Well, hello there, top teachers. We are your host, Bridget Spackman and Michelle Emerson, and we are here to make

your life easier by helping you master your time, organization, and productivity as a teacher.

Tis the season for gift buying, and I don't know about y'all, but it gets harder and harder to think of

gifts for each year. So we are doing all

the thinking for you and have come up with the perfect gifts to ask for or to buy for that

special teacher in your life. But first, let's hear a time-sucking hurdle from Rebecca.

Rebecca says, hi, Michelle and Bridget. I am really struggling with keeping track of lists

regarding who hasn't done their homework, who has brought it in the next day, who has returned

their parent notification slips. Also, my student observation is all over the place. I do have a list

of what I want to observe and what I want to be able to tell the parents,

but I am struggling to update those on a regular basis. Thank you so much for your work.

So the first thing that I think about is what systems do you have in place? I think one of the

biggest things that we talk about on the podcast is that systems are going to be

the things that helps save your life. If you have a really strong system put into place,

then you're going to be golden. So what is it that's kind of falling behind in your system? Is it that

one, you lack a system completely? Two, it's that you're not in the practice of utilizing

that system so you haven't gotten yourself into the habit of it. Or is it that your system just isn't

working for you at all? So one of the things that I can kind of tell you from my lens and what I've done

is that I have a binder. And in that binder, I have my classes broken down

and I have just random checklist that I have made off of Google Sheets. And it has those little

checkboxes, which are great. I don't do this online because I have found that for me, having that

binder open is something that I'm just really good at using.

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