Working Smarter: A Guide to Efficient Routines for Teachers with Danielle and Sari

What if you could reclaim control of your calendar and carve out precious extra hours for yourself each week? In an empowering episode of The Extraordinary Educators Podcast, hosts Danielle Sullivan and Sari Laberis reveal how you can do just that. We explore the concept of proactive to-do lists, the power of routine, and how breaking down large projects into manageable tasks can revolutionize your time management. With relatable personal stories and plenty of practical tips, we invite you to join us on a journey towards a more organized school year.

In the second half of our conversation, we delve into the importance of teamwork and creating consistent systems to increase efficiency. We dive into the practical steps of scheduling specific days for specific tasks to help free up cognitive load. But we're not just talking about theory here – we share our own experiences and the practical advice that springs from them, encouraging you to work smarter, not harder. So, tune in, take control of your time, and let's start making your extraordinary educator journey less stressful!

Visit CurriculumAssociates.com/blog/strategies-for-time-management-for-teachers to read about strategies for time and task management, written by Georgianna Castellano! Follow us on Twitter at @CurriculumAssoc and Instagram at @MyiReady, and email ExtraordinaryEducators@cainc.com to contact us with feedback, questions, or if you want to be a guest!

Transcript

Sari Laberis: 0:02

Curriculum Associates presents the Extraordinary Educators Podcast with host Danielle Sullivan and Sarah LaBeurus your tips, best practices and successes to improve your teaching and leadership and drive student growth and learning. We're here for you.

Danielle Sullivan: 0:16

Hi everyone, Welcome to the Extraordinary Educator Podcast. This is Danielle.

Sari Laberis: 0:21

And this is Sari, and this week we have just the two of us here to talk about the beginning of the school year, and not only how stressful it can be, but also how to manage your time and your tasks on top of that. So, danielle, as you think about educators coming back from summer break, meeting their students, building relationships, learning curriculum, what's on your mind in terms of how teachers and leaders can best manage their time?

Danielle Sullivan: 0:46

So first of all, I just want to encourage everyone to know that you are in control of your calendar. You are in control of your time. If you don't schedule things or you own your time, the time is going to own you. So the first thing is just really think about what are some time suckers Like.

Danielle Sullivan: 1:06

I used to get into school an hour early and then I would have budget 30 minutes of social time. Actually, I budgeted it because I knew it was essential to go and meet and greet some of my co-teachers it was more of a wooing connection thing and then I knew I had 30 minutes for my morning prep. So if you are a social butterfly, schedule time to do that. If you are an introvert, close your door because you don't want the social butterflies in the morning coming to suck your time.

Danielle Sullivan: 1:32

The other thing that I learned before I feel like I finally mastered it before I left teaching was creating proactive to-do lists before I left for the day, and you want to set your morning self up for success with your afternoon exhausted self. Whatever tasks I needed to do, I would take an extra five minutes before I left for the day to say these three things sticky notes, all sorts of things. So when I came in the next morning, I knew exactly what I was going to accomplish for that morning. So those are just two things that helped me. What about you, sarri?

Sari Laberis: 2:05

Super helpful, yeah, and we actually just published a blog about this topic from one of our external educators in Florida, georgiana, and so we'll link that in the show notes if you're curious about some other tips and strategies that she uses.

Sari Laberis: 2:16

I think what you said, danielle, about just figuring out what you're going to do and when you're going to do it ahead of time If I don't calendarize something it's likely to not get done A because I'll probably forget about it, but B because I'm not holding that time to do it. And I also found that when I did the same thing at the same time each week, you kind of just make that your muscle memory and it becomes habit. Versus I don't know things always come up the unexpected family phone call or whatever, a meeting or whatnot, but for example, making your math copies for the next week that could always be a Tuesday morning type of thing or during the Wednesday prep. But I just found that it was easier for myself when I had a routine and kind of a system. And then the last thing I'll say about that and kind of what it seemed like what you did every day after school, but carving out time on Friday to plan my next week. I found really valuable and it made Monday mornings a lot less stressful.

Danielle Sullivan: 3:06

Right, because it was always the Sunday night dreads. I feel like a lot of teachers are just dreading it or they put it off and then you have to play in your whole week on Sunday night, or I mean, first off, please just stop working on the weekend. I know that a lot of new educators feel like that's a trophy, but no, it's not. It's a sign of exhaustion. So there are efficient ways. Like Sarah said, if you can start to plan ahead and even now with my time, when I know I have a huge project I have to do or I have a lot of moving parts, I actually take it on giant.

Danielle Sullivan: 3:37

I'm a paper person. So I have a big notebook, blank pieces of paper and I write down all of my tasks. I do a mind dump and then I categorize those tasks into buckets and then I go to the calendar and schedule it. So it even helps if you know you have a huge unit you have to plan or a brand new math curriculum, or you're struggling to have data conversations and when to fit that in and when to plan for those. Like write it all down, then take a bird's-eye view and say like when can I do what? And then schedule it. And the last thing I'll say is systems, like Sarri said she did the same thing Every Wednesday like create systems for you, like, if you need to look at your data, do like a data dig Tuesday. Every Tuesday morning, you are gonna look at your iReady data or whatever data. Every Thursday, you are going to revisit some data conversations that you had with students. Just make it really consistent for you and then it frees up your cognitive load to focus on pivoting in the moment.

Sari Laberis: 4:34

So I hear you saying first break down large projects into smaller tasks. So, rather than saying report cards, what do you actually have to do in order to get those done? And then bucket them into Categories and then schedule when you're gonna do those things and then also create a system for yourself. Yep, awesome, I think too. Just when you're creating that system, remember that you have a team and lean on them. Like when I Taught third grade, one of us made the math copies for the entire, and it depends on if you use a shared curriculum or not. But you can if you're doing the same tasks as the teachers on your grade level or content team. There's no reason why everyone has to do the same thing separately Divide and conquer, and that way, hopefully, it can be more efficient.

Danielle Sullivan: 5:12

You can free up times, do other yeah, work smarter, not harder, y'all and this is a work in progress, like I still figure. I'm still struggling with time management at times, but just know that you are amazing, just as you are 1% better and you, there's never too late to start a new system to help you manage your time.

Sari Laberis: 5:30

Absolutely so. That is all we have time for today, but thanks for sharing your practices, danielle, and for our listeners. Please remember to subscribe. We really appreciate it. It helps us reach more educators like you. Get inspired by following us on social media and please tag us in your posts on Twitter at curriculum Assouche, and on Instagram at my iReady. If you have feedback about the podcast, a topic of interest or want to be a guest, email extraordinary educators at cainkcom. Subscribe where you listen to podcasts and if you'd like to help more educators like you, join the conversation, please leave a review.

Danielle Sullivan: 6:04

Remember, be you be true, be extraordinary. The extraordinary educator podcast is produced by curriculum associates. Editing by whiteboard geeks, social media by At City Hanan, guest booking by serri LaBeurice, production by Haley Browning. This podcast is copyrighted materials and intellectual property of curriculum associates.