5 Ways to Maximize Your Teacher Work Day

Have you ever at the end of a teacher work day thought to yourself, “I barely got anything accomplished today. Where did the time go?” It has happened to me a time or two, or more, until I started doing these 5 things!

Now, I get a mountain of work done during my teacher work days with only a small hill left at the end of the day. I mean, let’s face it, our tasks as a teacher are never ending, so there will always be a small pile left at the end of any day. If leaving a small pile makes you feel overwhelmed, check out my post on How to Leave Your Work at Work.

Ready for those 5 ways to MAXIMIZE your teacher work day! Here they are:

1. Make a list.-Sounds simple, but it is a gamechanger. With everything running through our brains, it’s impossible to remember everything we need to accomplish. So, start by making a list of EVERYTHING you need/want to accomplish for the day. No matter how small.

However, be realistic and mindful of how many hours you have to work with. You don’t want to make your list impossibly long. The goal is to create a list that can either be fully completed or close to it. Also, be sure to include the due date, if there is one.

Note: This will be a separate list than your weekly list of to-dos that I suggest creating in How to Leave Your Work at Work, but many of these tasks will probably come from that list.

2. Prioritize the list.-Take that list of tasks and put them in order. No need to rewrite the list. You can renumber the list or just do what I do and star my top 3-5 items with one of my colorful Flair pens. It is important to prioritize your list because there is the possibility that you will not get everything done that is on the list. The tasks that are left at the end of the day can be added on to your weekly to-do list if they weren’t on it before.

3. Finish one task before starting a new one.– This one can be tricky, but you can do it! I struggle with this one because I start one task and, then, notice something else that needs doing and start doing that. Because it will only take a few minutes, I think. Then, I forget what I had been doing in the first place. Instead of doing that, take a moment to add it to your list. Then, it won’t be forgotten and you won’t get off track.

4. Build in breaks.– Another one that is tricky for some of us. On a teacher work day it is so easy to keep working and forget to eat or, even, go to the bathroom. I’ll get to mid-day and be like, wait, I really have to pee. Oh, yeah, I haven’t visited the bathroom since I got here. On a day when we can go to the bathroom whenever we need to, we should do it.

We should, also, take a lunch break. Schedule it into your day. Take time to eat your lunch in peace or join a friend. If you need inspiration for what to pack for lunch, check out my post 10 Super-Easy Teacher Lunch Ideas. Furthermore, it’s great if you can build in a 10-15 minute break at some point in your day to go chat with other coworkers. It can be a great stress-reliever. Plus, it’s hard to find time to catch-up on a regular school day.

When you get done with your breaks, you will find yourself refreshed. Once refreshed, you’ll find you can focus so much better. Then, you will get more completed than if you continued to plug away all day long. Check out this article The Importance of Taking Breaks from The Wellbeing Thesis in the U.K. for research on this topic.

5. Avoid distractions.– The distractions during a teacher work day are different than school day distractions. School day distractions are usually unavoidable whereas teacher work day distractions are preventable. By building those couple of breaks into your teacher work day, you can help to prevent a distraction to your flow of work. There are teachers who use a teacher work day to be able to go to talk to their teacher buddies. However, spend too much time talking and no work actually gets done. If another staff member stops by and you know it will take more than a few minutes, it’s best to politely ask if you can stop by their room later because you are in the middle of finishing something.

Besides building in breaks, another way to fit in a bit of chatting is while waiting for the copy machine to finish making copies. Many times the copy machine has to be babysat anyway, so that can be a good time to have a short conversation.

Another distraction to avoid goes along with #3. We can easily be distracted by working on one task and in the middle of that task you think of another one that needs to be completed. Focus on completing the task at hand before starting a new one.

If you share a room with another teacher like I do, the temptation for distraction is even greater. Something that helps is to play music at a low volume or wear ear buds. This will help you to not get distracted by your roommate.

In Conclusion

Our teacher work days are precious and even more precious when there is not a meeting scheduled for part of it. These 5 things may seem like common sense, but when that work day arrives it’s easy to lose yourself in the thoughts of I need to do this and this and this and how will I get it all done. That can cause us to lose time by freaking out, instead of getting things done. So, take a breath, and use these 5 ways to MAXIMIZE your teacher work day and you’ll be amazed by what you can accomplish!