The Minimalist Educator Podcast
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 047: Aligning Time with Priorities with Tammy and Christine
Have you ever felt like there’s just not enough time in the day to accomplish everything on your to-do list? Tammy and Christine get real about their own struggles with balancing professional duties and personal life on this episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. They share heartfelt anecdotes and practical tips that make managing time feel a bit more achievable. From combating social media distractions to the necessity of prioritizing rest, you’ll discover how being mindful of your time can align your actions with your true priorities.
Ready to reclaim your day? We explore tried-and-true time management strategies that are specifically tailored for educators. Whether you’re a fan of old-school post-its or prefer high-tech Chrome extensions, we’ve got you covered. Learn how to identify your top priorities, adapt your schedule based on realistic time assessments, and navigate the unique challenges of different work environments. Plus, we emphasize the all-important balance between work and personal downtime to keep your productivity and well-being in check.
Master the power of habits to elevate your productivity! In our final discussion, we dive into integrating new habits into existing routines and the benefits of tackling cognitively demanding tasks with focused time blocks. We also touch on the value of seeking support from colleagues and employing personal productivity hacks. Most importantly, we remind ourselves that our self-worth isn’t tied to our to-do lists and that rest is a non-negotiable component of effective time management. Join us as we embrace minimalism and intentional time management to transform our lives as educators.
This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Professional Learning Services: forward-thinking support for educators.
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The Minimalist Educator Podcast is a Plan Z Professional Learning Services adventure.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a podcast about paring down to refocus on the purpose and priorities in our roles with co-hosts and co-authors of the Minimalist Teacher Book, Tammy Musialski-Borneman and Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2:On this episode we discuss the importance of aligning your time with your priorities. We talk about lots of different factors and strategies that you can do to ensure that you are using your precious time on what is most important to you.
Speaker 3:Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today, Christine and I are going to be talking about something that we all struggle with, and that is our use of time. So we are going to be talking about how we can align our time with our priorities. But before we do that, how are you today, Christine? I'm great. Tammy, how are you? I'm pretty good Once again. The birds are chirping. Maybe you can hear them, maybe you can't, but they're just happy to be here too.
Speaker 3:And as always it's fun to talk about the things that you know are our passion areas, but I mean it doesn't mean that we don't also struggle with these things as well when we're having these conversations with educators.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think this is going to be one of those chats that serves as a good reminder to me as well about how I can be doing better.
Speaker 3:Yes, me too. So we're thinking about this idea of aligning time, because often we feel like we don't have enough of it, whether it's trying to get our personal things done and our professional things. You know, there's just not enough time in the day. And then we pair that with trying to prioritize, like how, you know, prioritizing is hard because there's things that come up that interfere with us trying to actually do the things that are most important, interfere with us trying to actually do the things that are most important.
Speaker 3:So, if let's just kind of think about how that feels for people, I think in general, right just thinking about we don't have enough time, or it feels like we don't have enough time. How do we do all the things that we need to do and how do we prioritize?
Speaker 2:It's just making me think about my own recent habits around time and priorities because, as you know, tammy, I love to write.
Speaker 2:We both love to write. Yes, and I keep complaining to people that I just don't have the time to write, that you know I have work and a house to maintain and food to cook, and you know you've got to social, house to maintain and food to cook, and you know you've got to socialise a bit, you've got to exercise, you've got to do all these different things as an adult and I don't have time, and because the writing is generally for me, it doesn't feel like it's high on that priority list because all of the other things are of greater importance. However, if I'm really going to get honest when I'm saying I don't have time, am I actually considering the time that I spend scrolling on my phone or binge watching some amazing show or, you know, re-watching a movie I've seen before, like? Am I actually thinking carefully about the time that I have available to me and whether I am aligning it with my priorities or that one priority in particular? Is that something that you've experienced as well?
Speaker 3:Yes, very relatable, because even just last night I was standing in my kitchen and I was like pretty proud of myself for the things I'd gotten done yesterday. And then I had this little list of other things that were. You know, they're important but I didn't really. There were things I didn't put in my calendar and I looked at them and I was like, oh, I don't have enough time to do that. But then I'm like, well, I'll just bring my laptop into bed and I'll work on that, which is like not a great thing to do, not healthy, no, right. But but I mean I got one more thing done and like I was proud of myself. But again, checking off a thing on your to-do list is like doesn't measure your self-worth. So it's a it's a really bad habit to get into, especially when you know I mean I sleep okay, but a lot of people don't, and it's because there's not enough of that detachment time to like get the time to properly rest.
Speaker 3:How do we, you know, sometimes we have to prioritize rest to actually be productive. So, um, yeah, that's just so relatable. And same thing with just you know I'll, I'll be like, oh, I'm gonna take a little break. And then I, you know, half an hour later I'm like, okay, I'm still looking at, like Frenchie reels. I don to spend all this time looking at these cute little dogs, but they're so cute and funny and it's a good escape, but I probably don't need to do it for 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:I genuinely do think, though, that looking at videos of beautiful dogs is an unappreciated form of self-care. I'm just going to put that out there.
Speaker 3:I would agree with you. It does Like, if you need to lighten your mood, that's I, that's what a lot of people do, right? It's like I'm going to go look at cats or dogs or whatever your thing is that you like to look at, and it it does help alleviate some of the mental stress for a short amount of time, that's for sure. You come back to reality and you're like, okay, well, that time is gone. So, yeah, for sure, refocus. So what do you think then might be some good ideas or like starting points for people and you know this is everyone, because most of our listeners are educators in some kind of role, and so most people feel like I don't have time to do all of these important things. So what's something that people could start with?
Speaker 2:Well, I imagine it really goes in two different directions, because you might have some people who haven't actually taken a moment to think about what their priorities are.
Speaker 2:So, obviously, if people aren't sure what their personal priorities are, then that's the first step for them is actually to think about that. What is most important for me at this moment in my life? To think about that what is most important for me at this moment in my life. However, if you do know what your priorities are, I think and I'm talking to myself when I say this if you do know what your priorities are, I think you do need to spend some time reflecting and thinking about how much time you are spending on different things. So we could old school pencil and paper track our time across the week, how much time we're spending A lot of the smartphones. Now they have something on there that will indicate to you how much time you've spent on your phone, how much time you've spent on your different apps. So using tools like that to actually help us track our time. I think those two directions, those two first steps, depending on where you are at the moment, I think that's a good place to start.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so too and really thinking about however you track it, like for myself, I think I might've mentioned in like previous episodes how I had kind of annexed post-its from my life or sticky notes for a while, and it started in Singapore because I would just have them everywhere.
Speaker 3:And then I'm like where did I write that thing? And I can't find it. And then I was like, okay, no more post-its, I'm just going to write in one book the things that I need to do, and it's all in one place. But in recent months I have brought the stickies back because I do like to put my priorities like one per post, it kind of like a caban board I think that's how you say it that that's kind of useful for like reorganizing how your week looks with your tasks, and so I'll write one priority or I mean I'll call it a priority or a thing to do, like a thing I would put on a to do list and that helps me sort out what I actually need to do first and for whatever that prioritized reason is. So for me I might have, like I have post-its littered all across my shelf right here and I have some tucked into my one sleeve that I keep traveling with me, which I said I wasn't going to do anymore. I went through some of them and I was able to get rid of some, but I still have a few, but I do. I often resort them. So when I look at them I'm like, oh, actually I'm going to move this. So things that I need to do, first I'll put to the left, like you know, same as you would reading, and then if it turns out that there's two or three, then I'll be like, okay, these three things, and I'll just put them vertically and put them. You know, like I got to do this first and then that and then that, and that's helped me just know, actually, what the priority is. And so, without even looking at, you know, there's no time tracking or anything at this point yet, but at least I know what the things are.
Speaker 3:And when I look at those post-its I'm usually like I can totally do this today.
Speaker 3:I can do these two or three things today, which very much replicates, kind of just in a different manipulative way, like a full focus planner, you know by Michael Hyatt, and I use that for a couple of years pretty religiously, just keeping track of like these are my top three rocks, or whatever he calls them priorities or focuses for the day, and that I think that's where what really started me on like, okay, I do need to just have a couple of things per day so that I can use my time effectively, and then, you know, a priority has to be having some downtime too, so like you can't be mentally on all the time, or physically on, depending on what your job is or what your personal tasks are, so, so then I take those two or three things and then I put them into my Google calendar and I block out the time, and so that's something I'm working on, though. So I will put the time in and I'm trying to get better about sticking to the time block that I have in there, cause.
Speaker 3:I do a lot of shifting, like I won't necessarily change the day for it, but I'll shift where it happens in the day, just because sometimes things take longer than anticipated, which usually is the case, like it takes two or three times longer than you think to do certain things. Yeah, so that's one of the things that I'm really trying to work on is is being realistic about the time that it takes for me to actually accomplish one of those things and sticking with that time that's in my calendar. So how do you do your time blocking and scheduling?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a mixture of things really. When you're in the classroom full time, you don't necessarily have control over the time that you have. I think we're all aware that, even though you might have a prep period scheduled in your day, it's highly, highly likely that that's going to get grabbed by something that wasn't on your to-do list. You know whether it's a sick child or an injury, or you know emergency emails that need to be sent or photocopying that you thought you had done but you'd forgotten to. You know there's all these different things that come out of the woodwork which mean that your top priority for the day might get bumped out for something else that comes up.
Speaker 2:So the days in the classroom that I have, I still find that it's very hard to be in control of what you use your time for in the classroom. The days that I'm in the office and obviously my personal time, you have a little bit more control over what you get done. So I've got a digital tool it's a Chrome extension actually, and it's like four quadrants and it was supposed to be like do now, do later, delegate that sort of thing, and I just I changed the titles around a little bit, so one of the quadrants I always have, like these are my top ones for today, so I drag them in from the other quadrants what I want to get done and then hopefully, hopefully I have enough control over over the schedule in that particular day to achieve that. And, like you said, it's got to be realistic. It's if I'm putting eight, nine 10 tasks in there, I'm probably not going to get all of those done. So it's only hurting yourself if you have unrealistic expectations like that.
Speaker 3:So so yeah, and I think too and this is something I felt like I kind of worked on while we were in Singapore too, one same place I ditched the stickies but I was trying to be realistic about our prep times that we had, and so obviously we know we had certain prep times that were designated for like collaborative planning, so that was fine. But the ones that we didn't have to meet with our team, I feel like I kind of chunked out the time. So, knowing that the prep was 45 minutes, I would say like half of that, like half of that, I would leave for those things that come up unexpectedly and then have the one or two things to do for the rest of the time, because I knew that if I had that long list I was not going to accomplish them and just feel frustrated about it Absolutely. And so I think, and I think it was just like the culture of our school and how things were. It was just a really good culture for like trying to figure out what was most important.
Speaker 3:So I think I kind of figured out a good, a few good ways to save time and save some energy and like ditch things that weren't really serving me that I had brought with me from New York, because you know, that was a very different system. And when I moved, when I moved to Singapore, I just remember a lot of times thinking like, okay, I feel like caught up on everything. Like this is a weird feeling like what, and? But I think I just was able to have time to prioritize and think about like it wasn't a constant rush and so I was able like feel like I was caught up with things, which, you know, I never really was, but, um, it just felt a little calmer and like I had time to like sit and process and reflect on things and which I just felt like I never had time to do in the other system.
Speaker 2:Well, Well, that's good. That's a good experience to have for sure. This is also making me think about the episode we had with Jessica Holloway I think it was episode 25 where she was talking about really meticulously planning out your week in advance to make sure that you're including your priorities in your schedule, that you're not just trying to fit it in in an ad hoc way, but you're actually thinking carefully through that schedule. Do you remember that conversation we had with Jessica?
Speaker 3:I do and just as you were bringing that up, yeah, so she would plan out her week ahead on the Friday before leaving work, which I think is super smart, because you're still embedded in your work week and you're thinking about okay, this is what I need to take with me into next week.
Speaker 3:And that kind of made me just remember again about working within the full focus planner. Their planning ahead would be on the Sunday. So you're doing that kind of writing out all your stuff and then categorizing it and prioritizing it. But I do think it's really valuable especially if you have a lot of work things that are carrying over to do it on Friday when you're in that context, because you don't have to try to retrieve information from two days before trying to like oh, what was it on Friday that I knew I had to do, and then you've lost it right, and then you're spending all this mental energy trying to remember. But if it's fresh in your mind, because you're wrapping up your week, it just makes the most sense to use that end of Friday time to set you up for success in the following day, because then you're not wasting your Monday morning time trying to figure out what you're doing Catching back up again, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:And I do really like that idea of planning it out ahead of time if you have the possibility to make that happen in your life, because otherwise you can keep putting those priorities back, back, back and never actually getting to them. So if you can schedule with some forethought, I think that would be super helpful, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that just kind of leads into thinking about the habits we set up for ourselves right so absolutely Create that routine on Fridays where, like, you just spend 10 minutes before you leave just setting up your priority list for the next week. That will become your habit and then it's one less thing for you to think about or forget that you have done. And so if you are really thinking about, okay, I need this to be a habit, so then it's easier for me to come into work on Monday, then definitely should be doing those kinds of things For sure.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, if you can. If you can utilize any of the habits that you have, whether it's at home or at work, I think you can. That's the whole point of of that work around habits, isn't it? Is that if it's already built into our lives, it's already an established habit. It's so powerful. So if you've got a habit of taking your kids out to recess, going straight to the staff room to get a coffee, what's another thing that you can build into that habit? Is it check your emails or is it touch base with the colleague that you need to be checking in on? What is that extra habit that you can build into that routine that you already have to meet those priorities for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Christine, we have talked a lot about trying to make the best use of time and align it with the priorities that we have, and we've just been talking a little bit about habits.
Speaker 3:But I do think that when we allow ourselves the time to prioritize in whatever way, that works right. So, whether it's using the Post-its and you're rearranging them or a digital matrix or some kind of other system, you do have to really think about like, don't skip over those hard things. Right, and we've talked about this with our urgent, important matrix, where some of those things that actually we think are priorities but they're not, but they're easy to do. So it's like a quick check off your to-do list, but make sure those really important things in your life that are sometimes harder to do or take longer, block the time out and make that a habit. And also, I think something that makes that easier is telling someone that you're going to do that. So it's like okay, Christine, I really want to prioritize writing for this next month and as much as I love writing, sometimes it's just a struggle but I'm going to block out these times.
Speaker 3:So I'm telling you or like invite you into that and I think when we can try to bring people into the things that we're trying to accomplish that are hard, and we get the encouragement from people, that's helpful.
Speaker 3:Right, it's a little bit of actually don't and it just, like you know, it kind of lifts our spirits a bit when we actually like dive into the hard priority.
Speaker 3:It might be just like grading some papers or reading some article you need to review or whatever. It is something that's just a little bit more cognitively taxing, because we do tend to push that off, especially if there's no hard deadline. But we know it's an important thing to do and especially within our roles, like there's just all these different kinds of tasks that you know require different amounts of time and energy. But if someone that helps us and I don't even want to say like keep us accountable, but kind of right, like just keep us on track, like keep check in with me, make sure I'm wisely I just feel like that's really helpful and I, especially for me, me, like I need to be on a zoom with someone doing my work sometimes, because otherwise my attention is just elsewhere and I'm like going outside to do weeding or I'm like cleaning the kitchen or you know, and then I'm like, okay, well, there goes that I'm gonna have to shuffle that till tomorrow and that's not what we're trying to do here that's it.
Speaker 2:But I think I mean you bring up a good point there that you kind of you need to know yourself and what's going to work for you. If working next to someone works for you, then leverage that as much as you possibly can. If you're someone who needs a deadline, maybe put a deadline on your priorities, on your goals, you know. Like, if that's going to help you get there, use whatever hacks you can to get there, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we've been talking a lot about trying to align our priorities and time. And so it's time for a paradigm pointer. What do you suggest?
Speaker 2:I think I'm going to refer back to what you commented on earlier about being really good at to-do lists is not a measure of our self-worth. And I think I would add on to that because there's many, many, many of us in the world who, unfortunately, we do link our value as a human with our productivity, with how much we get done. I think there's a lot of teachers that would fall into that category, I have to say, and so I think that idea of rest is productive. Rest is important. There's lots of different kinds of rest and we need a whole bunch of different kinds of rest and remembering that that is really valuable, it's really important, and getting 20 things off the to-do list doesn't make you a better or more valuable person. I think that's just a good reminder.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's just a really reminder, yeah, and I think that's just a really great way to wrap up the episode. Okay, yeah, because I think it is probably the most important point that we are not our to-do lists. This is true, yeah, yes, thank you, christine. No thank you as always. As always, great, yes, and of course, we'll have lots of more episodes coming up for our listeners. Can't wait.
Speaker 2:Today's episode was brought to you by Plan Z Professional Learning Services forward-thinking educator support. Find out more at planzplservicescom.
Speaker 1:Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for more episodes of the minimalist educator podcast. They would love to hear about your journey with minimalism. Connect with them at plan zpls on twitter or instagram. The music for the podcast has been written and performed by Gaia Moretti.
