Managing our time can be a tricky balance. This week offers some suggestions to help with this.

• Eliminate unintentional breaks: It's easy on your planning period to get distracted by social media, email, and colleagues. Set a timer to commit to actually getting done what you need to and then take a break afer that.
• Pick one main thing and tackle it first: It feels daunting and we often avoid doing "the thing" but try starting with your first priority rather than puttering arund with other smaller things. It will feel so rewarding to be done with "the thing"!
• Work ahead by batching: Don't make multiple trips to the copier; pick one day and do it for the week. Same thing with email...can you set aside a chunk of time to answer all of your emails all at once rather than little by little all.day.long? Or maybe lesson planning...plan an entire unit rather than just thinking about individual lessons.
• Resist Perfectionism: Relax your standards a bit don't let perfectionism hold you back from good. Rather than adjust a lesson, project, or presentation over and over again...trust the key points are there and that's enough.
• Schedule your time carefully: Use your calendar to schedule your time and stick to it; for example, if you are planning a lesson, give yourself 2 hours on a Sunday and then be done.
• Change your feedback: Save time by giving personalized verbal feedback rather than writing all of your feedback (Hillman & Stalets, 2019).
• Enlist students and volunteers: Take advantage of students who want to help by making copies, decorating a bulletin board, or display case, hang up student work, or sharpening pencils.
• Traffic Apps: Driving time can be saved by leveraging Google Maps or Waze since they detect traffic jams and will suggest shortcuts for you.