Why 90 Days Is the Right Unit of Time for School Leaders

The Planning Work Nobody Talks About

Over the last few weeks, I have been doing a lot of planning. Real planning, not the kind where you jot some ideas down and feel good about it. The kind where you make hard choices.

I landed on six annual goals for this year. Then I forced myself to get concrete about two things:

• What are the projects that actually move those goals forward?

• What can I realistically focus on in the next 90 days?

After plenty of brainstorming and prioritization, I narrowed it down to five 90-day projects that will anchor my work this quarter.

None of it was easy. There was a lot of letting go involved. A lot of imagining where I want to be in twelve months, then working backward to figure out which strategies are viable and which are just distractions wearing the costume of good ideas.

Why the 90-Day Window Works

Looking at a full year can get overwhelming fast. Not because school leaders lack ambition or capability, but because the scope is enormous and the calendar is relentless.

The 90-day cadence is what makes the work feel doable. It creates momentum instead of pressure. It turns a list of priorities into a short stack of focused projects. And when you finish a quarter with real progress to show, it builds the kind of confidence that compounds over time.

I am already in execution mode on my own projects, and that clarity feels energizing. Not because everything is simple, but because I know exactly what I am working on and why it matters right now.

The Difference Between a Goal and a Project

This distinction matters more than people give it credit for.

A goal tells you where you are headed. A project tells you what you are actually doing this quarter to get there. Without the project layer, goals stay aspirational. With it, they become operational.

For example, "improve enrollment" is a goal. "Audit our inquiry-to-enrollment funnel and identify the two biggest drop-off points by March 1" is a project. One is a direction. The other is something you can assign, track, and finish.

A Quick Planning Note for School Leaders

I use a calendar-year basis for my own planning, so January 1 marks a real transition for me. Most of you work on a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year, which means you are somewhere in the middle of your annual plan right now.

That actually puts you in an interesting spot.

You have had enough time to see which priorities are gaining traction and which ones have quietly stalled. You are past the honeymoon period of the school year, but you still have meaningful runway ahead. And after a long break, there is usually at least a little breathing room before the spring sprint begins.

This is a good moment to be honest with yourself.

A 20-Minute Planning Health Check

You do not need a full planning retreat to benefit from this kind of reflection. Here is a simple exercise you can do on your own, or with your senior team, in under 20 minutes.

Step 1: Write Down Your Top Three to Five Priorities

Not everything on your plate. Not your full strategic plan. Just the things that were supposed to matter most this year. The things that, if you made real progress on them, would make June 30 feel like a genuine win.

Step 2: Run Each Priority Through Two Questions

For each priority you wrote down, ask yourself:

• Are we actively working on this right now, or is it more aspirational than real?

• If this priority is successful, what will actually look different by the end of the year?

The first question tells you whether your priorities are operational or ornamental. The second forces specificity. If you cannot answer what "success" looks like in concrete terms, the priority is not clear enough to execute on.

Step 3: Pick One Priority and Go 90 Days Deep

Choose just one priority from your list. Then ask: what are the one or two concrete projects that would move this forward between now and early spring?

If you cannot name them, that is useful data. It means the priority exists at the goal level but has not been translated into work yet. That is a gap worth closing.

The Mistake That Keeps Leaders Stuck

The most common planning mistake I see, and it is completely understandable, is trying to hold the entire year in your head at once.

That is where overwhelm lives. When everything is visible at the same time, everything feels equally urgent. The result is a leadership team that is always busy but rarely making progress on the things that matter most.

Smaller, intentional chunks solve this. Not because they lower your ambitions, but because they make your ambitions executable.

Why Trade-offs Are the Point

One of the most important things that happens when you commit to a 90-day focus is that you are forced to make trade-offs. You cannot have twelve priorities for the next quarter. You have to choose. And that act of choosing, of saying "this, not that," is where real strategic leadership lives.

The schools I work with that make the most progress are not the ones with the most ambitious plans. They are the ones that are ruthless about focus.

How This Connects to the School Operating System

I want to be transparent about something. The way I plan my own work is the same framework I teach schools through the School Operating System.

I use it because it works. The SOS creates a direct line from your long-term vision down to the projects your leadership team is working on this quarter, all the way to what gets discussed in your weekly meeting. It forces trade-offs rather than pretending everything is a priority. And it builds a cadence that keeps strategy alive through the noise of the school year.

The architecture runs from 10-year visioning to 3-year strategy to annual priorities to 90-day projects to a weekly meeting structure that keeps everything moving. The first two levels are about direction. The last three are where the work actually happens.

You do not need the full system to start benefiting from this way of thinking. But if you have ever felt the frustration of a well-crafted strategic plan that never quite made it off the page, that is exactly the problem the SOS was built to solve.

A Good Time to Reset Is Right Now

Heading back into the rhythm of the school year after a break is one of the best natural moments for a planning reset. The calendar is not asking for it. But the work is.

Resist the urge to do more. Ask instead whether you are doing the right few things, at the right depth, for the next 90 days.

That is a different question. And it tends to lead to better answers.

Here is to a great start to 2026.