Do Fewer Things Well: A Not-to-Do List for Your First Year

For many new teachers, the risk is not doing too little. They wear down from trying to do everything at the same level of polish. The bulletin board, the color-coded binder, the perfect slide deck, the reply to every email within the hour. Each one feels important. Together they crowd out the work that actually moves students.

Tip 1 in the book puts it plainly: thinking less is more in all you do. Choose the few teaching habits that matter most instead of trying to perfect every responsibility at once. Tip 6 adds the companion move: create a not-to-do list before you create a to-do list.

Here is how to put both tips to work this week.

Step 1: List everything competing for your attention

Write it all down. Lesson planning, grading, family communication, copies, committee work, the classroom library, the hallway display, the club you agreed to help with. Do not sort yet. Just get it out of your head and onto paper.

Step 2: Circle three

Look at the list and circle the three responsibilities that most affect relationships or instruction. For most new teachers, that means some version of planning tomorrow's lesson, checking whether students learned it, and building trust with the students in front of you.

Those three get your best time and energy. Everything else gets a lower priority, not zero, but lower.

Step 3: Give each of the three a repeatable system

A priority without a system turns back into a worry. Make each one routine:

• Planning gets a protected block on the same day and time each week.
• Checking for learning gets one quick, all-student check in each lesson.
• Relationships get a small daily habit, such as greeting students at the door.

The system matters more than the intensity. A modest routine you keep beats an ambitious plan you drop by October.

Step 4: Write the not-to-do list

Now turn to the items you did not circle. The Tip 6 page on 50teachertips.com suggests writing three tasks, habits, or requests that pull you away from planning, instruction, or recovery, and turning each one into a clear boundary for the week.

A boundary is specific. "Grade less" is a wish. "I will not grade practice work that I only need to scan for patterns" is a boundary. "I will check email twice a day, at lunch and after the last bell" is a boundary.

Step 5: Look at it again on Friday

At the end of the week, ask two questions. Did my three priorities get my best time? Which item on the not-to-do list was hardest to hold? Adjust one thing for next week and keep the rest.

A classroom example

Picture a teacher in her first October who spends Sunday afternoons redesigning slides for the week. The slides look great. Her lessons still run long, and she has not looked at student work in days.

She makes the list and circles three: planning the core task for each lesson, a quick check at the end of class, and greeting students at the door. Her not-to-do list reads: no new slide designs this month, reuse last week's template; no grading of warm-ups, scan them for patterns instead; no school email after 6 p.m.

The slides get plainer. She now has time to read student responses, and that is what tells her what to teach on Monday.

A question to take to your mentor

Which task are you polishing past the point where it helps students? Bring that question to your next mentor or team meeting. Someone who has done the job longer can often tell you which task can safely get less of your time.

Doing fewer things well is not lowering the bar. It is putting your effort where students feel it.

Sources

• No research claims in this post. It draws only on the book's tips as described on 50teachertips.com.

Site references

• Tip 1: Thinking Less Is More in All You Do
• Tip 6: Creating a Not-to-Do List Before Creating a To-Do List
• Free resource: Weekly Planning & Reflection
• Book: Crush It from the Start: 50 Tips for New Teachers by Dr. Matthew Rhoads, Dr. Samantha Fecich, Dr. Casey Jakubowski, and Dr. Kevin Leichtman (SchoolRubric Inc., 2022)