Taming the Beast: Time Management Tips for Teachers

Time management is an ongoing challenge for teachers. The demands of teaching are many, and you are probably feeling that there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. Getting a handle on your time is like trying to tame a beast, a very hungry, active and persistent one.

While everyone’s schedule is different and everyone has different school and life responsibilities, there are a few productivity hacks that can benefit most teachers.  Here are four areas you can focus on to improve your time management.

Master the To-Do List

Whether you work with a paper planner or on-line one, mastering the art of the To -Do list will help free up your mind for more important work and keep you aware of what needs to be done.

Embrace the fact that all of your work will NEVER be done.  Once you accept that, you can work within priorities to get things done when they need to be done.

Create a master To-Do list in your planner, lesson plan book or in an on-line program or app.  Everything that needs to be done goes on this list; add due dates if possible.  Writing it down will help you keep track of everything. The master To-Do list can become very overwhelming, which is why you should also create a daily To-Do list.

The daily To-Do list is a shorter and more focused list.  This should include things that must be done by the end of the day. Look at the master list for things you should transfer to today.  This is also the place to jot down all of the little things that might come up throughout the day.

Plan Your Day

Your teaching schedule is probably fairly fixed.  Your prep time may be more open.  Think of spending 1-3 hours a day on preparation and planning.  Some of that might come during a planning period, or before school or after school.  Some of that time might come in the evenings at home.

Working with your To-Do lists, schedule tasks into each of the planning and preparation time slots.  Try to plan each chuck of time wisely.  For example, if you only have a 20 minute block, group three or four short tasks together and polish them off during that time period.

Being focused and purposefully planning specific tasks during each time block helps to eliminate overwhelm and disorganization.  If you know that at home tonight you will grade a specific set of papers you are more likely to get it done than if you throw every task that needs attention in your bag and then feel so overwhelmed that you give up and watch a Kardashian marathon. Setting a task to be completed and sticking with your decision helps you get things done and still maintain some work/life balance.

A good rule of thumb is never leave for home at the end of the day until the materials for tomorrow’s lessons are ready and on your desk.  This will get you into the habit of planning ahead, rather than being desperate the night before.

Stay organized.

Teachers make many instructional decisions during the day, and making decisions uses a lot of cognitive energy. If we add to that decisions about what to have for lunch, what to wear or what to do during any given moment, we are using a lot of our energy making decisions. Organization is the building of systems or habits that eliminate some forms of decision making, leaving us with more energy to use for our work.

Plan a week’s worth of lunches on the weekend and put food in containers in the refrigerator so you can just grab them in the morning.  Do the same with your clothes.  Get a tote bag with pockets and built in organization so that you don’t have to look for things.

Organize student papers in sets and attach them with a binder clip.  Keep papers to grade in one folder and papers to return in another folder.  You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment moving them from one folder to another.

Keep your desk organized.  Keep a manila file folder system that quickly allows you to find the notes from staff meetings and each committee.  Keep a folder for each on-going project such as IEP plans or your professional development plan, and one for parent communications.  Keep similar electronic folders on your computer.  This simple bit of organization will save you time and frustration of looking for things.

Focus When You Work

No doubt you will have many distractions when you work, and sometimes they are out of your control.  Other things are within your control, and you can learn to eliminate distractions and focus for longer periods of time.

Set a couple of times a day to look at and respond to your e-mail.  Once in the morning, once at lunch and once at the end of the day is sufficient.

Beware of the time sucking vortex of social media.  A quick look at Pinterest to find a fun teaching activity can quickly lead to an hour spent looking at lesson plans…and shoes. A few minutes with a video game leads to a few more and then you are almost at the next level so…you keep on going.  Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat…all are fun diversions, but they ARE diversions.  Work while you are working and save social media for your personal time.

If you are particularly addicted to social media try turning off notifications.  What you don’t know about won’t distract you.

If you procrastinate with bigger projects, give yourself an allotted time to work and follow up with a time to do something you love.  Plan to spend one hour with your unit planning, and then give yourself permission to watch a television show or go for a walk.

It takes time and practice to figure out what works well for you.  With experience, you get better at prioritizing.  You’ll learn to plan in units rather than by individual lesson.  You’ll learn when to give 100% and which tasks don’t require that level of perfection.

At some level, most educators will continue to struggle with time.  The beast will always be there, but you can learn to coexist and maybe even get along.

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