Organizing Your Teacher Prep to Work Less On Weekends

How often do you hear teachers talk about working all weekend? I was one of those teachers too. After several years of working constantly at work and throughout the weekend, I had had enough. Very few other professions have you working 24/7. Why should teachers be doing the same? It's not cool to work all nonstop, nor is it fun.

I decided to make the most of my teacher prep times throughout the week so that I could work less (and sometimes not at all) on the weekends.

Before you say anything ... before you doubt me... just think: What if you could do this too? Think of all the time you'd have to be an actual real human on the weekends!

Have a Plan
The very first thing you'll need to do is make a prep schedule. My prep schedule is set up weekly - Monday through Friday (NO weekends, remember??!!).  It also includes all of the times throughout the day that I could get work done at school. That doesn't mean that I work through every prep time, but I do work through most of them.

The times I have chosen to include on my prep schedule are: before school, prep, lunch, and after school. I'd also like to be clear here. When I say "after school", I don't mean until after 5pm every night. I do have a family I like to get home to and the whole purpose of this is to feel like I'm not living at work or bringing work home with me every day. But more on that later.

After you decide when you'll work, decide what tasks you'll accomplish during each prep time. Here's a peek at what this looks like for me:

Stick to It
Sticking to your plan can be difficult, some weeks more than others. Things come up and we have to adjust. Here are a few tips to help you stick to your plan:

• Print your Prep Schedule and hang it somewhere you'll be able to see it while working throughout the day. 
• Close your door during your prep times. I love, love, love my colleagues, and sometimes we take breaks and chat, but if you want to stick to your prep schedule, you'll need as few distractions as possible. 
• If you are going to have to bring work home, prioritize & pick preferences. Make sure the things you can only get done in your classroom get done. Leave anything that could be done at home or that you don't mind doing at home for last. For me, that's printing and laminating. Who else loves using their personal laminator?? 

Set Boundaries

Set boundaries for yourself. Don't work through every lunch. Don't stay late after school every day. For me, there are 1-2 days a week I might stay later. Those are our team planning days and sometimes one other day. 

Set a rule about when you'll leave. I set a rule for myself that on days I'm not staying later, I'll leave at 3:30. At my school, the kids are all dismissed by 2:45 so that gives me 45 minutes to get a few things checked off my to-do list after school. If I'm focused, there's no reason I can't accomplish a good amount in that time. 

I personally don't mind working through my lunch, but maybe you do! If you don't want to work through every lunch, then don't. At my last school, that wouldn't have even been an option because we had to have lunch with the kids. To make up for that, I tried to get to work earlier so that I didn't have to stay later. At my current school, I am not on lunch duty so I've chosen to use that time to cross things off my to-do list rather than having more to bring home with me.

Reward Yourself 
You work hard. Seriously. Your job can be difficult, exhausting, and extremely busy. You deserve breaks every now and again! When I get everything done on my to-do list, I don't look for more to do. Instead, I give myself a break!

For instance, if I get all of my Wednesday tasks done by the end of my prep time, I don't look for reasons to stay after school. I give myself a break and head home early that day. Why? I deserve it. And you do too. When you get what you need to get done, go home. Or take the rest of your lunch to just relax.

I have 2 editable versions of my prep schedule that you can download and use for free. They can be found by clicking here.

Do you have teacher tips for productivity throughout the week? Leave them in the comments below!

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TEACHER TIMESAVER: HOW TO MAKE LESSON PLANNING EASIER (plus a freebie)

I am always looking for ways to save myself time in my teacher life. One thing that consistently feels like it takes forever is lesson planning. Every week, my team sits down to plan for the upcoming week. For awhile, this became a 2 (or more) hour meeting. Ugh. I love my team, but I don't love making us sit down and lesson plan for that long. Why? Because after we weekly plan, we still have to input our own plans into our teacher planners. Talk about a long process. There had to be a more efficient way.

That's why we started to long-term lesson plan. The time it took us to plan weekly went from several hours to under 1!!  Yes, this does take some time up front. But it's worth it when you think about the time you'll save in the long run.

So, are you ready to start saving time?! Here's how: 

Start by setting up a template that works for you. You'll need a monthly header and a table with the subjects you teach or want to plan for, and the weeks in each month. Not sure how to do this yourself? These monthly planning templates are all ready to go for you with options for 4-8 subjects to plan for OR you can try a printable version of the September Planning Template for free (available at the bottom of this post). 

Now that you have your template set up, you can start inputting your plans for each month. When my team and I are doing this, we put in a general overview for each subject. The overview includes the topic and/or standard we'll be teaching with resources we know we'll be using. We do not include a breakdown for each day of the week in our monthly plans. We save the breakdown for our weekly meetings. 

Once your plans are in your monthly template, you can print or keep it digital for your reference. Every week when my team meets, we refer to our monthly plans. Having this framework helps us hash out each day quickly. It also allows us to come to our meetings prepared with resources we might need for the following week. In addition to coming to meetings prepared, we can also start prepping weeks ahead of time. 

I know that this summer I'll be able to prep for August and September thanks to my Monthly Planning Calendars! 

Want to try Monthly Planning for one month FREE? Grab a printable version of the September Planning Template by clicking the pink button at the bottom of this post. 

Need to come back later? Make sure to pin so you can find it when you need it :) 

Have teacher timesaver tips? Feel free to leave them in the comments below :)

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Blog Makeover!

Hello Readers! So.... I'm jumping on the Blogger bandwagon! I've been seeing so many teacher bloggers share their blogspot blogs and had to check out what all the hype was all about. Wow! I can do SO much more customizing on blogger! Want to know how I did it?? 

This morning's productivity brought to you by Coffee ;)

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Be a Goal Setter in 2017!

See Original Post Here!

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