Learn how to minimize your teacher to-do list with ease. Here are 5 mistakes I made while trying to complete my teacher to-do list during my first year of teaching.
These teacher time-saving strategies will help you confidently save time as a teacher, minimize teacher overwhelm, prevent you from staying late and start leaving work on time, and prevent teacher burnout.
Download the Maximize Your Prep Guide Here: https://sunny-creator-106.ck.page/5041376f8b
Get support inside The Present Teacher Circle Community: https://thepresentteacher.com/present-teacher-circle/
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// ABOUT
I’m Helena, a coach for new and first-year teachers sharing knowledge on how to have a thriving career and personal life.
The Present Teacher Podcast is a resource for classroom management, classroom organization, time management, and teacher wellness. Follow along and learn how to thrive in the classroom and in life.
Subscribe to The Present Teacher Podcast to get inspired by new weekly podcast episodes!
Learn how to minimize your teacher to-do list with ease. Here are 5 mistakes I made while trying to complete my teacher to-do list during my first year of teaching.
These teacher time-saving strategies will help you confidently save time as a teacher, minimize teacher overwhelm, prevent you from staying late and start leaving work on time, and prevent teacher burnout.
Download the Maximize Your Prep Guide Here: https://sunny-creator-106.ck.page/5041376f8b
Get support inside The Present Teacher Circle Community: https://thepresentteacher.com/present-teacher-circle/
___________________________
❤️Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/thepresentteacher/
🔥TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@thepresentteacher
🚀Website | https://thepresentteacher.com/
💜YouTube | https://youtube.com/@ThePresentTeacher?si=meqMmiDHJN-0Jmlr
___________________________
// RESOURCES
💌 Join our email list for weekly motivation | https://sunny-creator-106.ck.page/4277e03f92
🌼 Join our Community on Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/groups/thrivingnewteachers
___________________________
// ABOUT
I’m Helena, a coach for new and first-year teachers sharing knowledge on how to have a thriving career and personal life.
The Present Teacher Podcast is a resource for classroom management, classroom organization, time management, and teacher wellness. Follow along and learn how to thrive in the classroom and in life.
Subscribe to The Present Teacher Podcast to get inspired by new weekly podcast episodes!
Have you ever stayed up at night, worked on your weekends or during your breaks, only to never officially get caught up? Well, this is exactly how my first few years of teaching went. You see, I tried so hard to get ahead during my breaks during my first year of teaching that I would fill my to-do list with all my tasks, only to never get caught up, let alone ahead. Today, I'm sharing with you five mistakes I made trying to tackle my teacher to-do list to get ahead. These five mistakes not only made it impossible to get ahead, but it also got in the way of me catching up. So, with that being said, let's dive in. Hey, teacher Bestie, my name is Helena and I'm the creator of the Present Teacher podcast. I'm a first year teacher coach and in this podcast you are going to learn everything from simple, actual classroom management, social learning and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you want to make in the classroom. Well, we're going to make it happen here.
Speaker 1:The first mistake I made when it came to my teacher to-do list was I had too many tasks a day. You see, at the time I would use two to three sticky notes and for my to-do list, because I was really bad at writing in my planner and I would write front and back two to three sticky notes a day full of tasks I need to get done that day. And I would even list because I heard once that you should list everything that you naturally do, like brushing your teeth, getting dressed. But here's the thing I would spend my entire day trying to catch up and get that to-do list done, that by the end of the day, hardly any tasks were crossed off and I never felt caught up. In fact, I always felt defeated, because I still had 20 plus things on my to-do list and on top of that, when anything came up, I would just add it to that day's to-do list. So my two to three sticky notes at the end of the day would eventually turn to four or five, and to say I was immensely and emotionally exhausted would be an understatement. So at the end of the day, when you have that many tasks to do, it really zaps your energy and it's really hard to set yourself up for success when you have more tasks than you can feasibly do within a day. So here's what I recommend to do instead.
Speaker 1:Instead, try to have a list of no more than three to five get to-dos. Now I used to talk about having must-dos and may-dos, but here's the thing when you say something you must do it, it kind of has this draining energy. But if you talk about it like you get to do it, it has a much more uplifting energy to it. So that's why I shifted it from must-dos to get to-dos, but regardless. Now I have lists no more than three to five get to-dos, and the reason that you do it this way is it's not enough. Then you can always add a may-do side, like I talked about earlier, and once I get the get to-do list done, I can then go to the may-dos and finish those tasks. So at most I recommend no more than six to 10 tasks to complete each day, and the reason for this is it's way more manageable energetically and emotionally and when you set an amount that you can actually accomplish, you're going to feel that much more confident and proud and successful in your teaching career. So that's why I recommend, instead of having too many tasks a day anywhere from 10 to 30 tasks try to keep it below 10.
Speaker 1:So that is the first mistake I made when it came to getting ahead on my teacher to-do list. Now let's talk about the next mistake I made, which was I would write my to-do list that same day. So every morning I would show up in the morning, I would drive in, I would write down my to-do list before my students came in the door. But the problem was, whenever I ran late, I would end up writing my to-do list during my prep, and that would take 10 to 20 minutes when I was writing two to three sticky notes at a time of my prep. But I didn't actually have to give and it would put me that much more farther behind. So instead, this is what I recommend to do.
Speaker 1:So instead, what I recommend doing is to have a closing out your day routine. Now, your closing out your day routine is a great way to properly close out your day. That way it's much easier for you to transition from teacher to dog, mom to awesome wife, family member, whatever you have going on outside of school. But regardless, when you wrap up everything, it kind of gives an endpoint to your work day. That way you're not tempted to bring a bunch of work home and to think about your day because you don't feel prepared for tomorrow. Instead, it wraps everything up nice and neat. That way, when you walk in, you feel like you're already ahead and ready and setting yourself up for successful day.
Speaker 1:So you might be wondering what does my closing out the day routine look like? Well, typically it looks like checking my email and getting my inbox to zero. Now, I will talk about this later. If you want to learn more about it, make sure to comment or send me a DM if you want to learn more about this. But what I do is I have different labels in my inbox and I drag and drop everything once I complete it and if it isn't complete, I leave it in my inbox and it's unread and I can see how many things I need to do in my inbox. But regardless, this is one of the things I do to close out my day and I make sure that my inbox is at zero. I don't take a ton of time doing this. Once you do it once and you have the system in place, it takes anywhere from five to 10 minutes, depending how many emails kind of gathered throughout the day. So that's the first thing that I do.
Speaker 1:The second thing I do to close out my day is I like to use class dojo with my families when it comes to communication, because it's a great way that we can send text messages or pictures and I can actually schedule out weekly or daily reminders on events coming up. But I like to check my family communication and respond to any messages I got from families for that day. This is a great way to make sure I'm not staying up at night thinking, oh my goodness, I forgot to respond to that person. This is just naturally built into my closing out the day routine. That way I can spend my afternoon not worrying about some family communication that I forgot to follow up on. So that's the second thing I like to do on my closing out the day routine.
Speaker 1:The third thing I like to do is I like to look on my to-do list. So for making a to-do list for the next day, I actually recommend looking at any tasks that you didn't get done the day before. So, for example, if it's the end of the day today, I'm going to look at my to-do list and any tasks that I didn't complete today I'm going to roll over to tomorrow. That way I can come in knowing exactly what I need to get done and there's no stress in the morning on writing out my to-do list. So this also helps leave a school day with a sense of closure and I feel prepared for the next day.
Speaker 1:Rolling over any to-do list, I'll come up with any tasks. I'll roll that over to my get-to-do side. I typically do a t-chart on a sticky note or on my planner. I use a happy planner that I absolutely love. Let me know if you want more content on how I plan out my days and weeks and I'm happy to create more content around that. But I roll over any tasks I didn't get done today and then, if I have more spots maybe two more spots then I will pick other tasks that I get to do for tomorrow and then I'll add maybe three to five main dues if I finish that list.
Speaker 1:So that is the second mistake I made when it came to getting ahead on my teacher to-do list. The third mistake I made when it came to getting ahead on my teacher to-do list was I didn't group tasks or theme days. So this is what I like to refer to as batching. So the reason that I started this was honestly because of my business and my side hobby and business that I do serving new teachers online and sharing with my community. But this originated from the idea that it takes up to seven minutes to refocus when you test switch. So that's when you are maybe you are writing an email and then a student comes in during your prep and asks for something it's going to take you seven minutes when you come back down to sit to refocus on that test that you were doing and give it a hundred percent of your focused attention.
Speaker 1:So when you task switch or do different tasks, like I said, it can take up to seven minutes and when you add that or accumulate over the day, that takes a lot of time. That's why the first mistake I mentioned when I filled my to-do list of 20 to 30 different things that weren't related to each other. It was draining energetically and it felt really hard to get caught up and it was hard to make way and make progress on that to-do list. However, like, for example, let's say, you have a get to-do list of five items, five unrelated tasks, it can take you. So let's say you have responding to that family email, lesson planning for next week, printing out your materials for tomorrow, getting subplans ready for next week and reaching out to the principal about something that you need to talk to them for. So each of those things are extremely different. Therefore, it's going to take you five or seven minutes at least, up to between tasks, to refocus on what you're doing. That puts you at 35 to 40 minutes just to focus on what you're doing, and as teachers, I know we don't have a lot of time, so that could be in an entire prep just focusing in between tasks. So that's why I recommend doing this.
Speaker 1:Instead, instead, I recommend grouping like-minded tasks or thinking your days. Now, a good way to think of this is to think of Henry Ford and the assembly line. What Henry Ford found was, if you have someone or something like a machine doing the same thing over and over again, they become more proficient and you save time doing it. Well, that's the same when it comes to grouping like-minded tasks or thinking your days. It eliminates the amount of energy that's required to complete during the day when you're switching from different tasks throughout the day. So this is what this looks like in my schedule. Feel free to use this and, if you do, I would love if you could send me a DM to let me know that you used my schedule and have it worked for you. So this is what my typical week looks like as I pick a theme for each day.
Speaker 1:So, for example, monday I do lesson planning day. I do all of the tasks required to lesson plan for the upcoming week or possibly the upcoming weeks. When I first started, I only did a week at a time, so on Monday I was planning for the upcoming the next week. After I became faster at that, then I started to do two weeks and three weeks and four weeks and this has been the secret to how I had more time after school. I was no longer taking work home. I was four weeks out in my planning and prepping and I was able to start a business and help teachers online, like yourself. So that would be my.
Speaker 1:Mondays is my lesson planning days on my prep. Whenever I have time to work without the students, it's lesson planning. On Tuesday. That's my prepping day. So all of the printing and cutting materials for lessons and centers that I need to do for that next week that I planned the day before I'm prepping that today. So, like I said, that can look like taking the lesson plan from yesterday on Monday and going to the printer and printing out all the materials I'm going to need for the next week. It could look like putting all of the papers and the clear sleeves for centers in the primary grades. Whenever I need to prep for the upcoming week, I'm doing on that day. So that's what my Tuesday looks like.
Speaker 1:On Wednesday, it's all about communication for me, so all the tasks that required me to communicate with families, colleagues, students, admin. This is the day that I designate as my communication day. So for me, this looks like I have a weekly newsletter that I send out to my families to let them know what's coming up, so I'll get that ready. You might have a student calendar. Maybe you have some PD that came up requirements for that week and you want to get it done. I would do it during this day. Maybe you need to communicate with admin or your PTO or something like that. This is the day that I do that. Or maybe you want to communicate with your team members once a week. This would be the day that I check in with my teammates to make sure we're all on the same page as far as planning goes and if I need to adjust anything for the upcoming week. So that's what my Wednesdays look like.
Speaker 1:Thursdays are my grading and data days, so all of the tasks that are required to grade and enter grades or data into the computer. I do on Thursdays. So I actually grade all work weekly. So if my students have participation grades, I pull their work out of the milk crate, give them grade it, send it home or I'll send it home tomorrow on Friday, and then any of the assessments we did or things that need a more in depth glance I will pull them back to my teacher table and I will start grading all of those at once and in putting them in any of my intervention or stat data I will enter into this day as well. So that's what my Thursdays look like.
Speaker 1:And then finally, fridays. Fridays are my catch up. So this is where anything that I didn't get done rolls over into my Friday. Because as a teacher I'm sure you can relate sometimes and assembly is happening on your prep. There's no specials. Maybe you're required to go cover a different class.
Speaker 1:Having one extra day built into my week that I can catch up. Make sure that, no matter what, I'm not that far behind, because I built in a day of the week where I can catch up and if I'm caught up I can tackle any passion projects or some extra projects that weren't necessarily CRAs or classroom running activities, like changing out my bulletin board. Or maybe I want to do a fun art project. I can prep that. Maybe I want to do something fun and exciting that I haven't tried. Maybe I want to prep a new center that I found online and I haven't figured out a way to do that. Maybe I want to do a fun activity during small groups. Either way, fridays is kind of my catch up day, self-care day, whatever it needs to be day, and I absolutely love my Fridays, and by the end of the week my energy is kind of not there anyways.
Speaker 1:So mapping out and batching out and beaming your days based on where your energy is going to be is also a really good tip. I recommend doing so. This is the exact formula I use and it has helped me not only get caught up but, like I said, ahead. This is the secret that got me four weeks ahead on prepping and planning every month and gave me the free time to no longer take work home on the weekends and to spend my time with my business and creating content for you. So eventually you get so quick that you can do more than one week at a time. I recommend just starting off with one week, but then you can start adding more weeks the faster you get. So I highly recommend trying this out and, if you do, send me a DM because I want to hear how it worked for you.
Speaker 1:So that is the third mistake I made when it came to getting ahead on my teacher to do this was I didn't group tasks or theme days. Instead, I just had a sporadic list. That was really zapping my energy, and instead now I batch and I feel good, energetically, in fact, I feel ahead and I feel like teaching is fun and I have that space to be creative with it, which is my goal for anyone on this community. So that's the third mistake I made. The fourth mistake I can't I made when it came to getting ahead on my teacher to do this was I didn't prioritize tasks. Again, this is the get to do versus the may do. So, yes. So In order to talk about this topic, I want to tell you about a theory that the amazing, amazing author, stephen Covey, came up with.
Speaker 1:He came up with the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, or Successful People. I highly recommend you check out that book. But inside of this book. He mentions the rock method and I'm curious if you've ever heard of it. But how this works is you have a cup or a jar? Stephen Covey fills the clear glass jar with water and then he asks if the cup is full. You'll say yes. So then he puts sand in it. Is it full? Yes, and then eventually, what happens is you just have an overflowing, gunky mess where not everything fits because you added it in this way. However, stephen Covey found instead, if you fill up the jar with the big rocks first, and then the pebbles, and then the sand, and then the water, it is able to hold more and able to fit everything in.
Speaker 1:So the whole goal or the theme around the story is put the big rocks first. In other words, put the main priorities on your to-do list first. Prioritize your life, and you're going to be able to serve more and do more and be more successful in your life. So what does this have to do with prioritizing your teacher to-do list? Well, if you prioritize everything, like big rocks, and then you put them first in your cup, it's going to make things you're able to fit more in your cup, whereas if you're putting the smaller things in there first, it's going to overflow and it's going to lead to burnout.
Speaker 1:So the truth is, back in the day I wasn't doing this, I was putting everything on my to-do list and considered everything essential, which looked a lot like the first part of the experiment, where everything was overflowing and just kind of mixed together, but this led me to feeling like everything was catching on fire. I was constantly putting out fires all day and just mentally and emotionally exhausted. I remember coming home and thinking if someone asked me to do one more thing, I might cry. That's just honestly how I felt at the time. However, when you learn to prioritize your tasks, you can show up with much more relaxed energy and teaching gets to be fun, and it gives you that freedom and that space to be more creative and make it your own.
Speaker 1:So you might be wondering how do we do this? What do we do instead? Well, the way that you accomplish this is you have to make a list of what your classroom actually needs to run, so think of these as the major necessities for your classroom to keep going. So, in order to figure that out, what tasks are needed to actually keep your classroom running? I want to invite you to set a timer for five minutes and write down or journal on what your classroom actually requires to run, meaning, if this doesn't get done, the world on fire and it's going to cause a whole lot of stress and it's just not going to be fun for me. So what tasks? If you didn't do all at all for a month, would your classroom just fall apart?
Speaker 1:So I did this activity and I actually call these tasks that I'm referring to as CRAs or classroom running activities. And the whole point is this is, if I achieve nothing else during the week but these CRAs, my classroom is in good hands, meaning it's going to be running smoothly and I don't have to worry about anything else. So here's a list of some of my CRAs or classroom running activities that I have in my classroom to keep it running. So the first one is lesson planning, prepping, grading, communication. So you might have noticed that these match the theme days that I talked about earlier and you caught on. I did that on purpose, so I do those things first every single week. If I do nothing else but those things that I'm in good shape, everything else is kind of just extra stuff that isn't required for my classroom to run. Does that mean I don't do anything else? Oh heavens no. But those are my main priorities or my classroom running activities. When I have those done, I have more freedom in space to do things like to update my bulletin board or to create a new activity on PowerPoint for my kids or Google Slides. You get the idea, but what are your classroom running activities? Take some time to write down the major things you need to do each week and theme out your week around that. So that was the fourth mistake I made. Now let's talk about the fifth mistake I made when it came to getting ahead on my teacher to-do list, and that was I tied my worth to how much I crossed off my list. So mental thing for sure, but the biggest mistake I would make as a new teacher was I would tie my worth to how hard I had worked and how far I got on my to-do list that day.
Speaker 1:And here's an unpopular opinion about society. Society loves when you work hard. This is true. As someone who came to me, naturally, I can tell you firsthand that you feel like you're cheating or it's wrong. If something comes easy to you or you find an easier way to do things, you might consider yourself a cheater, a liar, cutting corners if they're struggling. I should be struggling, but here's the truth.
Speaker 1:In my opinion, there are three types of teachers. Here's the type A teachers, who love everything neat and in their spot. They are super organized and super ahead on everything. There's the type B teachers, who are the organized chaos or lovers. They love working close to deadlines. They choose fire, as my husband says, and they have their own system. It might be a little chaotic to the average person looking out, but they pretty much know where things are. And then here's the truth. I never felt like those teachers. When I discovered that there was an actually type C teacher, I was ecstatic. So type C teachers are the teachers who aren't organized like type A, but they don't like the organized chaos like type B. Enter the type C teacher. The type C teacher is the teacher who feels like there's an easier way to go about teaching and they want the short, lazy way to do things. And if that is you, you're in the exact place you should be, because I'm the exact same way.
Speaker 1:What I'm saying is you are aware that does not need to be tied to how much you get done in a day. It doesn't mean that if you didn't struggle and everything comes natural to you or you find a way to make things easier, that doesn't make you a cheater. I used to spend my days agonizing on how many tests I got done, how many I didn't get done, and if there were more tests that I didn't get done, then I got done, or, heaven forbid, I didn't get everything done. Then I felt like a failure. The truth is, there's a better way and your worth isn't tied to your to-do list. So if you are struggling with this, here's something to try. Instead, separate your identity from the outcome.
Speaker 1:No matter how much you got done on your to-do list, you are still amazing. You are still a great teacher, you are still changing lives every day and, to be completely honest, your students aren't even noticing half the stuff on your to-do list. And you still made an impact when you were there with your students. So I want to invite you to show yourself unconditional love through this profession. Remind yourself that my best is enough. Every day, that I show up and do my best, whether it's 100, 110%, sometimes 20%, 10% as long as I'm doing my best, that is enough, and that I love myself, regardless of how much I get done today, regardless if I am successful, regardless if I make a mistake or a failure, I still love myself and who I am, and the thing every day I make an impact. Now, something that's been extremely eye-opening for me with my new position on going into different classrooms and working with many teachers online is as a teacher and I caught myself doing this too. It's hard to see the changes in the end, the growth your students are making, but I promise you the growth is astounding. The teachers, every teacher I go, in the first week of school and to the last week of September or August. Whenever you start school, the change is astounding and I promise you the same is in your class too. Every day you're making an impact, especially on those days that you don't feel like you are.
Speaker 1:So that wraps up the different mistakes I made when it came to getting ahead on my teacher to-do list. So, as a recap, the first mistake I made when it came to my not getting done with my teacher to-do list was I had too many tasks assigned to me a day. The second mistake I made was that I would write my to-do list that same day and it would put me ahead. It wouldn't put me ahead, it would put me behind. The third mistake I made was that I didn't group tasks or theme days. I just sporadically put stuff on my to-do list and it felt extremely draining energetically. The fourth mistake I made was that I didn't prioritize tasks versus my get to-dos and my day-dos. Everything was a high priority for me and it was a hot mess. The fifth mistake I made was I tied my worth how much I crossed off. So that wraps up the mistakes I made when it came to trying to get ahead on my teacher to-do list.
Speaker 1:I hope you found this helpful. If you did, I would love if you can share a picture or screenshot of you listening in and joining me. And if you want to dive deeper, I have a couple of next steps for you. The first one is the maximize your prep freebie. This shares in-depth everything I talked about here and more on how to start getting ahead on your prep. The second thing I want to invite you to come join us inside the present teacher circle. This is a community of first and new teachers who are learning all the time, saving systems to save time in the classroom and do things especially my type C teachers in a way that feels energetically inspiring and motivating and gives you that freedom and capacity to show up and be that teacher deep down you know you are capable of being, so if you want to join us inside, I will make sure to put a link in the description down below.
Speaker 1:What are your classroom running activities? Send me a DM and I would love to chat to hear about what you're doing in your classroom to keep it going. And remember, cras are the things that keep your classroom running for an entire month. If you didn't do them, your classroom would fall apart. As always, remember we are stronger together and I will see you in the next one. Teacher bestie Bye. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and out of the classroom. It would mean the world to me if you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your socials to let me know you're listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together. With All the Love in the World. Helena, aka the President, teacher, see you next time, teacher, bestie.