❤️ Your Tuesday Email: Protect Your Time

Hello Reader!

Time isn’t managed. It’s defended. By mid-year, most educators aren’t short on commitment. They’re short on time they can actually control.

It’s not that you’re disorganized. It’s that your calendar has become a collection of default yeses.

Quick check-ins. Extra meetings. “Just one more thing.” Each one seems small, but together they quietly dismantle your priorities.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: time doesn’t disappear. It gets reassigned, often without our consent.

Why Time Needs Boundaries

Time is the first boundary to erode because it’s the easiest one to borrow from. We say yes because we’re helpful, responsive, and professional. But every yes to something misaligned is a no to something that matters.

Protecting your time isn’t about rigid schedules or productivity hacks. It’s about defending space for:

• Planning that actually supports students
• Responsive teaching
• Thinking, reflecting, and breathing

When time boundaries collapse, everything else follows.

A Reframe That Helps

Instead of asking, “Can I fit this in?” try asking:

• Is this aligned with my priorities right now?
• What will have to give if I say yes?
• Is this urgent or just loud?

Those questions shift the decision from guilt to intention.

Podcast:

• This week: When You Realize Your Students ARE Your Work and Other Moments of Realizations in Mental Overload with Christine and Tammy. Have you ever caught yourself wishing the students would stay out a bit longer so you can “get real work done”? We unpack that exact moment of misalignment and the quieter signals that follow like missing meetings, mixing up times, and staring down a chaotic classroom you don’t even know you’ll keep. Our goal is simple: trade overwhelm for intent, and turn a crowded day into one you can meet with clarity and care.
• Next week: Planning Less, Teaching Happier with Teacher Entrepreneurs Judith and Lorena
• Last week: Framework for high-quality learning with Sharyn Skrtic​

Listen to the pod on all the platforms like Apple, Spotify, iHeart Radio and YouTube. Now you can follow us on Instagram.

Resources:

• SimpleK12: Top Mental Health Resources for Teachers​
• Book: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown
• Podcast: The Resilient Teacher Podcast​
• New Ready, Set, Teach cards are now available! Congrats to the folks who claimed the free decks!

$25.00 Ready, Set, Teach Card Deck Get our new card deck with 50 tips and examples for creating and sustaining an effective classroom environment! Get it now!

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Holding the Line

You don’t need to overhaul your calendar. Start small:

• One meeting you ask to shorten
• One commitment you renegotiate
• One “not this week” you practice saying out loud

Time defended is energy preserved.

If you’d like support helping your team or school protect time for high-impact work, this is a core focus of my coaching and professional learning partnerships.

February isn’t about squeezing more in. It’s about protecting what already matters.​
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Yours,

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P.S. Forward this email to colleagues who you think would enjoy the connection and resources.

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