Corona Chronicles (Vol1. Issue14)

Today I woke up at freaking 5 am and I was not thrilled.  I spent the entire five hours I actually slept tossing and turning and sweating and not having a good time.  So instead of waiting for my alarm to be like "let's go" I just got up and started doing my work. Which then makes for the longest working day possible because on Mondays I always have team meetings with the 7th grade teachers, I always spend like 3 hours talking to the other I&S teacher planning our week, and then I do some grading and write my journal entries for the kids. I actually did this entry at 8 am - I think. I literally have no idea. 

But I basically wrote that I never get up this early and I actually hate it. I also told them about my to-do list and how it really helps me get my whole day done without going crazy.  Something they still need to learn.  I'm tired of emails at 10pm Thursday night asking about the assignment that is due in 14 hours.  

so here it is, my awful journal entry for a Monday morning: 

Monday, April 6, 2020: 

    I can already tell today is going to be a weird Monday for me and it’s only 6:30 am. I am very rarely awake this early when I don’t have to leave my house, but I could not sleep last night.  Not only was it difficult to fall asleep, but once I did get to sleep I couldn’t stay asleep. It was not my best night. 

    I was, however, very proud of myself for setting up all the parent and student emails to be sent out this morning and scheduling all the assignments and links for this week to Google Classroom to be posted this morning.  In my book, that was a win and was going to make for a very easy Monday morning. Until I was up at 5 am. So instead of laying in my bed and just making the attempts to fall back to sleep, I decided I would wake up and start doing some work.  I also couldn’t sleep because I thought of a great way to grade the Corona Chronicles and needed to make a rubric to post on Google Classroom (the rubric feature is something I’ve wanted to try all year, but it never fit what we were doing before). And I got a jumpstart on some of the grading I have to finish today before some of my planned meetings. 

    Something I’ve learned during this experience is how to better plan my days.  Originally when this all started I thought I would have every hour planned out and I would be my most productive self.  That didn’t happen. Turns out, when I plan an entire day by chunking off hours I am not productive at all. But my to-do list is living its best life because I’ve managed to color code everything (I even labeled my pens for what they’re for) and by crossing things off my to-do list I am accomplishing a lot more than my “planned by the hour” life.  Plus, I was able to spend an hour on Sunday night scheduling emails and assignment posts. So maybe starting a to-do list will help you cross off things you need to complete for the week. Before you go to bed, try writing down four things you want to accomplish the next day and focus on those things (Corona Chronicles should be on it every day). When you don’t have all of your assignments for every single class staring at you for Tuesday morning, things might become a little more manageable. 

​Good Luck and Happy Monday,

Maybe things will get better... It's only Monday - there's a lot of time for things to go terribly, terribly wrong. 
​