How to Theme Each Day of Your Teacher Week to Save Your Sanity
Limits Do Exist
Any time there is a transition from being on a break from work back to the everyday routine, it is a struggle. However, this past transition from winter break to teaching in January seemed a little tougher than usual. My students seemed off, I seemed off, and I had to plan for a sub day in the middle of the week due to a school improvement conference I had to attend. The theme for the week was “off.” There are signs of burnout that creep in that sometimes have nothing to do with being on a break or not. Simply, teachers are asked to do all things at all times, and this causes mindset burnout-even if they are just coming off of a break. There are lots of symptoms, but I find that my day-to-day resiliency to handle all of my teacher tasks begins to suffer when I feel burnout settle into my mindset. it is the moment when making a to-do list even seems overwhelming.
For example, I was making the comment to my husband one night this past week:
“I feel like I could work for another 2-3 hours tonight, and I still would not be caught up. I’m never caught up.”
Some teachers that are part of the #mytimeismyown movement on social media, or are trying to prioritize their time outside of the walls of teaching, may have just cringed. But, we all have been there. I don’t want to work at home, but the demands of the job continue to demand time. I recently got 100 graphic novels awarded to my classroom through a grant. I would not have received those materials if I had not given up time outside of the usual to write the grant, present the grant, and then follow through on plans for the new materials. The real question here is how do we set limits? Because the truth is, teachers are trying as hard as they can. In the past few years, I have tried:
to reduce the time spent at school (leave at 4)
to collaborate with others on techniques that are working
Use plan time at school more efficiently (even wearing earbuds as a clear signal of working)
I have tried all of the things. Yet, the demands of the teacher workload remain the same. The change has to come within, and the change has to be one that is a demand in the change of habits. This is a mindset problem because of the expectation I have of myself and my classroom. I love Rachel Hollis’ quote, “The quality of your life is the quality of your habits” because it reminds us that time is something that is determined by what we choose to do. As teachers, we have to choose to do certain tasks each day. If the other tasks do not get done, we have to challenge our mindset in the fact that the work is not done yet.
Step 1: Set Goals
I was working on setting up goals and an editorial calendar for my work here on Writing Mindset. So many bloggers use content calendars that have themed workdays to streamline tasks and to try to make the work of running a blog more manageable. It seemed to make sense. Can I try to tackle one themed issue each day in teaching? What if I try to not do ALL of the things and instead do one to two things well. I know this will require compromise on my limits at school during plan time and also during the time spent after school. Like my blog this year, I begin by setting my goals for accomplishing all of my teacher tasks at school and at home. Rachel Hollis also said, “When everything is important, nothing is important.” You may have caught on that I love Rachel’s book. However, it gives great definition to priorities. Everything is important. But if we continue to make all things important at all times, we are going to burnout.
My personal goals:
Reduce the number of hours working to under 50 each week. I teach for 7.5 hours each day. I work on teaching an additional 1.5 hours each day. This 1.5 also transitions over into the weekend. This would be a total of 48 hours each week.
Leave school each day at 4 pm. This means that I am working on school-related items at school from 2:30-4. This will require some days where I am collaborating with my team, and this will also require some days that I am shutting my door to work. Recently, one of my team teachers and I agreed to work out after school. I want to take care of myself; however, I also know that this 1.5 hours will move to another time in that day.
Make time for creative lesson planning. This feeds my teacher soul and provides an outlet for learning.
Work on the teacher deficit mindset. This is the constant voice saying “I am not doing enough” or “I could be doing more.” This is the reason I wake up at 3 am thinking about a school lesson or a new strategy to solve a problem.
These are not new goals. I am just dedicated to trying to figure out new ways to solve the problem.
Step 2: Brainstorm Tasks
First, I need to figure out what I am doing with my time. I love my bullet journal, so I took up my journal to make a mindmap of all the tasks I am asked to complete in a given week or month. I bulked them by larger categories (boxes) and then did roles (circles). If you look at my teacher task mindmap below, you will see how I spend my time at school and at home working.
In order to consider what should be the main priorities of my week, I also wanted to look at what my specific position is asking of me. My district uses the Charlotte Danielson model for teacher evaluation. There are five different domains of evaluation:
Classroom Environment
Instruction
Planning and Preparation
Professionalism and Professional Responsibility
Data
Once I have taken inventory of what I am actually doing and spending time on, and then looking at what is being asked of me, I can begin to make a plan. I can see where I am spending the majority of my time, what is taking up too much time, and what seems to be major priorities, but perhaps should not be.
Step 3: Decide What Takes the Most Amount of Time
My main categories are:
Planning
Grading
Communication
Other Duties
Blogging
Planning and Grading are the two areas that take up the most amount of time. I need more than one day a week to schedule these tasks. This exercise was also interesting to look at because I felt like I had cut down the “other duties” this past school year. I thought I was saying “no” more to outside tasks; however, I have 7 roles outside of teaching that take up my time either with daily or monthly tasks. This will be something I revisit at the end of the year because I feel like 7 other responsibilities are only contributing to the burnout mindset that happens when I have too many things going at one time.
Step 4: Fit Big Categories to Your Schedule
Now, I want to make a schedule. If you want to grab my templates that are featured below, click here. I am trying to evaluate what days are going to be better for certain tasks. This will vary for each of us due to our household makeup, hobbies outside of teaching, and where you spend the majority of your time. I know Sundays are a great day for me to work a little more because my husband is watching football or basketball, and we have the shows we watch in the evening. I am trying to limit the hours on Sunday because it can get easy to get carried away. I do feel the most prepared for Monday when I work on Sunday. I have chosen Saturday as my no workday for school because I believe it is important to have one full day that does not require my full attention on school-related tasks. I call my off-days “learn/explore” days because naturally, my mind will go to teaching, but I like to frame it as learning new strategies or dreaming of lesson plans. This is one of the things that feed my creative energy as a teacher.
SUNDAY -GRADE/PLAN
MONDAY -COMMUNICATION
TUESDAY -PLAN FOR THE FOLLOWING WEEK
WEDNESDAY -GRADE
THURSDAY -PLAN FOR THE FOLLOWING WEEK/MAKE COPIES FOR THE FOLLOWING WEEK
FRIDAY -OTHER DUTIES
SATURDAY-LEARN/EXPLORE (NO WORK)
If you happen to be a teacher blogger like me, feel free to use the blog calendars I made to also theme your week. I find that both of these worlds align nicely, but the work can really stack up if you let it get out of hand.
Step 5: Determine Daily Tasks at School
The key to this system working is all in the details. The details are the daily tasks at school. I want to make sure my time at school is productive enough to handle the small things that pile up into suffocating, large tasks. The main components of my daily tasks at school are grading, team communication, and emails. If I make sure that these smaller tasks are done at school during the standard work hours, they won’t pile up to be part of what I am trying to get done either after school or at home.
EMAILS
TEAM COMMUNICATION
GRADING (AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE)
PLANNING
Step 6: Plan for Monthly Tasks
Larger tasks like planning for a new unit require more work and more planning. I want to be mindful that monthly tasks or even marking period tasks will take more time. For example, at the end of the marking period, I need to shift over lesson plans into new formats for the next six weeks. For this next week, we are starting an argumentative unit in advanced so I need to be aware that time in school on plan and after school may have moments of dedicated time that may drift outside of the categories. I still need to do inventory on how much time this is taking me to accomplish specific tasks.
UNIT PLANNING/HOMEWORK
TEAM AGENDAS
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT TEAM
MENTOR TEXT LESSONS
Assess and Reflect
LOG PROGRESS
My first step in this is to try out the themed calendars and then log my progress. If ultimately, my goal is to keep my workweek under 50 hours, I need to make sure that I am logging my time. I want to continue to use my bullet journal as a way to log the time I spend working, and then I can make adjustments to my categories.
SIT WITH DISCOMFORT
While I wrote this entire post, the voice that was overwhelmed and said those that phrase my husband got a little louder. Inevitably, I am going to get overwhelmed. There will be emergencies. The work will pile up. However, I think learning how to sit with the discomfort of not meeting our own expectations of perfectionism is a skill worth working toward on a daily basis. Amber Rae’s blog is a great place to start when we begin to sit with discomfort. I love her infographic that explains the steps to deal with sitting in something that is making you uncomfortable. Because the nature of teaching means we are giving non-stop to others, it is against nature to want to take back this time. In my yoga practice, this is like learning how to embrace the shake of doing a plank. It is not pleasant, but it reminds us that we are alive and we are working through something that will benefit us in the end.
UNIT PLANNING/HOMEWORK
TEAM AGENDAS
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT TEAM
MENTOR TEXT LESSONS