The author had been an elementary administrator for about nine years when she first heard about the SAM (School Administration Manager) project. SAM is a national pilot project funded by The Wallace foundation to better understand how principals spend their time and to develop strategies to help principals focus more of their time on teaching and learning. The project's goal is to shift the principal's time away from administrative duties to provide more time for instructional leadership responsibilities. In addition to providing principals with the data and strategies to enhance their instructional capacity, schools participating in the project may also choose to designate a person as a SAM, a person to whom the principal delegates some administrative duties in order to shift focus to instructional tasks. Little did this author know that this SAM project would have such a huge impact on the way that she looks at everything she does. Her goal of expanding the percentage of time on instructional issues so she could make a greater impact on student achievement has been realized. Her first annual data collection showed that she was spending 74% of her time on instructional tasks from her baseline of 32%. Recently she completed her second annual data collection. Her goal now is to maintain 75% to 80% of the time on instructional issues.