Here I go again. I am thinking of resigning. I am thinking of leaving teaching. Again. Why? Well, it invaded my personal life and left me too tired to deal with my online business ventures. Let me explain. Three months ago, I went back to teaching. Three years before that, I left teaching and even had a shirt for that - http://amzn.to/2zgGk2e. You can read more about it in this steemit post. My goal was to get to know my target niche (educators) by being one of them again. And while doing it, I get to create products that I can sell through Teachers-pay-Teachers.
As a former SPED teacher with 11+ years experience, I thought it will only take me a couple of weeks to set up classroom procedures and work systems for my students and me. Then, I can spend the rest of my day creating educational products and print-on-demand merchandise. Fat chance. After almost 3 months, it is only now that I have time to breathe. Teaching invaded my thoughts as I wake up, sapped up my holiday weekends and gobbled up my evenings. It ate up my life.
I know I can opt to download worksheets and teach from there but it won’t work for me. Besides, I plan to sell my original lessons and projects through TpT. So, I create and differentiate grade level work. That is teacher talk that means I put a lot of effort before, during and after class. Add some school and district paperwork and you get a bleary-eyed teacher with piles of paper to filter while draining her nth coffee cup.
Teaching is not only teaching. I long discovered that if you do not prepare before you face your students, everything will go wrong. And it is tiring. No wonder a lot of teachers binge on Netflix and snacks! You will not believe how many of my co-teachers lit up by Friday, especially during a 3-day weekend!
Anyway, back to my main problem. How do I recapture my time while teaching full time? How do I build my online business while truly helping my students learn? After brainstorming about it, I came up with 3 things to do:
1 - Set up boundaries
In reality, teaching did not invade my life without my tacit agreement. I let it rob me of my personal time and invade my business life. I just have to set up boundaries.
Before going back to the classroom, I decided to wake up at 4:00 am and spend quality time for my business before going to school. I did wake up early but I spent it preparing for class. Not anymore. I will now use it for my business.
I also spend a lot of time after school checking work and preparing for the next day. So instead of going home by 3:30 pm, I usually stay up to 5:00. No way. I will now stay within 30 minutes after my official sign-out time.
One thing that I did well during these past months is setting boundaries on my cellphone. I did not set up my phone to get school email. I did not download any app that is school related. And the moment I am out of school, I check my Amazon FBA sales stats and email. At least, I am still plugged-in with the online sellers via FB groups and forums.
2 - Use a Synchronized Calendar to Systemize Work
One mistake I made is to maintain two calendars: one for my business and one for school. I am now starting to put all the school deadlines and holidays in my main calendar. Then, I list all the paperwork required and create a system for each.
For example, I need to enter at least 4 grades per week online. Somehow, I forgot all about it. Last Friday, one administrator followed-up on it. Actually, it does not make sense to use that grading system for our special needs students. But I digress. So what did I do? I listed all types of school work that somehow satisfies that grading system. Then I mapped out the activities for the whole year and decided to do enter it every Thursday. I already submit something else on Thursdays, so why not pile up it up on the same day? There are more paperwork required but I do not want to bore you with the details. Somehow, when I finished putting all the deadlines up to June 15th, it seems easier to do them.
But that is not all, I also have business goals especially during Q4, the online buying season. I am systemizing these goals too by backtracking. How many digital products do I want to produce? How many physical educational products do I want to sell via Amazon FBA? From there, what do I do to achieve each. Then I put them in my synchronized calendar.
Lastly, I systemized my business also. By laying out what I need to do, I can decide which part I can do and which part I can outsource. One good thing about online businesses is that a lot can be automized. I have to take advantage of this.
3 - Schedule by Bulk
Now that I have my synchronized calendar and systems, I will schedule the same type of work by bulk. For example, I need to put together a binder that will show how I use Applied Behavior Analysis in my classroom. Some of its parts can be used in the IEP meetings and progress reports. So, I am designing a unified form that can be used in all.
For my business, one common area is keyword research. I’ll spend half a day doing research, filtering and applying it to the different areas of my business. Actually, there are common areas in my teaching and business life too. I tend to do original project-based lessons that I can transform into a TpT product.
That’s it. That is how I intend to recapture my life even while teaching full time. If you have any other suggestions, please tell me. Will I resign? Not until I complete the school year. I owe it to my students, co-teachers and administrators to stay. I might even opt to stay for another year IF I succeed in synchronizing all areas of my work life. But that decision can wait until the end of the school year.
Your Virtual Co-Teacher, Sheila
@go2sheila