What to do When you Fall Behind

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No matter how good of a planner you are, you’re going to fall behind sometimes. You’ll get pulled into meetings that you didn’t plan for, get stuck in traffic, or spill melted wax all over your kitchen. (That last one might just be me. At least I hope so, because it resulted in hours of cleaning.)

Students are going to fall behind too.

Are you creating a plan that allows time for everyone to catch up?

For me, that means working hard to leave Friday’s open. While I need to go to work on Friday’s I work hard not to schedule meetings, or put any of my to-do list items on that day. Friday becomes a day to catch up on the things that weren’t finished from past days.

If you don’t create time for you and your students to catch up, you’re setting everyone up for failure.

Review how you plan your days, weeks, and months, are you allowing yourself room to catch up when you fall behind, or unpredicted needs arise?

Look at your lesson plans, are you creating spaces for students to catch up if they’ve fallen behind?

In my class, that means that some days are scheduled as catch up or study days. We also have some projects that span several weeks, allowing students more flexibility to either work ahead, or complete work that they missed.

There isn’t one right or simple way to make-up time for missed work, however, if the work was important enough to be assigned in the first place, we need to strive to find ways to allow room for error, and room for life.

I’m with you. This year’s been a bit of a bombshell. My students tell me it’s hard to manage time, hit deadlines, and stay organized. Even as an experienced distance educator, I’ve felt the reverberations of this “great migration” to online learning. 

That’s what inspired me to create a new course. 

Announcing The Breakdown: A High School Student’s Survival Guide to Time Management and Avoiding Overwhelm. 

We cover topics like

  • how to manage big projects and hit deadlines
  • taking control of your schedule
  • time management
  • how to get back on track if you fall behind

And course participants will be able to print a free customizable planner. It’s included with the course. 

[Register now]

This course should take you about 2 hours to get through… but it’s going to pay dividends for your time management in the future.