The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 085: Behind Our New Book with Christine and Tammy
What if your greatest leadership move is not to add, but to edit? We share the thinking behind our new book, Your School Leadership Edit, and walk through a practical framework that helps you simplify systems, protect your time, and raise instructional impact without burning out your team.
We break down the Five Rs—reimagining, removing, repurposing, reinvesting, and refining—and show how they apply to the big structures that shape daily school life: communication, expectations, teacher support, time use, and family participation. You will hear why “edit” is our guiding metaphor, how to subtract redundant work with confidence, and where to reinvest those reclaimed minutes and dollars for the biggest gains. Expect concrete moves like time audits, meeting redesigns, clearer definitions of “done,” and small process tweaks that compound into calmer days and stronger results.
We also connect this minimalist approach to unlearning: questioning habits that survive out of tradition rather than evidence. Perfection is not the goal; reliability is. That means shipping minimum viable processes, refining what matters, and resisting the urge to polish forever. Along the way, we share personal shifts—like ditching a bloated digital task list for paper planning—and point you to free digital tools that accompany each chapter so you can take action right away.
If you’re a principal, AP, coach, department head, or teacher leader who wants fewer initiatives and better outcomes, this conversation offers a clear path forward. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who needs breathing room, and leave a review to help more leaders find a simpler, more intentional way to run their schools.
Find our book The Minimalist Teacher and Your School Leadership Edit: A Minimalist Approach to Rethinking Your School's Ecosystem at the links!
Follow on Instagram @PlanZEducation and @minimalist_ed_podcast.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast is a Plan Z Education Services adventure.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Musiowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your school leadership edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem, each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Today's episode is extra special for us. We're giving you a little bit of a behind-the-scenes look at our upcoming new book. We are very excited to share with you what you could expect when reading the new book. So let's dive in. Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today I am here with Tammy. How are you today, Tammy? I am doing well, Christine. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. Excited to get to talk to everyone about our project that we've been working on.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. The timeline is finally here. I mean, we've been working through a timeline for a while, but now we're getting to that point where this little project is coming out into the world. And we're just we're gonna talk through some pieces of this piece of writing we did. Someone was asking me the other day about like the writing process, and I was saying how we started it long ago. I think it was the end of 2022 or something like that. So it was like, you know, like a year-ish or something after the first book came out. Was it that long? Was it? I think it was. I think it was end of 2022, but we let it sit there for quite a while because we weren't sure if we were going to kind of dig into this school leadership landscape. But then we did. We did, and we smashed it out. We did.
SPEAKER_01:So, yes, we're talking about our new book that is coming out. It is called Your School Leadership Edit: A Minimalist Approach to Rethinking Your School Ecosystem. And its release date is November 17th, 2025. So if you're listening to that after this date, you can go out and grab your copy straight away. But by the time this episode airs, we should we should be able to do some pre-orders. If you feel like it, it should be available there for pre-orders. But we're really happy to see on the publisher's website that there is a preview of the book already available. So if you wanted to have a little look at a part of the book, it is there ready and available to preview already.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there's a nice little surprise to see that there. One of the things that we do talk about in the intro chapter is like how to read the book. Like, yes, we want you to read the prologue and the intro so you get the foundation, but then you can kind of pick and choose which chapters to read based on what your need is. So, and that's how I tend to read professional books sometimes, at least like with audio. But then I I always get the hard copy after because I'm like, oh, I need to like go back to that chapter because this piece like really stood out to me. So it's not meant to be read necessarily front to back. You could, but you can yeah, choose your own adventure, choose the chapters that speak to you, and really, really, we want this to be a guide for school leaders to make some changes, right? So, like kind of like the first book that we did, like we're not asking anyone to do something crazy or new or anything like that, but really evaluate your systems and from that high level school level, because that impacts everyday life in a classroom as well. So, you know, it's it's really just evaluating what we do and how can we make it better and and streamline and simplify for ourselves because you know, there's a lot of stuff that goes on in schools.
SPEAKER_01:There is, and that was really the thinking behind the title, wasn't it? Using the word edit and thinking about how when you edit something you're doing, you're really cutting down the pieces that aren't necessary or aren't quite right to create the best final product that you can. And we really like that thinking when it comes to school leadership, because there is so much that can be involved, but is all of it necessary for the best approach to your work and your life, really, as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. And then that I've already had with some people about what the premise of the book is and who it's for, I've been sharing because it's your school leadership edit, right? So when we think of school leadership, a lot of times we think of principals and assistant principals, and it's definitely for that audience, but it's really more than just for principals and assistant principals. It's anyone within the school parameters that has some kind of leadership role. So it might be a curriculum coordinator or an instructional coach or a teacher team lead or department head. So, really anybody who's uh a representative of the school and helps make decisions for the school and just so it's not really, and it's not that teachers can't read it, because obviously anyone can, but it's not specifically necessarily for just school leaders. So that's why school leadership is, you know, it's more open than just the role that you're in, because we know that a lot of people have leadership roles within a school.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm. And beyond those that just have a title, everyone can be a leader in a way as well. Some of the things that we talk about, just how you carry yourself through your school day can be so impactful on the people around you. So I think you know, everyone can be a leader in a in a certain way. But you're right, but probably the people who have some input in decision making is is probably the the target audience, really.
SPEAKER_02:What should we dive into, Christine?
SPEAKER_01:Should we get into the the framework for the strategies or yeah, I think the framework for sure, and then I feel like it would be interesting for people to hear a little bit of the different chapters as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, I think so too. Okay. So in this book, Christine and I, we love a framework, right? Because frameworks, yeah, it's a guide. We love an audit too. So you'll find audits in the book. Audits everywhere, yeah. Yes, because they're essential when you're evaluating systems, like you got to see what works, what doesn't. And so we created a five five Rs framework. In the first book, we have a triple P. So that's your kind of decision-making funnel around purpose, priorities, and paring down. And so you that appears in this book as well. But because we're looking at big picture systems, we felt we need to get a little bit deeper into some of like how we can work through systems. So our five R framework consists of reimagining, removing, repurposing, reinvesting, and refining. So in each chapter, you'll find strategies under those five Rs for each of the editing chapters. So, what do we want to talk about first? Should we talk about reimagining? Yes, absolutely. Okay. So reimagining is really just that, right? Like you're taking a few moments to, I don't want to say utopian, but you know, like how could things be better and different? Doesn't have to be perfect. We're not talking about perfection. We're talking about what's happening in our school system, structures. What structures do we have? And so maybe this is a good point of to just kind of talk about what the chapters are. So each chapter is about editing large systems within a school. So we have a chapter on communication, teacher support systems, time use, yeah, family participation. So we, you know, we did lots of brainstorming around like these are kind of the big, big pictures, picture items in a school. But then also we conclude with some structures for leadership, leader well-being, because we can't address all of this professional stuff without also talking about meeting the needs of leaders so that they aren't getting burnt out or feel alone or anything like that. So when we're talking about reimagining, we're looking at these big picture structures.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I it I think it's an important one because it would be very easy to fall into, well, this is how we've always done it in school environments. And so reimagining is really trying to capture that idea of what could it be like? So we're really evaluating what's currently happening, what your your school vision is, what how you've been working in your systems, and then thinking about what it could be instead. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. What's our next one?
SPEAKER_01:Remove. Let's talk about removing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, which I think might be it seems like it would be the easiest because it's like, well, let's just not do that anymore. But we have a hard time generally as humans letting go. We just do, right? The the consensus is that we add things on. We want to do more. We, you know, we sometimes think more as better or bigger is better, but there's research that says that's not the case. And so let's think about subtracting, doing less. No, that doesn't necessarily mean the quality changes, right? Probably your quality gets better if you're removing the extraneous distractions and you know, whatever is in the way of doing something really well within the school. And so just in some of the schools that I've been visiting recently, I'm seeing that so clearly because there are so many things that clutter spaces. Like mentally, I've had teachers crying with me because they are just so overwhelmed by all the things, like everything. And bottom of the list is often students, right? So, like, yeah. So, yeah, it's not so much about like, yeah, there's things going on with students, but for the most part, it's like, okay, reports, I gotta write reports and progress reports are, you know, right before that. And we I have to learn all them in these programs, and I don't know how to, you know, like there's a lot of that. So that full piece of the edit process should be taken really seriously.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And I think it parallels really nicely with with the triple P in the first book, thinking about the paring down. I think there's a really nice parallel there between the two of you know what are the key things that you need to keep, but what then can you get rid of that is not helping you? Because there is there are aspects of the work that we do that are redundant and unnecessary. And so you do really need to have a rethink about that. Yeah, most definitely. And next up we have repurpose, repurposing. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I like this one, it makes me think of going to a thrift shop and like finding uh somebody's old stuff, and you're gonna make a new thing out of it. It just yeah, it makes me think of like somebody else's junk as someone else's treasure or whatever that's saying is. We're not necessarily doing that, but that's what I think of, right? And it is kind of the process because you're like, well, what is the thing that we're doing that kind of works and has so many pieces to it, but how are we going to repurpose it for you know, another thing or in a different way? And so, and sorry, I'm gonna tangent here as I often do, but it sometimes is hard to separate out some of our five R's, right? Because in the repurposing, you're doing some rethinking, you're gonna be doing some refining. So there is a lot of crossover there, but the repurposes, like, yeah, what's right in front of us, and like how are we going to make this into something that you know it was supposed to be for this, but now we're gonna make it for this, which is very creative, I think it is, it is for sure.
SPEAKER_01:It is, but I think yeah, like that analogy of the thrift shop because it's it's so true. We do we do have things that that can be utilized and we might not be utilizing it in the best possible way right now. So how can we how can we think about this again and repurpose it for something that's gonna be more helpful? Uh yeah, uh for sure. And then next we have reinvest, which is not just about money. It can incorporate that, but it's not just about money, it's also about time spend, cognitive effort spend, effort spend, all of that can be reinvested to be more targeted, intentional.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, absolutely. I think you know, we're in a business of people, and so you know, just in current role and things that go on, I think about what's going to be the best reinvestment often of my time because I work for different entities and everybody's systems are different, and so I've had to learn a lot of different systems and documentations. So I I went through like a time reinvestment like a month ago because I was it was doing my head in. So I had to evaluate how my time was getting spent and my energy. So that was very helpful. And I did feel like literally there was a weight lifted from my shoulders after I just kind of sat down and determined that you know what, my enemy was my Google Calendar, and so I needed to reinvest in the paper pencil. I had to just stop putting tasks and it was hurting my eyeballs, hurting my brain. So I'm like, you know what? I gotta, I gotta let my brain exercise in a different way again and get hand paper. So that reinvestment was worth it because I feel a lot better.
SPEAKER_01:That's so funny that you said that because I've gone back to a bit of paper and pencil to-do lists as well. Isn't that funny?
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. And I mean, I bought some colorful pens, which are always helps. New stationery always helps. Yeah, it was fun, it's been a fun process. I don't really have a rhyme or reason to the colors I use at the moment because I just grab what's there, but it does yeah, it's it's really helped my brain just redoing that whole structure. So yeah, I like that. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:And then our final R is refine.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So I'm this is kind of one where I think we can get caught in it because here we're talking about reflecting on and tweaking what exists, you know, some similar-ish to the other five R's. But we can get caught in cycles of too much reiteration or too much refining, and and this might come in, you know, personality types can come into that. So we do have to be careful a little bit, I think, in this refinement, because again, we're not talking about perfection, we're talking about refining and revising so that just those little tweaks, and we can keep finding those little tweaks forever because there's always something. So this one is you know, just that last bit of refinement to make sure things might start with a smooth start or an easy transition, but let's not get caught up in overextending the refinement.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's a really, really good point because you could edit forever, couldn't you? As we say. So yeah, but that focus on like good enough, like this is a minimum viable product, this is good enough for now. We can have a longer term goal to refine what we're doing again next time on the next cycle or or whatever it might be. But yeah, a good balance between refining so that systems and procedures work well, but without putting that expectation on yourself that it's got to be refined to the point of perfection because that's not necessarily the best spent energy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, definitely. And then it just adds stress. You know, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:We don't need that. Exactly. I've got examples popping into my head right now, but that's okay. We don't have to go to examples.
SPEAKER_02:That's another episode.
unknown:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so we were just talking a little bit before we jumped on to record about the connection with our five Rs with the idea of unlearning. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, Tammy? Because I think that's a really good thing to point out while we're talking about the five R's.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. We do talk a little bit about unlearning and rethinking in the intro chapter based on ideas from the research of Dr. Adam Grant. And it's funny because his work is so logical to me, right? Like he does all this extensive research on, you know, multiple things, but some of the things that just really stick, stuck out to me in, I think it was the it's the book called Rethink or something, or think again, think again is what the book was. So this is kind of this leans into our idea of, you know, reimagining, rethinking with a different approach to school. And so we've been doing school, you know, for centuries, and it really hasn't changed that much. So there is, there's lots of educational memes and things that come up where it's like, here's all the ways your iPhone has changed in the last 10 years, here's all the ways that your computer is different from the last 10 years. But a classroom essentially looks the same and from like a hundred years ago. And that is shocking to me because we're talking about people that we serve in schools. We're not working with the same generation of people that we were a hundred years ago. Like things are just different, and like, yes, people essentially are the same, but also not. Like there's just different ideas about how to parent, there's different ideas about what school could be, but then we always revert back to this traditional model. And I mean, I I kind of understand why, because there is a fear and change, but why are we not spending more time unlearning and rethinking things that we know don't work? We know it. We know it. Lots of new research about, you know, around psychology and behavior and classroom systems and instructional practices that we know, well, it's researched, and so there's evidence to show, you know, this is kind of the direction that we need to go, and yet we don't do it. Or, I mean, I shouldn't say gen not everyone's tapping into that because there are pockets where yes, there's some really great innovative schools, but why isn't it bigger picture? Like, why are we not spending more time unlearning things that have been ingrained in us? I guess that's hard. It's hard to do, right? It's so tricky. It is, it is tricky, definitely. There we did manage to get a lot of thoughts in this book about quite a few things. I mean, we probably could have kept writing a bunch, but you know, as you always could, as you always could, yeah. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, no, that's a that's a that's an important point to make to just yeah, like we we said before, it's we don't want people to do like brand new everything. Like the title says, rethinking what's going on in your school's ecosystem. And we define a little bit what that means in the book because it is a lot. And will it change? I don't know. Right? I mean, maybe not in our careers. Yeah. And we can hide, we can hunt yes. Certain parts again, you know, like every community is different. There's definitely some innovative approaches. That kind of serve as a model or a place to look for some inspiration when we're trying to kind of work through all those all these big things. Because we are looking at some some heavy structures with some complex components. And yeah, I don't know. I think I think the book will give people a lot of things to rethink about. That's my hope too. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:You know, so if when you think about planting a seed or like helping people through, what which chapters in particular do you feel like will be a really have some really good takeaways for people? Obviously, we hope the whole book, but are there any that stand out to you as as feeling like they would have some really good points for people?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the expectation chapter really always kind of because it's something I talk about with people all the time in different aspects of like how do we even know if people know what the expectation is?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that might be that might be a five-year-old, and that might be a teacher, and you know, it might be your assistant principal or whatever. But there's a lot of layers to making sure that people understand and are clear about expectations for so many things in a school. And there can be a lot of confusion, there can be a lot of just like unknowing, right? Like I didn't even know that was a thing because it hasn't been communicated to me or clearly, or I'd missed it, or something, you know. And so I think that one really stands out to me the most. But I mean, it's hard to choose because like time is always an issue, communication is always an issue. But yeah, expectations. How about for you?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think through the process of writing the the time chapter and you know, thinking about it, I've actually tried out a bunch of the strategies that we talk about. So I think that has actually had the most direct impact on my work because I've actually, you know, tried to to use as much of that as possible. So I think for me personally, the time chapter has been really impactful thinking about like really auditing, as we say. We love an audit, really auditing how you're using your time and considering, you know, is it best meeting what you need to be doing in your job, you know? I think that's a huge one for people who work in leadership positions because you you could so easily go off track in endless amounts of ways with how your time is spent. So I think I think there's some really, really good nuggets in there for people. And I'm hoping, like we did a lot of a lot of research and reading around well-being for the well-being chapter. So I feel like we've got some interesting thoughts and reflections in there for people that I don't think is necessarily top of people's minds when they're thinking about leadership roles is how to maintain their well-being. I just don't see evidence from peers that people are spending a lot of time and investment in considering that part of their work. So I'm hoping that that is going to be helpful to people as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think it will. Yeah. On the website, you were talking about some of the strategies you've tried around time use. We do have some digital downloads that are on the publisher's website. So there is one for that chapter around time auditing. And so each chapter has a digital resource that you can use to help with, you know, just as you're reading a chapter, you can use the tool alongside reading the chapter. That is really resourceful of Rutledge to put that on there for people as they're reading to have these extra resources. So it was kind of fun putting together those resources just to think about the best way to present that to readers so that it's helpful, useful, and something that people can like use again and again or share with their colleagues.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, I'm excited. I agree. I agree. Like it because you know, obviously, when you're writing, you can get a bit theoretical sometimes. So to actually think about a practical tool to use that would be helpful to people was was a great exercise for us to go through.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I I'm looking forward to hearing how people use those. And, you know, we can go through a a bit of refinement as well. So if people have feedback on some of the tools, we can always, you know, make version two or whatever, so that's a little bit better for people's use. But yeah, I think those will be helpful for people as they read through. I think we talked about this longer than we thought we were, which is totally fine. Yeah, this is I'm interested to hear what people have to say about the book as they start reading it, what the feedback is, anything. I'm interested to hear what people have to say.
SPEAKER_01:So and you'll drop in the show notes the links to the website where people can have a look at the preview and pre-order and order and so on.
SPEAKER_02:All those things, yes. Well, thank you, Christine. Thank you. Yeah, this was nice to talk a little bit about the book contents, since we haven't I feel like we haven't really talked about it since we Sent it off and now it's in uh printing mode. So it was good to revisit some of the bits that are coming out.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Very excited for people to have a look. Yeah, same. Thank you. This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services, supporting educators with forward-thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Driven by a vision to teach less, impact more, they help educators find purpose, prioritize what matters, and simplify their practice. Learn more at planzieeducation.com.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit planzeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.
