ep 124
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[00:00:00] Dan: Hey, thank you so much for popping by to listen to me, to watch me. If you're on YouTube, I'm gonna talk to you today about two ways that you can adjust your schedule and get motivated. Again, I know as teachers it's not always motivating. A lot of our job is distraction work. Like we get all this extra admin work, we've got covers that we are doing at the moment cuz there's a teacher shortage all over the place and we are losing our motivation.
[00:00:28] Dan: Losing track of why we became teachers. We're still there. We see this progress, but we wish we had more of that. And so I wanna talk to you about how to get that motivation just by looking at your schedule and making a couple of adjustments. And this can be your schedule for the day or for the week. , but it's all about making just some simple adjustments that will help you to feel energized again about teaching.
[00:00:54] Dan: For you to feel motivated again to go, Yes, this is where I wanna be, cuz I wanna keep as many teachers in teaching and. But doing teaching right as much as possible. I do not want you to be in teaching and just doing all these admin stuff or doing a thousand other things and getting distracted from the core of what you wanna do, which is the teaching, right?
[00:01:15] Dan: It's about helping these students and seeing them succeed. That is why I'm giving you this very simple couple of strategies that you can use to adapt what you're doing with, to, yeah, just motivate you and for you to start to enjoy what you're doing again. Too much admin. Let's get to it. Number one, I want you to identify the tasks that you do that sap your energy, and another list of tasks of all the stuff that excites you or energizes you.
[00:01:48] Dan: Okay? So as a teacher, have a look through your daily planner. Have a look through. Hopefully you might have like a timetable or you maybe got a schedule of what you've done for the last two weeks. Or the last month and just go through and go, you know, this meeting, I was excited about this one. I was not, This class was awesome.
[00:02:06] Dan: Like, I love teaching this class. I don't like teaching this one so much. Uh, maybe you have time that you've set aside, you're like, I really hated doing all this planning and organizing for a camp, or you really hated being involved in sport, or whatever. Whatever it is that you have done. Identifying the things.
[00:02:27] Dan: excite you and energize you and the things that you find that sap your n energy out, that you just, you never look forward to. You're like, Oh, this is the worst day. I've got this. Right? Maybe you're like, Oh, I've got Judy again. I hate having duties. Right? And so I want you to identify the things that are hard, but you my make you lose motivation and the things that increase it, and then.
[00:02:50] Dan: And what you wanna do as you do this, is you want to start to see what are the things that are snapping your energy? Can you actually get rid of or reduce your time that you spend doing? Maybe there's things there that you can swap. If you hate doing, uh, playground duty or something like that, maybe you can find a teacher who really enjoys doing playground duty.
[00:03:08] Dan: But they don't like doing something else, and you can organize the swap with them and they can do your duty and you can do, maybe it's programming for them or something, cuz you love programming. I know that's me. Like I love preparing units of work and lesson plans and all that kind of stuff. Maybe you can do that for them and they can do your duty instead.
[00:03:25] Dan: Kind of this cool little swap that helps you to feel more energized about what you're doing and excited and motivated about your work because you're reducing the things that are actually draining your energy. That's strategy number one. Just looking at things and going, I need to find a way to reduce the things that are making me feel sad about going to work or making me not wanna go to work.
[00:03:46] Dan: I wanna increase the things that are really making me want to be at work. So if you love being with the students, then do lots of playground duties, right? Cuz you love being with them and chatting to them. Do lots of sport. Go and take on all those extracurricular, run, debating, all that kind of stuff. Get involved in those things.
[00:04:02] Dan: They're the things that energize you. And then see if you can find a way to do those and reduce the things that's up to you. So if you don't like doing all your programming and stuff, just talk to your head. Just go, I'm gonna do all these things. Can someone else do this for me? And they can probably say, Well, I can see how that's gonna mean.
[00:04:18] Dan: You have less time to do this. Sure. Let's reduce your programming load or something. Yeah. You. Set up a system. See what you can find, right? This is just a treasure hunt, right? , where can I increase things that are exciting and where can I decrease things that are deflating? Now, the second strategy is to think to yourself about A, what is the highlight of your day to day that you would like to go home and tell your kids?
[00:04:47] Dan: Like when your kids say, What did you do today? How was work? Anything like, , what would be one thing you would love to be able to tell them happened and then set up your data? That thing happens, and it could be, you know, I had a fantastic lesson and we did this and this. So set up you don't plan that awesome lesson and run that lesson.
[00:05:07] Dan: And then when your kids are, what did you take? You go, Oh, I had this, the best lesson. I did this and that, and the kids were acting something out, or they were all dressed up, or we were making things outta balloons or. What, whatever it is, right? There's lots of ways that you can make for something exciting or right, but just think about when you go home today.
[00:05:26] Dan: What do you want to tell people about, you know, the best part of your day? I mean, my family, we often, when we sit down around our dinner table, we just go, What was the best thing that happened to you today? Or What was the most exciting thing about today? And we go through each of my kids, and both me and my wife do it.
[00:05:39] Dan: And it's nice to have us share things that are exciting and that are pleasant. And so when you think about work, think. When I go home and I'm gonna do this process, I did this process with my kids. I think, what do I want to be saying was the highlight of my day? And you know, is it just gonna be, I got home early and I got to play with my son?
[00:06:00] Dan: Right? That's something I'm gonna set up my day to make sure that that highlight happens for me. If it's something about school, I'm gonna set up my day for that high. To have the best chance of happening. Okay. I know that's not always completely in your control, but try and set things up so that when you go home and you get asked, How's your day?
[00:06:17] Dan: Or you could have something really excited, like, this was amazing when this happened. So excited. And that helps to keep you motivated to keep going with teaching. Right? When those exciting things happen, that's when you are like, Yes, right? I'm a, I'm a great teacher. Things are happening. I'm enjoying this, and so, These are just two ways to adjust your schedule so that you.
[00:06:40] Dan: More motivated about teaching to get you motivated again, to go back and be the fantastic teacher that I know that you are, or at least that you wanna be, right? You might be, you know, right at the moment. I don't know. But that was just two ways that you can help to increase your motivation. Again, as a teacher.
[00:06:57] Dan: Now, if you enjoy this, This kind of stuff is coming out of my book. Work Less, Teach More How to be an effective teacher and live a life you love. Grab yourself a free coffee. I just asked you. Pay for postage and handling. I almost said coffee. Then copy. You get a free copy. Uh, head to teacherspd.net/freewltm. Grab yourself a copy and make sure you come back. If you're watching this on YouTube, there's a link underneath. You can just click that link and go and watch it. I look forward to chatting with you again next week. Bye.
