In The Happy Teacher Habits, I covered several ways to leave work at a decent hour.
This is important because it . . .
Lowers stress.
Makes the job more enjoyable.
Frees you to enjoy your family and hobbies.
Helps you avoid burnout.
Gives you energy.
Makes you more excited for each day.
Efficiency has been a priority for me for the past 31 years of teaching. It’s a big reason why I continue to teach, with zero plans to retire.
But you have to be purposeful about it.
Former Navy Seal and author Jocko Willink has a book called Discipline Equals Freedom, and I think it’s absolutely true. To make room for life outside of school, you must have discipline.
You must have strategies in place to guard your time and enhance your ability to focus. One of the best is to place strict limits on your daily schedule.
For example, unless there is an unusual and unplanned incident that I must be involved in, I leave school at the same time every day.
I know this. It’s with me always and otherwise cannot be changed. What this does—and here is the real benefit—is force me to be intentional.
It forces maximum efficiency, creativity, directness, and clarity of speech and thought.
By limiting your time, you become sharper. You become more organized, foresighted, and systematic. It becomes who you are, the way you think and move.
Giving yourself less time is based on a well-known phenomenon called Parkinson’s Law.
Quoting from The Happy Teacher Habits:
“Parkinson’s Law is the tendency for organizations and individuals to expand a task in complexity and importance in relation to the time given for its completion.
In other words, if you give yourself an hour to prepare for a day’s teaching, then you’ll fill the whole hour, often with obstacles and difficulties you would have never encountered had you allowed yourself only half the time.”
The key is to do it every day.
Have constraints in place for when you arrive in the morning and leave for the day. The deadlines will naturally allow your brain to subconsciously do what it needs to do.
If you have x-amount of things to get done, you’ll figure out a way to do it. It will come to you as long as you trust the computer sitting atop your shoulders.
The amazing thing about Parkinson’s Law is that because it enhances creativity and concentration, and forces you to rely on your best instinct, the product is better.
I recommend getting started by creating a firm time for leaving school that moderately challenges you to get your work done. When that no longer becomes a challenge, shrink the deadline.
Keep shrinking until you reach the perfect departure time.
You’ll be astonished by how much you’ll accomplish. For most people just trying the strategy the first time, they’ll see their efficiency improve drastically. And it won’t be a rushing, scatter-brained experience.
You’re not moving faster per se, you’re getting smarter and more discerning, which translates to speed. You may even find yourself physically slowing down and becoming calmer.
There is more to this topic, including how to say no, limit your screen time, plan a lesson in two minutes, and set parameters on specific tasks.
We’ll be sure to cover these and more in future posts. In the meantime, if you have questions, please leave them below and I’ll get to them in an upcoming video.
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I wish I had internalized this 20 years ago! I would leave with the custodians at 11pm every night. This article is TRUE. We work quicker and smarter when we limit our time! In my youth I did not understand this. Yet when I sub, I am forced to think very quickly and move ahead! Wanting perfection is a downfall and a health disaster.
I need this in my life. I feel like I am one of the very few teachers that stay late every night. I felt like it was understandable my first two years but now that I’m in my third year, I want to do better. I am looking forward to hearing more about this.
I took a class called the 40 hour work week, and this actually works. I, who was a teacher, that was all I did, became much better. The first year, I made the commitment to leave at 4:30, giving the school 30 minutes each day, mostly because I didn’t think I could do a good job with less time than that, but that was 5-6 hours a week less than I had been giving.
This year – I am ready to go at 4:00, and very, very seldom do I take work home as in maybe twice.
Routines are what made it work for me, I have a card posted on my desk, check lesson plans for tomorrow, erase boards, and put up vocab, check computers plug in, straighten my desk. I am ready for tomorrow.
I teach 5 preps – I prep a unit with ideas for several lessons, adjust it for the next day. I do a lot of assessing of my students, right now, on my clipboard. I guard my planning for that – planning.
But what I stopped doing, was I quit writing lesson plans for administration. I write them for me. And guess what – admin has never said anything. So this, and a morning routine, and afternoon routine has worked for me.
It really can be done.
This just sounds amazing. I’m struggling so much right now. On oyher thing I may br missing is basic lesson planning skills.
But I’m definitely taking notes.
Thank you!! #newteacher
Hi Monica,
Thank you for sharing all of this. By any chance do you have a copy of your routine. I could really use some help in creating a schedule/checklist/routine.
It is going to sound so trivial, but when I took the class, it asked, what has to be done, and identify what makes for a lot of stress.
So here goes:
AM.
* attendance/lunch
* goguardian- on
* check calendar
* plan my planning – I keep a running to do list
PM.
* Wipe my boards
* Vocabulary & Bell work is on board
*check computers are plugged in
*tidy my desk
* check to do list – work until 4:00
I teach 4 preps – so I prep a unit, then the day before – if I need copies I do them.
I keep a clipboard – I have a sheet for the week – grades and attendance goes on there, or anything weird – like fire drills or the lights went out. I try and get those grades in the electronic grade book by Thursday or Friday. You can pick 1st period – Monday grades, or
Science – Tuesday. If you keep hacking at it, it really does not get to be a huge undertaking. A lot of things are graded at their seat, or an online assignment.
Hope this helps
So lovely to read your post. Very encouraging.
Awesome topic! I teach at a small private school so I teach 5-6 different courses daily rather than 1 course 5-6 times per day. Also, since we’re private, the teachers create their entire curriculum. I enjoy doing this but I can really get lost in spending WAY too much time defining the curriculum and lesson planning. I’ve gotten better but I’d be curious to hear any suggestions even from other teachers on being more efficient with respect to these specific issues. Thanks!
I also teach at a private school. I teach second grade. In the past, I had taught first AND second grade. I had learned to be efficient in my teaching but not after school hours. Now that I have two kids of my own in middle school with their activities, I don’t have a choice. I HAVE to leave school at a certain time and it has forced me to really stick to a routine. For planning, I have a specific checklist that I follow (making copies, setting stuff out for the next day, etc.) I (with permission) made my own worksheets because I did not like the worksheets we used through our curriculum. That took time to set up but now all I have to do is press print. I spend each plan time first checking in their homework, organizing or cleaning one spot of the classroom for five minutes only, then plan for the next week. By Friday, I have everything ready to go for the next week. I have a basket for each day of the week and my worksheets and any manipulatives needed go in the baskets. Also, for my plan book, I use post it notes instead of writing and erasing plans. If I get behind on a lesson, I simply just have to move the post it note. Hope this helps!!
Thanks so much, Holly. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.
I need more of this in my life – I feel like I’m constantly working…always planning, marking..it’s exhausting. I’d love to hear more on this, especially planning good quality lessons quickly and efficiently!
I love this article and these points are working for me- worker smarter not harder!
Thank you 🙏🏽
Hello Michael Linsin! I’m an ESL teacher in Québec – with 12 groups, 3 cycles to teach, and only 2 hours of prep time.
So YES – more on this topic would be AWESOME. I’m getting better at it – but I’d love more pointers… Will try the “leaving at the same time” routine.
Thank you SO MUCH for your incredible work. You have helped me more than anyone – as a specialist teacher.
Have a great spring!
Miss Csano in Saint-Jérôme, QC
When I was on practicum a teacher I observed has an awesome PowerPoint for his lesson. It was pitched just right, engaged the students, and had appropriate number and complexity of animations. I was gobsmacked at the quality of it. I asked him after the lesson how long it took him to make the PowerPoint. He said “about 5 minutes searching on Google”. He had downloaded a pre-existing lesson!
Wow. This article was a wake up call for me. I get to work by 7:15 (we start at 9:00!) and leave between 5 and 5:30 ( kids are gone by 4:15). I just like the peace and quiet in the morning to get things prep for the day and I have to clean and organize my classroom since we are short staffed on cleaners. I have been like this for 26 years of teaching. I guess I’m a workaholic or a sucker for stress. I’m going to try this out this week…baby steps:)
Wonderful!
I returned to school after our 2-week break, determined to leave by 4pm. I felt pretty defeated when 5pm rolled around and I was still at school…two days in a row. Then I shifted my goal to just leave earlier than the day before, which felt a lot more achievable! If you’re typically a late-stayer and you’re struggling to quit cold turkey, you might try incrementally reducing your time at school and see how you go.
I’m looking forward to hearing about planning a lesson in 2 minutes. I’ve gotten much better at classroom management since discovering
your website, so it’s becoming much easier to leave early and not be stressed out.
It was not the planning of the lesson that took time, it was typing all the details in the admins form, the standard, the opening, the middle, the end. All good things to do, I bet most of you do them. I just quit writing them for Admin. What do I need?
Page number – where are we?
supplies for the lesson – copies, scissors – poems whatever
More planned and ready to go than you think you will get done. If you don’t, you have a head start for tomorrow.
I do keep a list of good websites that my kids and I enjoy using. I don’t use the same ones every day, so sometimes I forget about them. Having a list helps me think -Oh, I could do that.
And I don’t write them for the whole week – I have a where I want to start on Monday – possibly Tuesday… then see how it goes. I fill in the electronic one more about what actually happened, not what I had planned. Because that was the other thing, plans don’t always go through – so I was spending more time moving assignments.
I do agree with you. If it takes you too much time planning, It will take too much time for the students to complete the assignment and it leaves no time for reflections and shortens comprehension. However, it is very important in any presentation to be very well planned. You need to evaluate what to teach as well as how to teach it. There are a lot of resources in planning and teaching lessons. Also, teach to the test. Teach what is most important for the students to retain from any lesson. When you are burned out, the students can tell and they imitate this burn out. However, don’t be careless in planning lessons.
Michael,
Do you write all of these articles? Do you read comments? Why do you have a comment section with each article? Is this a place for teachers to vent, share opinions, and support each other? Do you think teachers should answer questions that their students ask after a lesson is taught? I ask all of these questions because I’ve noticed you rarely comment or reply. I’m sure most people reading these articles really don’t expect you to answer and reply to each comment but wonder if you take into account what these people are saying or asking. Im not being critical, just curious. I don’t really expect an answer. I’m pretty sure you will not even read this. LOL