Teachers, Name What Actually Needs Your Attention (PrePlanning)

 Preplanning is here. Students are coming back next week. And everything feels equally urgent. 

The emails. The meetings. The classroom. The technology. The procedures. The team. The expectations coming from every direction. 

Here is what most teachers do — they drop it all in one pile, label the whole thing urgent, and start moving. And by the end of preplanning week they are already depleted before the first student walks through the door. 

This episode is not about doing less. It is about something simpler. 

Not everything asking for your attention right now deserves the same amount of it. 

This week we are just learning to name what is actually in the pile. 

Because when you name something accurately, it takes up exactly the space it deserves. Nothing more. 

Ready to go deeper? The Gathering Room is a private community for teachers who are done letting the school year take everything from them before it even starts. This is where the real work happens. 

👉 afterthebells.org/pages/the-gathering-room 

👉 afterthebells.org/pages/box 

🎙️ Teaching Without Losing Yourself — The Podcast
 After the Bells | Kim Lester 

We’re not here to fix.
We’re here to notice. 

If this helped, pass it to another teacher who might need it. 

Until next time… 

give yourself the same care you give everyone else.

 ~Kim 🌿 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, teachers, teachers, teachers, if you are in the South, guys, pre-planning is upon us. You're already in that building, guys. You're already waiting for your kiddos. Students are coming back, ready or not, next week. And your brain is running a list, a list, a list that never, never stops. You got the classroom setup. You got the team meetings. You got the technology training. You got the emails piling on up. The supplies still not where they need to be. The procedures you want to get right before kids walk in. You got the lesson plans that feel unfinished. And you got the conversations already happening in the hallway. And guys, all of this arrived at once. Not because you went looking for it. No one does that. This is just what pre-planning is. I think most of us are used to it. This is what happens. Everything shows up at the same time. And your mind does what teacher minds do. Your mind collects it. Yeah, it collects every single thing that comes its way. And it drops it all in one nice little pile right in front of you. And then it puts a big old fat label on it in red. And that label says urgent. And now the pile is sitting in the front of your mind, not the back anymore, way up in the front where it wants to be. Taking up every available space, making it hard to think clearly, making it hard to pace yourself, making it hard, guys, to remember that you still matter in the middle of all of this madness. Hey guys, that's what this episode is about today. Welcome back. Welcome back to Teaching Without Losing Yourself the podcast. I'm Kim. I spent 28 years in education and I realized at some point that I couldn't fix what was wrong from the inside. So I made the hardest decision in my career and left. Because if I couldn't fix, if I couldn't help, if I couldn't protect teachers from within the system, I could support them in protecting themselves from outside of it. That's why this podcast exists. This is Teaching Without Losing Yourself after Vel series, a moment made just for teachers, even on the moon. And everything we talk about here is built around one idea. Teachers, you can stay in teaching without losing yourself in the process. Nothing here is about fixing you. We're just here to see things more clearly so you can make better choices inside your days. Hey teachers, we have spent all month on one idea. That idea is protecting this space. We've talked about the mental return, you know, that quiet drift of your mind back to school that happens before you ever physically go back. Remember, your mind went back to school well before your body went back to school, and you had to notice that. We looked at the specific doors school uses to get back in. So those doors include things like, oh no, the group chat that you just got in that you thought would be a couple of questions. Next thing you know, 20 minutes later, you have a full instructional discussion going on. That errand that turns into two hours, that maybe turned into four hours that could have possibly turned into four, eight hours at the school if you went back to the school. It turned into something that it wasn't supposed to be. Or that guilty thought from your own mind that sends you messages before the building even asks anything of you. And here we are, guys, it's the last week of July. And for many of you, that is not just the end of summer in your mind, it is pre-planning. We knew it was coming. All July has been knocking at the door, right? You're already in the building, and students are arriving next week, and so the energy shifts. It is not the quiet early pull anymore. Pull you back into the school. It's not that quiet, sneaky in this door, out this door, get you back into the school moment you've been having. Oh, no, no, no. Everything is loud now, guys. You know it. You walked in that door and it was on. Everything feels close. Everything feels like it needs your attention right this very second. And that feeling, that overwhelming sense that everything is equally urgent is exactly what we are naming today. This is what happens in pre-planning. We are all very aware of it. I want to talk about making it different this year because this is where protecting this space gets hardest. You're in the space of school, you're not far away anymore. It is really, really hard to protect your space when you're in it all the way. When you're already standing right in the middle of it. So, guys, this is what pre-planning week feels like for most teachers. Okay, probably you too. Well, for most teachers, everything kind of arrives at once. I mean, you walk in that door, all the energy, everyone's excited or sad or whatever, but it's still all very energetic. And the meetings getting ready to start in 30 minutes. Grab your computer, grab this. You know, you gotta go by, get your computer, sign that out. You gotta get all these things, get into that meeting right away. Everything happens right then, right there. The emails, the meetings, the classroom that needs to be ready, the technology that may or may not cooperate. Did you remember your password? That's always a question. The procedures you need to think about before the kids even walk in the building, the lesson plans, oh, the lesson plans, the supplies, the team coordination, the expectations coming from this direction, that direction, every single direction. Meet at two, come back, meet at three, come back. 8 a.m. in the morning. Guys, all of this is real. None of this is imaginary. All of it is real. And here's what happens in the mind of most teachers when everything arrives all at once. Everything that arrives, everything that is given to her, all the things that are coming, they all get dropped into one pile. And the entire pile is labeled urgent. Have you been there before, teachers? Or for some of y'all, are you there right now? I know I have some hands up. That feeling during pre uh pre-planning, when you walk into the building with somewhat of a plan for your day, I mean, you read the pre-planning agenda, you saw where the breaks were. You kind of said, Oh, I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z. So you walk in with somewhat of a plan, and then you walk out hours later having done 12 things that were not part of it. They weren't on the plan. And somehow the things you actually needed to do, yep, they're still not done. Not because you're unorganized and not because you're not working hard enough. I guarantee every teacher on the first day of pre-planning, they are absolutely working hard and will sleep so hard tonight. So it's not because of that, but because everything in that pile, remember? Everything coming at you, meetings, emails, da da da da da da da da da da technology, this, this, this, those dreaded, dreaded classes we take online for 40 hours. All that comes to you, right? So it's not because you're not working hard, it's because everything felt equally important. All those things felt equally important, and there was no clear place to start. A pile has no clear starting spot, it's just all there in a pile, all urgent, with no clear place to start. When everything feels important, nothing gets prioritized. When everything feels urgent, nothing takes the priority, and the pile just keeps growing, taking up space, not during pre-planning day. Now it's taking a space in your evenings, it's taking a space in the in-between moments that are supposed to help you pace yourself through a pre-planning week. It's taking up all the space. So, teachers, I want to say something that might feel a tad bit uncomfortable. So bear with me, guys. Not everything asking for your attention right now deserves the same amount of it. I know that can feel wrong during pre-planning because you know it was it is an exciting time, and we know that things are coming to us fast because we don't have a lot of time. So, in our minds, that's why it's all labeled urgent. But you need to know that that's not the case, that everything asking for your attention right now, every single thing wanting your attention right now in the pile, in the pile, it all doesn't deserve the same amount of energy because everything feels connected to kids showing up next week. You feel bad, and you care about being ready, and being ready feels like it requires all of you. Can someone say calling trap? Yep, that's the calling trap. But your attention, teachers, your attention is limited, you do not have an unlimited supply of it, and when you treat everything as equally important during pre-planning week, you make a decision without realizing it. You decide your attention belongs to everything, which means nothing gets your full attention, and you leave pre-planning more depleted than you need it to. Okay, before the year even starts, you just leave just depleted. Does it sound familiar to you guys? I know it's mine every year. A teacher spends three hours of pre-planning week reorganizing a cabinet. Let's say that. Three hours of a pre-planning week reorganizing a cabinet that could have waited until the second week of school. Not because it was the most important thing. She didn't do it because it was the most important thing. She did it because it was in front of her, and doing it felt productive. This cabinet needs to be reorganized. It's just right here. We have an hour to the next meeting. I will do that. It doesn't mean that cabinet being reorganized was the most important thing. It was just there and it felt productive. What about this? Or a teacher, you know, who who spends an entire evening responding to emails about logistics, right? That will be finalized, excuse me, that won't be finalized until after students arrive anyway. So we're thinking about and talking about and emailing about all these logistics that are not even going to be finalized until after the students arrive. But we're giving our time and energy to that. Not because those emails required an immediate response, but because the notification of the email was there. And responding felt like being prepared. Guys, these are not bad teachers. If this describes you, no, you're not a bad teacher. These are teachers who have not yet separated what is truly required right now from what is simply loud. And guys, there's a difference. Some things on your list are truly required before kids walk in next week. You got to get them done. Some things are loud, but just not urgent. Some things feel important because anxiety is driving them, not actual need, just anxiety. And some things feel important because you saw a teammate doing it. And now you're comparing yourself to that teammate, and now you feel like I'm coming up short. She's got it done. I need to be doing that too. Guys, some things feel important because they're just habits. I mean, do you have those things you do every pre-planning? Whether or not they actually need to happen that week, you just always do that. That's habit. Guys, these are different categories, very different categories, and they deserve different amounts of your attention. And right now, right this second, because it's pre-planning and you went into that building and all those things hit you, they are all sitting in the same pile. Big red label, urgent, taking up space in your mind and your day. Now, I'm not gonna give you any systems today. We're not doing that. I'm not gonna tell you how to sort your task list or reorganize your pre-planning week. What I want to leave you with is just much more simpler than that. This week, guys, this pre-planning week, I just want you to start naming things accurately. When something shows up to the table, shows up to the party, asking for your attention to pause for just a moment before you give it everything you have. Teachers, ask yourself, what is this actually? Is this truly required before students walk in? Or is it loud? Is this driven by real need, or is it driven by anxiety, by comparison, by habit? You do not have to answer those questions perfectly. You do not have to sort everything out right now, just start noticing the difference. Because here's what I know after 28 years of watching teachers move through pre-planning, the mental pile does not get smaller by adding more to it, guys. That mental pile gets smaller when you start naming things accurately. When you name something as truly required, it gets your real attention. When you name something as loud but not urgent, it stops taking up space. It doesn't really need or deserve. When you name something as anxiety driven, this is anxiety driven, you stop letting it make decisions for you. This is not a system, this is really just awareness, slowing down and increasing your awareness. And guys, awareness is exactly where protecting this space continues. Even when you are already in pre-planning, standing in the middle of the building. Teachers, when you can name something accurately, and when you do that, it takes up exactly the amount of space it deserves. You've named it, and once you name it, it gets its space and it doesn't get anything more. So here is what I want to leave you with as we close out July. I'm not gonna leave you with a play uh checklist or anything or any kind of plan. I just want you to know this. This pile, the pile, is real. Everything in it, every email, every meeting, everything in it feels urgent, and some of it genuinely is urgent, but some of it is just loud, and some of it is just anxiety, and some of it is just habit, some of it is comparison, and some of it, guys, can wait until after the students arrive and you get your school year going. This week, teachers, I just want you to start telling the difference, not to fix it, just to name the things more accurately because protecting the space does not stop when pre-planning starts. It matters most right here, right now, in the week before the kids walk in the building, when everyone is asking for everything, and your own needs are the easiest thing to set to the side. The teachers who walk into the first week with some clarity, guys, about what actually deserves their attention, they build a different kind of year. And that is exactly where we're headed in August. Next month, we move on to a new theme, a new focus based on where you are. And that's gonna be build with room to breathe. Because now that you can start to see what actually deserves your attention, the next step is deciding what kind of year you are intentionally, y'all know I love that word, what kind of year you are intentionally going to build. Not the year that happens to you, the year you design on purpose, with space, with room to breathe, with you included, from the very beginning. August is not just the start of another school year, it is the month you lay the foundation for the next 10 months. And guys, the question is not how much you can fit in. The question is what kind of year do you want to build? That's the question. Hey guys, I'm gonna see you in August. Until then, give yourself the same care you give everyone else.