How to: Create a Weekly Checklist That Puts the Kids First
It’s a popular quip that teachers make more decisions per day than surgeons, pilots, or executives—more than any other profession, in fact. And, I don’t know about you, but I believe it! Especially when I was just starting out, the decision fatigue was real when I hit my couch at the end of the day. I couldn’t even pick out a show to watch: all I could do was binge (and re-binge) the same couple of sitcoms left over from the early aughts!
It’s true: as teachers, we make thousands of tiny decisions every day. Who sits where, what to grade first, which objectives to prioritize, and how to reply to that parent email that is absolutely bonkers. Those thousands of decisions take their toll…and, they often keep us from having the brainspace to think about what really matters. Our kids. Their learning. Plain and simple. To say nothing of our personal lives, which I would venture to say matter too! Quite a lot, in fact!
Let’s jump back to that illustration: teachers make more decisions per day than surgeons, pilots, or executives. Hmmm. Possibly true! But, you know what? That’s because all of these other high-performing professions (yes, we belong on the list) follow a standard operating procedure. Your surgeon? You better believe they scrub up each day, following the same mindless routine. Your pilot? They follow a scrupulous checklist and set of procedures every time they take the cockpit. And, that executive? They have a daily schedule set months in advance, so that they know what they’re working on at any point in time on the calendar.
And, do you know why these professions are structured this way? Because, when it comes to human lives and billions of dollars and giant tons of metal hurtling through the air, elite professionals can’t afford to spend their brainspace on something as simple as remembering to check the wind direction, sanitize their materials, or answer that pesky email. These things have to be automatic. Rather, they need to free up their minds to catch the abnormalities: the light that flicks on unexpectedly, the discrepancy in the quarterly report, the subtle shift in the patient’s blood pressure…When the stakes are high, no one should waste a neuron on something that could be…well, brainless!
If you think about it, teaching should work the exact same way: we really shouldn’t be wasting our brainspace making thousands of microdecisions. We shouldn’t fritter away our energies deciding when to make copies or trying to remember if we already made a draft for tomorrow’s slides. No, no! We need to have the mental wherewithal to spot the student who’s seemed a little blue these past few weeks, or to notice the kiddo in the back who might have undiagnosed dyslexia. For us, too, the stakes are high. If we spend all of our energies on the tasks that make up our day-to-day, we’ll miss the people that we care about the most: the little humans we are assigned to nurture, encourage, and protect. God love ‘em!
Enter: the Weekly Checklist. It lives on a gleaming white clipboard permanently affixed to the side of my desk, and it tells me everything I need to know about my daily responsibilities. Like a pre-flight checklist or a surgery room protocol, my Weekly Checklist tells me what I need to do and when I need to do it. I don’t need to decide, remember, or debate! And, while that might sound a little rote, it’s sweet freedom when I finally have a few minutes to chat with a student or sneak out for a walk. At the end of the day, when the boxes are checked? I’m done! I grab my bag and trot out the door guilt-free: the Weekly Checklist has spoken, and I am liberated.
Enticed? Intrigued? What should go on your Weekly Checklist? Check out my template, available on our brilliant Freebies page, to see how you might structure your own version. Consider the tasks below:
Slides: How far in advance do you like to make your slides? My checklist has me working two weeks ahead, making two decks each day. That way, it’s impossible for me to fall behind!
Copies: And, making your copies? Is that a morning task, an afternoon task, or a-month-ahead task? Do you like to make copies one day at a time, or tackle a whole week in one sprint?
Grading: Are there recurring assignments that you grade at the same time, each week? Is there a day of the week you could use to grade your summatives?
Gradebook: Do you like to enter data into your gradebook while you’re grading? Or, do you like to set up assignments ahead of time? (I set mine up on Fridays, so that I never forget to post.)
LMS: Similarly, do you need to post assignments on Classroom, Canvas, or another LMS platform? When do you post those, and how far in advance?
Email: Obviously, keeping an eye on your email is always a good idea. But when do you sit down to go through your inbox, once and for all?
Late Work: For students turning in late work, there’s no need to grade it immediately, of course. But, how can you ensure you’re keeping up and don’t miss anything?
Standing Meetings: Are there standing meetings that you need to remember? Or, would you like to start a new routine with a colleague?
Lunch Buddy: Fun things can go on the Weekly Checklist, too! Do you want to ask a buddy for lunch, each day? Or, to schedule time for a quick lap around the track? Hold yourself to it!
Free Space: Finally, I like to include a few blank spots for each day of the week, so I can add tasks as they arrive. Project to grade? That’s Thursday’s problem! Planning ahead can help you compartmentalize, in a way that’s more manageable and keeps you on track.
If you’d like to follow my lead, consider keeping your personalized Weekly Checklist right on your desk, printing a fresh copy each week. (My clipboard is permanently affixed to my desk with museum putty: no, I’m not kidding!) The key thing is that it’s visible and easily accessible: if you have to scroll through pages of bookmarks or—heaven forbid—remember a password to access it, you’ll never get into the Checklist rhythm. Heck, even remembering to open a tab might derail the system entirely! Trust me, you’ll want to print this out. And, if a task needs to be added, bumped, or eliminated? No need to customize the file: just add or cross off tasks straight on the page, and grab a highlighter to emphasize items that get pushed later into the week. This is a living document, after all!
So, have you tried it? How did your Weekly Checklist go? Let me know in the comments: I would absolutely love to hear!
Checklists, priorities, and putting people before things. Because email, slides, and weekly grading? Well, at the end of the day, they’re really just…secondary!
