Time Management

An educator’s day is hectic; full of meetings, planning, errands, and the real work – teaching. Teachers take work home to grade and go in on weekends to catch up before beginning the next week. And sometimes, when all those plates are spinning, it’s difficult to take a step back and see what can be done to be more efficient. Implementing good time management skills can help. But keep in mind that the basis of effective time management means realizing that we cannot accomplish every single thing that we would like to accomplish. So with this in mind, here are a few general tips:

  • Make a list of all the things that you need to get done in a given time period (day, week, month, etc.) Then prioritize by order of importance and urgency.
  • Realistically approximate the amount of time each task will take to complete. Don’t forget to factor in easily overlooked tasks, such as transportation time and preparation.
  • Get your papers and materials organized so you won’t have to spend excess time hunting things down.
  • Group activities/tasks as much as possible, including errands around the school.
  • Don’t multitask, it’s distracting and less efficient.
  • Save emails and phone calls for a specified time (e.g., early or late in the day)
  • Do difficult tasks when you are ‘fresh.’

This short list is just the start. There are many wonderful time management resources and tips to be googled specific to teachers. For example, K. J. Wagner suggests that at the beginning of the year, assign each student a number which corresponds to the number in your roll book. Instruct students to put their numbers (along with their names) on their papers. Then, when you collect the papers, simply have one student put them in numerical order. Marking grades in the book then becomes a snap because you are not jumping from name to name trying to find a particular student. And I’ll add that if you do this on a spreadsheet or with grading software, you can sort the list however you need (e.g., by number or name).

So, after trimming away or limiting all the extra obligations you can, looking at how you perform activities and streamlining tasks, putting time management practices in place, hopefully, you will have created some extra time. So before you fill it with anything extra, spend it on youself first.

John Holt
Cornerstone Psychological Services
3-17-2008