize is that (1) I need to carve out time for the things other than programming, and (2) I need to plan my time and plan ahead a little better, but more on that in another post. 

You also might notice I did not take any paid breaks on this day. Some days I am just too busy, other days I don't feel I need one, but if I do take them when I feel I need one. This is usually on days when I've been on my feet for an extended time, doing more physical or stressful work, or have very busy, hectic programs. Many times I give myself a break just by doing something different, like covering the children's service desk for a while, changing out a display or something, or just taking a quick lap through the library checking in with staff and patrons. If I need a snack, I usually eat it at my desk while working, and I don't count the literal 2 minutes it takes to go to the restroom to pee and wash my hands (yes, I timed it) as an official break.

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

This was a busy day with two programs, an interview, business lunch, and management meeting! There's really no such thing as a "typical" day as every day is a little bit different, which is one of the things I love about working in public libraries.

• 9:00am - Arrive at work, clock in, check e-mail, check desk schedules. Drop by assistant director's office to pick up interview questions for later. Post storytime reminder on Facebook.
• 9:20-10:30am - Prep for storytime. Set up chairs, got out bubbles, shaker eggs, and speaker. Filled sensory bin with water (along with frogs, fish, ducks and lily pads). Select toys for playtime after storytime. Filled water bottle and made quick trip to restroom.
• 10:30-11:00am - Toddler Storytime! (co-worker stepped in for playtime so I could go to interview.)
• 11:00am-12:00pm - Participated in interviewing of candidate for adult services librarian position.
• 12:00-1:00pm - Took candidate out to lunch with rest of interview panel
• 1:00-3:00pm - Covered service desk in youth services, during which I checked & responded to e-mail, began selecting books on requested themes to take to daycare later in week, and checked in with staff.
• 3:00-3:45pm - Met with rest of management team to discuss the candidate we interviewed earlier, and other personnel matters.
• 3:45-4:00pm - Opened up room and set up for Pokémon Club, walked through library informing potential attendees of location (a change from previous month)
• 4:00-5:00pm - Pokémon Club
• 5:00-5:15pm - Cleared out and locked up meeting room, recorded attendance, checked e-mail, and checked in with assistant director before leaving for the day.

And as always, I'm sure there are several quick tasks and short conversations with various staff and/or patrons that I've forgotten to include. 

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

 

This was a Monday. I generally do not do programs on Mondays and use them for planning and prep, and easing into the week.

Today we were short-staffed so I covered the service desk in the children's department most of the morning, from 9:30a-1pm. During this time I also:

• did a walk-thru to be sure shelves were tidy & face-outs on the shelves
• changed out the weekly scavenger hunt
• changed out a display
• took up/down pictures of animals off the floor and wall and the jumping distance labels left from Leap Day
• set up a table with info for our Peeps diorama contest, with signage and décor to attract attention
• checked for new purchase requests
• left the desk for a brief meeting with the director and assistant director
• looked at a new Indiana Jones version of Monopoly I had just purchased to serve as inspiration for this summer's "Bookopoly" reading challenge (it will go into our circulating collection of games at the end of the summer)
• checked in with another staff member to see if they could cover the playtime after storytime the next day as I was needed to help interview a candidate for our open adult services librarian position.
• and probably a few other little things I've forgotten

Lunch roughly from 1:00p-2:00p. 

In the afternoon from 2-5pm:

• touched base with both part-time teen/tween programmers about their upcoming programs, how things were going, and assigned tasks for the afternoon.
• emailed daycares to confirm visits for later this week
• planned the next day's storytime and printed programs
• discussed candidates we would be interviewing with AD, and likelihood of having to modify the position and re-post 
• informed AD that one of the daycares had responded that they no longer wanted visits, with no explanation, and discussed how to respond.
  

Left shortly after 5:00pm. 

I'm sure I've forgotten various minor tasks, brief conversations with staff about various things, time here and there looking up ideas, but that is a "typical" day in a nutshell. I put "typical" in quotes, because there really is no such thing as typical; every day is different! That's one of the things I have always like about working in public libraries; every day is a little bit different.

A Day In the Life of a Youth Services Manager

 

Last time I posted about a typical Monday, my planning and prep day; this day was a Tuesday, which is a programming day. Every Tuesday is Toddler Storytime in the morning (except during brief breaks in May, August, and December), and since it was the first Tuesday of the month we also had Pokémon Club in the afternoon. Today, once again my assistant was absent, which meant I had to cover the desk more as well as fill in for the Pokémon Club, which she usually does. So here's everything I did today, that I can remember:

A Day In the Life of a Youth Services Manager

 

I've been meaning to start doing this every since I got my first full-time, professional position, but for some reason kept forgetting. I thought it would be helpful for a few reasons: (1) so those considering a future as a children's librarian can see what they're getting into, (2) so other children's librarians can see they aren't the only ones juggling a million priorities, and (3) to remind myself that even on the days I may not feel I accomplished much, I am really doing a lot.