tips for teachers, tips for tutors, Tutors, Tutoring Businesses

Time Management for Teachers: 5 Brilliant Tips to Increase Productivity

A teacher standing with books in her hand

Have you ever felt like there weren’t enough hours in the day? Would you like to learn about being more productive without sacrificing your work-life balance? Of course, the sole answer to these questions is time management for teachers, but how exactly do you do it?

Time management is an extremely important skill, especially for teachers and tutors. From grading exams, making lesson plans, to planning classes, and providing one-on-one sessions, it is a lot of work.

Managing your time means adopting a routine. Humans are creatures of habit. Setting good habits increases productivity, builds confidence, and allows time to capture bigger opportunities. It also helps to focus better and lower stress levels. 

alarm clock on colorful background

To do the above, here are a few time management tips for teachers: 

Let’s look at each one of these steps closely and figure out how to get more done out of less time.


How to manage time effectively as a teacher and increase productivity


1. Prioritize

Let’s say, you have a student whose exams start next week. You also have to prepare and take a practice test for your group class, which is also next week. Typically teachers and tutors will have to attend to every issue, like meeting parents, studying, and taking classes. You have other minor tasks that need to be done, but the more you list them out, the more daunting your to-do list starts to look.

The biggest issue with these to-do lists is that they do not provide a viable method to completing the tasks effectively. What they do is create a sense of foreboding, that there is too much to do and too little time.

To fix this problem, the first thing to do is prioritize. Focus on your most important or urgent tasks. Keep your student with the exam next week first, preparing for the practice test second, and the rest of the minor tasks down the list. This way, when you are done with the first and second tasks, all you are left with are minor tasks. You feel more productive, less stressed, and have more control.


2. Plan

Now, what do you do after you’ve prioritized? Just knowing which tasks are important is not enough. Allotting substantial time slots to those tasks is equally imperative.


Create a calendar: 

There is no better way to organize your day than to create a calendar and stick to it. This will help you stop multitasking or jumping from task to task. 

Say your calendar says you have to finish grading papers from 10am to 12:30pm. And from 12:30pm to 2pm you have to make the lesson plan for next week. This gives you the liberty to focus on grading papers in that allotted time without having to worry about planning lessons.

Focus on setting realistic goals on your calendar so you don’t feel overwhelmed with the amount of work that you have set for yourself. The key to being productive is to make your calendar goals achievable.

calendar for teachers

Set reachable goals: 

Make sure your goals are reachable and sustainable. We suggest setting goals that are result-centric and not time-centric. Why would you want to measure how many hours you worked, instead of how much work you got finished?

When you look at your to-do list and then see how much time you spent, more often than not- it leads to disappointment. “I spent so much time and got so little done”. It leads to anxiety over unfinished work and demotivation.

This is why it is important to set goals as work to be done and measure your progress based on that.


Set deadlines:

Just setting goals is not going to lead to being productive. You need deadlines to keep yourself in check. You may think you’re getting good at gauging the amount of time you spend on each individual task, but it is best to keep track and set self-imposed deadlines. 

As Inc suggests – Self-imposed stress can be helpful in terms of giving focus and meeting goals.


Minimize distractions:

Make sure your work area is cleared from any possible interruptions. Phones are on silent and doors are completely closed. The biggest root of distraction is social media and your emails. 

phone on airplane mode

Infact, a good habit would be to give yourself a social media break as a reward. Finish task 1 – 45 mins of Instagram scrolling. Not only does it give you something to look forward to, it gives you the motivation to finish your work too! Plus, it helps you stay off distractions when you’re working. 


3. Apply

Your next step is to put this plan into action. No teacher’s time management strategy will work unless you start working towards your plan. If making a calendar and setting a schedule is new to you, you can start small. The important thing is to start.

Set alarms and stick to your routine. This will keep you on your toes and reduce procrastination. You can set alarms for classes too. Set one 10 minutes before your class ends so you can spend this time setting expectations for the next class and giving assignments. 


4. Analyze

As mentioned earlier, it is better to set goals that are result-centric and not time. This also means that it is better to measure results and not time spent. Break your tasks into smaller parts and tick each part as you finish it.

The sense of completion will not only make you more productive but also give you the motivation to finish more tasks. Finished lists allow you to see what you finished on that day and give you a chance to acknowledge and celebrate the results.


5. Automate

Lastly but most importantly, the secret to getting more time to do more things is to use automation. Automating tasks gives you more time to get other things done. It improves business performance and reduces human errors.

A teacher scheduling software not just lets you, schedule classes, efficiently but also helps you manage and use calendar gaps. You can block hours as required and set your schedule as you feel is necessary.

As a teacher, if you spend most of your time doing administrative tasks then the small part of the day that you do spend teaching won’t be as enjoyable. This is why time management skills for teachers are extremely important. Of course, the solution to this is either delegating these tasks or automating them. 


Parting thoughts

If there are parts of your job you do not enjoy doing, then you will never have enough hours in the day to enjoy the parts you do like. 

This is why time management for teachers is so imperative. Manage your time and spend it on teaching and supporting your students, their education, and their dreams.

Let Appointy make time for you so you can be more productive in the day. Try it for 14 days for free and decide if your day goes by more efficiently or not.


About Appointy

We at Appointy, help business owners grow and run their businesses with our online scheduling software. This blog was a part of our ‘Manage your Business’ category, where we provide expert tips, and resources, or simply talk about the challenges that small and medium businesses face every day. 

If you have any thoughts on this blog or would like to chat about your business struggles and achievements, let us know in the comments below. 

We love a good talk!