Every Teacher Should Track Their Time in 2021
By: Sarah Syphus
Tags: Teachers, Teaching, Time Management, Teaching English, Teaching And Learning

My first two years teaching were tough. I was both thrilled and horrified by the responsibility that had been dropped onto my shoulders. I had worked full-time before but in offices where my work was important to my employer but not as existentially significant as educating the youth of America. In my office work, I could put in my time and leave work at work. I was not tempted or even allowed to put in extra hours.

In school, I had been a good student because I was passionate, but I was a chronic procrastinator who thrived on pulling things off at the last post-midnight minute.

I quickly learned in my first year teaching that neither my office work nor my academic years had prepared me for the time management required to be a teacher.

I frequently stayed much too late at work and then would leave still feeling unprepared for the days ahead. I also felt resentment hardening around my idealistic heart. “How do teachers do this job?” I would say to the other new teacher who would often leave the building just as late and as weary as me.

The truth is a good portion of teachers don’t do this job for very long. A lot of us quit. A lot of us find the extra hours that are expected but not compensated to be too much. I would have quit except that on the really good days, I got glimpses of what the job could be, and of who I could become if I learned to make it work. If you are looking for a challenge that will make you a more responsible, capable person, become a teacher.

I’m five years in now. I’m better (and much happier) than I was, but I’m still in the process of becoming the master teacher I want to be. One break-through I had with time management came from Lauren Vanderkam’s book What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast. In this book, she makes the case for tracking your time. She explains that time is actually much more valuable than money because you can make more money, but you can’t make more time.

A lot of people talk about how underpaid teachers are, and that’s true, but the truth is that when I felt the most burned-out and resentful, it wasn’t because I didn’t have enough money — it was because I didn’t have enough time. I didn’t see how I was ever going to have enough time to be the teacher I wanted to be and still have a full life.

So I decided to track the time I spent working both at school and at home. I don’t track every minute of my whole life (although I might try that for a week or two). I also don’t track class time because that’s pretty set in stone. I track the time I spend grading, planning, emailing, and doing any other teacher tasks on my plate. I use a spreadsheet like the one below as my tracker.

I can say sincerely that tracking my time changed my life. Here are the reasons why.

1. Time-Tracking Makes You More Efficient

Most teachers are resourceful and efficient already, but it’s hard not to become an even better steward of time when you are paying close attention to how you use each minute. When I track my work time, I notice how much it costs when I dawdle on YouTube for a few minutes or procrastinate by dusting my label maker. I notice how much I can actually get done in 15 minutes and then I think twice before I spend 15 minutes chatting with my colleagues.

Now, I’m not saying that I become a heartless robot. I still chat with my teacher friends, and I still watch the occasional YouTube video, but I’m more mindful of those choices. I spend my time more wisely.

2. Time-Tracking Defends Against Overwhelm

My work still takes me a lot of time, and I still take work home. I know a lot of teachers don’t, and maybe someday I will make that a firm boundary, but for now, I actually enjoy working in the evenings for an hour or two in the glow of a scented candle, without any interruptions.

That said, sometimes taking work home sometimes triggers feelings of overwhelm. It makes it seem like the work never stops. Tracking my time has helped me see that the work does stop. It helps me create a boundary, even at home, because I know when I am on and off the clock.

3. Time-Tracking Gives You Powerful Data

Teachers in 2021 know that we are all beholden to the data. “Data” seems to be the ultimate buzzword in the teaching world lately. All the powers that be want more data. This is good and bad because, frankly, sometimes the data-collection districts and states want to use are flawed, but that’s a topic for another blog.

The point is that in the teaching world today, if you have data, you have power. If you have numbers, you can negotiate. A lot of the work teachers do is only witnessed by them. Even our students don’t see all we do. They see the lesson, but they don’t see the two hours we spent planning it during our (unpaid) summer “vacation.”

Writing down how you spend your time can give you something to show your admin or your district or even your state to show how much time and effort being a great teacher takes. Then when it’s time to negotiate your schedule for the next year or your stipend for that extra responsibility you take on, you have data. You can show them what you do and how valuable you are. Imagine what teachers could do to improve our working conditions if we all had that kind of data? What could we do if our work wasn’t invisible?

I’m Still Learning

This is my fifth year teaching. I’m still new to this career. I’m still learning to manage it, but I have hope because I am learning. I’m learning to take care of my work and myself at the same time, and time-tracking is a big part of that balancing act. Teachers are not superheroes as so many memes and politicians claim. Teachers are people. We have the same number of hours in the week as all of the other people. The trick is learning to use them well.