People usually set goals because they have something in mind that they want to accomplish. In order to accomplish the goals, we all have to be productive. Autism Teachers and other Autism Professionals are constantly on the go whether they are thinking up new activities or keeping up with their students. That is why it is so important to know how to maximize productivity. Of course, when you are first getting started, you will spend a great deal of time getting set up. However, once you put your systems in place, you will find that you have more time to enjoy teaching. Here are 3 ways to boost productivity. That way you can complete your work in less time and have more time to do the things that make you, you.

Plan Ahead

You already have this step down if you are taking this course. You are a planner and like to prepare ahead of time if you can. If you are not a planner, you recognized that something about planning might not be a bad idea, and you signed up too!!! Many people known the importance of planning ahead as a time-saving strategy. But yet, many people still do not plan ahead or find it too time consuming. Some people purchase a weekly planner and find that by listing out the things they need to complete within the week, and can plan exactly how much time they will need to allocate to a task. By knowing when you need to finish a task, you can better plan out your free time. Planning ahead can and must certainly be used in the classroom since you can create your lesson plans and activities for the week early on. That way you won’t have to worry about what to teach the very next day or scramble for a last minute lesson plan.

Focus on One Task at a Time

The biggest and easiest mistake to make when trying to handle many tasks at once is to multitask. Multitasking is problematic since none of the tasks will get done with your full attention, which can cause mistakes and minor issues. These are all simple issues that might not have happened if you dedicated your efforts to one task at a time. It has been shown that by sitting down and picking one task to focus on at a time, you can actually complete more tasks than if you had tried to start all projects at once.

Create Templates

Templates are a major time-saving trick used by veteran teachers. By creating templates, you can do things like quickly send out many emails to parents without having to draft a new email completely from scratch each time. You can also use templates within the classroom for worksheets, routines, lesson plans, and forms. Templates significantly cut down the amount of time used to to create original content and allow you to spend more time finishing your other tasks or enjoying life.

So what are you going to use all of that productivity for?

Well, goal setting is essential to increasing productivity for teachers, as well as for everyone else. It is important to make sure to not set too many goals all at once so that you can prevent burnouts and stress from not being able to complete all tasks and goals. But, if you can, think about what you would like to accomplish, learn or do this school year and write it down somewhere you can see it and notice it often. You can then use it as a reminder each day to help motivate you. Along with the goal, find a personal encouraging statement or make up one and write it down. When things get tough, and they will, review your goal and view your personal encouraging statement for guidance.

WHAT IS YOUR GOAL FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR?

WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL MESSAGE OF ENCOURAGEMENT WHEN TIMES GET TOUGH?

WRITE THEM DOWN AND PUT THEM SOMEWHERE YOU WILL SEE THEM OFTEN.

This lesson is complete. Please move forward to the next lesson.