Ep. 85 5 Monthly Habits of a Sustainable Teacher

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Just as it was true in my last episode, it’s true here too.  These 5 habits are not rocket science, not earth shattering, but they are slightly different from other tips I’ve seen because they aren’t just for teachers, and they also aren’t just for anyone.  These tips are for educators who are managing all the things, and want to build some habits into their life that allow them to manage it all a little more sustainably.

Sustainable Teacher Challenge

We are talking about all things sustainable teaching on this podcast  - whether it’s sustainable grading, systems at home, or classroom strategies - it’s all about helping you feel supported and sustained.  If you’re feeling you want more - more ways to be sustainable, or tips and ideas from me and my team at Teach  On A Mission, I want to challenge you.  Meaning, I want to welcome you to our totally free 7-day Sustainable Teacher Challenge.  Each day I’ll show up in your email with a training video and a workbook of prompts that will help you reflect on and ultimately make more sustainable decisions for your classroom.  You can register when you’re ready by going to teachonamission.com/sustainableteacherchallenge.

5 Monthly Habits of a Sustainable Teacher

1. Preview your family/personal and professional calendars - what overlaps or conflicts, what can you do to resolve it
1. Do this on Google Calendar
   
   
2. Review your annual, quarterly, and monthly goals - I use my Full Focus planner to do this, which you can learn more about on our website here.
1. What goals do I need to accomplish this month to stay on track for the quarter and year?  What plan do I have in place to do that and is it doable?
3. Check your Amazon Subscribe and Save (or make your list for a monthly trip to a bulk store near you) - make sure you’re set for the month on all your must-have items. Your protein powder and go-to snacks, household nonperishable items, hygiene products, etc. Sign up for Amazon Subscribe and Save items here.
4. Purge - physical and mental clutter is the most detrimental low key productivity killer ever - purge papers on desk and in classroom, lost and found items, short pencils and broken crayons or other student materials you have readily available, trash accumulating on shelves, desktop files, email inbox, etc.
   
   
5. This one requires a project management system like I talked about in my last video, and I’m going to call it the Iceberg Ahead Alert - like on Titanic when they see the iceberg coming, it’s a problem up ahead, in their near future, but the load they are carrying is too heavy to be able to move and adjust in time to avoid the problem.
1. This is true with your task or project management as well.
2. When in Asana, I can see the tasks I have coming up at least a few weeks if not a month or more in advance, as long as I have all my projects fully planned out.  So when it comes to managing my time, I’m going to look at the My Tasks view and see (and you can probably do this with your calendar as well, it will just be more effective with project management like Asana) when I have too much to handle up ahead so that I can move my workload around in time in order to avoid the complete stop that the problem (or bottle neck of tasks), or the iceberg if we stick with the analogy, would cause.
3. I can see I have 9 tasks on most days to complete during planning time, but then another day I have 15 or more… depending on those types of tasks, that’s just not doable.  If I’m looking ahead, I can switch things around, adjust my path so to speak in order to avoid “hitting the iceberg” and ultimately sinking this moving ship of productivity.
4. Learn more about Asana and get signed up for free here.

And I’ll see you here, same time next week.

Bye for now.