Welcome to HIT—How I Teach….In this episode, I talk about one of my top ten favorite things: time management. With the new year upon us, people are often looking for time management techniques, especially teachers and parents. So I thought this topic would be perfect to end the year 2021 with—and take us into 2022 with more tools and coaching to meet our goals!
So…here we go! I have to give the big picture first. In the first of this two-part series, I start out with time management concepts. What we believe about time (and managing it) will have a huge impact on how we go into the new year—and even how we approach our crisp new 2022 planner!
These big picture items include:
- Definition of time (and how it measures the time we spend on things—and how it continues on and on)
- Infinite or finite? What does that mean?
- How are time and money alike and how are they different?
Then I start at the beginning of the Prioritizing Planner and move through the month-long calendar to the Monthly Memos (or monthly planning pages). Of course, you can do this with any calendar, so these tools are helpful regardless of what system you use.
MONTHLY CALENDAR
- Always be filling in future pages
- Develop a home base (electronic or paper)
- Set aside time each week to update and reconcile electronic with paper, etc.
MONTHLY MEMOS—Or Any Monthly Planning Pages
- Plan for the month by categories of your life (divide with category headers)
- Make this the big items (don’t add any little daily tasks at this time)
- Plan your month by categories
- Fill in Big Goals for Month (these should match your month planning)
- Set aside time at the end of each month to set monthly goals—and use future Monthly Memo pages as you come across things for future months)
Whoah….if we understand the nature of time and decide that we are going to tell time where to go rather than time just slipping through our fingers… If we believe that organizing (planning ahead of time where our time will go… If we keep our monthly calendars up to date (and be sure there is always a home base!)…If we spend a little time at the beginning of each month to really hone in what this month’s focus and Big Goals are…
We will be on our way to being productive, having fun and down time, spending our time on what we truly want to spend it on, giving our time to people (one of the best gifts that we can give them), doing our jobs well, and much more!
See you next week when we plan our weeks—then learn how to block our days (including my signature Daily Fives—First Five and Fast Five daily)!
Of course, I have some free planner pages in your Teacher’s Notebook this week! And they are in the Power Point presentation so you can follow along as I teach.
And for your convenience, How I Teach…. is available as a podcast (follow along in your TN sheets for that week) and a YouTube video (with Power Point containing the same as the TN)!
Note: This lesson came from The Prioritizing Planner available at my Teacher’s Pay Teachers store!
Find everything you need here!
Weekly broadcast episodes with Teacher’s Notebook downloads (and links to listen or watch!) at the Language Arts Lady blog
Master (continually updated) Teacher’s Notebook downloadable booklet
Free writing books and videos of me teaching your students for you for a couple of weeks!
All of my digital books
How I Teach YouTube Channel
How I Teach Podcast
