Save Time and Get Organized

Teaching creates many opportunities for evaluating and implementing things as an educator that can make teaching and learning more effective. The start of a new year and new semester is a great time to find ways to save time through the way you organize and make processes. Here are a few tips to organize as a teacher or homeschool parent that can help save you time!

1. Pick One Area to Improve and Focus On It

Sometimes there are too many chances to reflect on your teaching. Don’t spread yourself so thin trying to change everything at once. Prioritize what you want to improve. Pick one thing a school year or semester that you will make better and be okay with things not being perfect in other areas.

2. Make Notes for the Following Year

Whatever you use to organize, make it something you can go back to in the following years. After you finish the activity make a quick note of things that worked and things that didn't. This will save you so much time, and make it really easy to improve from one year to the next. Now, don’t just cookie cutter the same thing year to year, but if you have a low prep system from the year before it makes it easy to then pick one area to focus on and improve each year.

3. Batch Your Work Items

It is much faster to have a system and work on similar tasks all at once. Instead of making copies daily, make them weekly or once a month/unit. How could you simplify the way you grade to do similar tasks at the same time? Maybe you stay long one day a week and you leave as soon as the bell rings all the other days. Can you do all your planning at one time and all your grading at a different time? Batching tasks makes it easier to get ahead.

4. Communicate Efficiently

My dad would always say, “It takes a really good meeting to beat no meeting at all.” Are there some meetings that could really just be a google document or group text? How are you sharing information with the families you have in your class? Can you simplify the way you are communicating things? Do you communicate the way a class is organized with your students so they understand the big picture of what they are doing and can look forward to upcoming milestones and activities?

5. Track Habits, Keep To-Do Lists, and Remember Appointments

Do you have a way to track habits, keep lists and remember events? I find that if my reminders are in a different place than my To-Do lists, I never remember the reminders. I also realized that my To-do lists always looked so overwhelming because I was putting daily things that were really habits I was trying to create as to-dos. Find a way to organize that makes these three things flow well for you.

6. Find a Planner that Works for YOU

Our lives are constantly changing. If you are not able to get organized, you may need to find a new way to organize things. There are so many digital tools, calendars, planners, lesson-planning templates…If what you are using isn’t working, look through other organizational options that might work!

If what you are doing is working, COMMENT BELOW WITH YOUR FAVORITE ORGANIZATION METHOD SO OTHERS CAN TRY IT TOO!

7. Make Time to Plan Long Term and Short Term

Make a specific time to plan out long-term goals and big-picture items (the beginning of school years and beginning of units for example), as well as short-term plans (lessons, weekly activities).

8. Implement Daily and Weekly Routines

Not only do daily routines save teachers so much time, but they are also a good way for kids to get practice and make improvements. It is also a great way to track student growth over time. Sometimes it can be hard to make these tasks motivating and engaging. Having students track their own progress and adding fun activities weekly to break up the daily practice are good ways to increase student engagement.