For the next two weeks, Four O’Clock Faculty will be taken over by March Madness, Secret Sauce style! Eight strategies from The Secret Sauce: Essential Ingredients for Exceptional Teaching will go head to head until there is one March Madness Champion!
With each vote that you cast, you are put into a drawing to win one of five copies of the book! Vote in each round to increase your chances of winning!
Let’s get to our Round 4 Matchup in the Time Management bracket:
Strategy #7: Time Inventory (page 84, The Secret Sauce)
How do you spend your daily time allotment? Complete a time inventory to determine how you actually use your minutes. Start by writing down everything that you do during the day, then write down how many minutes you spend on each. Begin a deep analysis of your time. What are the non-negotiables? What activities have the most impact on student learning? Which activities don’t? Put a Plus sign next to those that are beneficial and cross out the ones that aren’t. Make sure you take things off the table!
Strategy #8: Leave Whitespace (page 90, The Secret Sauce)
As contradictory as this may sound, leaving gaps of time in your daily schedule may actually help you to accomplish more. White space is a visual arts term that is often referred to as “negative space.” Sometimes, the white space left in your schedule can be more important than the activities scheduled. Leave open a thirty minute block at the end of your day to let students complete any unfinished work or get started on homework while you are there to support them. If you jam-pack your schedule, accounting for every minute and every second, you and your students will only find yourselves frustrated, stressed, and angry when emergencies or scheduling snafus arise. White space can become a welcome respite within your overbooked days!
Which strategy is your favorite? Click here to vote!
Check out #4OCF next week to vote for the next matchup!
Click here to purchase your copy of The Secret Sauce: Essential Ingredients for Exceptional Teaching.