Sunday Scaries – How I Use Friday Planning to Prevent Them [Episode 139]

Rebecca 0:00
Last week, I shared five principles I learned from running my business in a way that is hopefully the most sustainable for the long term, and kind of how each of those principles can be used in the classroom. And all of these principles are under the umbrella of this concept of doing things now to serve future you, which is a principle I, you know, borrowed from the lazy genius, Kendra hdaci, who was the first to talk about this idea. But I want to acknowledge in this episode that a lot of those tips that I shared last week, they’re more like long term, you know, it’s what you can do now to save you time next month, or next quarter, or even next school year. And so today, I wanted to set aside space for an entire podcast episode to tell you about my favorite way to surf future you. And like, immediately, and that’s Friday planning to prevent Sunday scaries. I don’t know about you, but do you ever struggle with those Sunday scaries that kind of like existential dread and overwhelm of the week that’s to come. Maybe it’s like the inability to even enjoy your last day off because of the foreboding sense of all you have to do the next day at work. I don’t know about you. But that is something I experienced consistently when I was in the classroom. And I have a process that I believe will help prevent that, because it’s helped prevent it for me, as I’ve done it’s architects from home. So if so, if you’ve experienced a Sunday scaries this episode is for you. And if you know a friend who has you need to forward it to them because I think this is gonna really, really help you. So let’s dive in. This is secondary science simplified a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca joiner from it’s not rocket science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their jobs, serve their students, and do it all and only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time spent in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place teacher friend, let’s get to today’s episode.

Friday planning to prevent Sunday scaries. Now when you saw that title, or heard me say that at the top of this episode, you might have been like, I don’t have any energy on a Friday to do this. I don’t want to do it on Friday. The last thing I want to do on a Friday is think about work, I want to go home. Now here’s where I want to really encourage you why I think doing this on a Friday is so important, how it would feel if you did do this on a Friday. And then I’ll also end this with like what it actually looks like to do this kind of Friday planning and how we can do it to most maximize prevention of Sunday scaries. Here’s why I think it’s so important to do this on a Friday. I think on at the end of the week, you know, I mean, on a Friday, like the weekend is here. You can taste it. Like I don’t know about you. But I used to wake up on Friday mornings in the classroom was so much pep in my step, knowing that this was the last day before the weekend, like I just needed to get through this day. And then it was the weekend and it was free. And maybe your schools like mine, and we could wear jeans on Friday. It was just, it just was always a stellar day, I had this anticipation of something really exciting and beyond to go home and have my weekend that put that pep in my step on Friday. So I actually think Friday is the perfect time to do this. Because you know that as soon as you’re done, you’re walking out of this classroom, and you’re completely unplugging for the whole weekend. Cuz y’all think about it this way. How would it feel? If on a Sunday, you knew that when you walked in on Monday, the next day to work, you just needed to show up? There’s no strategizing. There’s no work to be done on your end at home on a Sunday. There’s no trying to remember what you have to do there. No making sure you get there an hour early to finish up all these things to be ready for the day. There’s no impending emails that you left behind on Friday, that now you really have to answer because it’s been you know, two to three days. There’s no multiple emails that you’ve acquired from one or enraged parent wondering why you emailed them all weekend long, you know, that are building up. All of that is gone by our Friday planning to prevent Sunday scaries. Okay, how would that feel? I can tell you from firsthand experience, it feels amazing. And it allows you to really actually enjoy your Sunday entirely. Because you know that you don’t need to worry about Monday because Monday has already been accounted for. I learned in therapy, that anxiety begs action, and that’s something I’ve thought about so much like one of the reasons why I’d always feel anxious on Sundays is because I’m just thinking, thinking thinking about what’s to come. And I have this feeling of like I need to take action to manage this. But the beauty of doing this Friday planning is you can Tell your brain. Listen, I already took the action, the action has been taken. So now I get just get to enjoy and be. Okay, so what does this look like? How do we do this, I’m gonna get really specific with you for exactly how I would do this. Okay, so first, try to protect your Friday planning time, as much as possible your Friday planning period, here’s why we want to dedicate Friday planning period to prepping for the next week. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, that’s however you whatever you need to do that week for those days. Friday is all about having space to prep for the upcoming week. So don’t plan on spending your Friday planning period grading or lesson planning or having a parent conference or meeting with a co worker to talk in your PLC about something, protect your Friday planning period. Also, personally, I always tutored every afternoon, from three to 330, I had a sign on my door like I am here every afternoon for the 30 minutes to tutor you if you need me. But I can tell you that rarely did a student actually stay on a Friday Fridays were like so rare that someone came. And if they did great, I would help them. But usually that ended up becoming an extra buffer period, like a 30 minutes that I had that I didn’t normally have, you know after school. In addition, I always plan to stay till four or 430. On Fridays, I try to leave by 345 for every other day. But on Fridays, I’m like it might be for 430 Because there’s a list of things that I would not leave my classroom without doing. And as much of this list as I could get through, the more I knew that I was preemptively preventing the Sunday scaries. Okay, so first things first. But on Friday, I always go through over my lesson plans for the entire next week, every prep. If I needed make any copies for the entire week, I’m going to be doing those right now. Now, if you’re like me, and you have gotten on the packet train, you’ve seen how helpful packets are, you’re usually not having to make copies. So if you want to hear more about packets, check out episode 60. I’ll link it in the show notes. But you’re gonna get everything physically ready that you need for the next week lesson plans are done. whatever strategy you use, if you write them on a desk calendar, if you do something on your whiteboard, whatever, all of those are going to be decided we’re not making any more decisions for next week’s lesson plans, then you’re going to plan out how you’re going to spend your planning periods every day. The next week, I have a whole episode about this episode 62. It’s about productive planning periods and five ways to instantly make your planning period more productive. But one of the ways that I do that is I’m very strategic about how I plan out my planning period. And I do this on Fridays. So on Friday, I sit down and I have like my little notepad that I use. And I say, okay, Monday, this is what we’re doing during this planning period, you know, this projects dues, we’re spending it grading this or Tuesday, you know they have, there’s gonna be a test on Wednesday. So Tuesday, I’m going to review the answer key for that, make sure it’s good to go. I’m checking in with this teacher, you’re going to plan out every single planning period, y’all I know it sounds so silly. But I cannot tell you how much time you save. If you go ahead and make these decisions in advance. And then on Monday, on Tuesday, when you sit down at the start of your planning period in the middle of the day, it’s not like oh, okay, I must check my phone for a few minutes. And then I’ll get to I’ll figure out what I need to do today. It’s like, No, you have an attack list. And you go ahead and you just start knocking things out, because you’ve already decided once what you need to do. So you go ahead and you do those things, I cannot tell you how much time this spends, if you go ahead and plan for all of that, and then you knock all those things out and any buffer time, then you can do some other things that have come up, you know, kind of last minute. I also do not leave my classroom Friday without doing like a physical sweep of my classroom and you know, a little chair straighten up, maybe I’m wiping down tables, you know, whatever. But I’m doing like a little of that this is like five minutes or less like a physical cleanup. The next thing I’m doing on Fridays, is I’m doing an email check, going through and making sure my inbox is zero. And then I’m turning on my weekend auto reply. Okay, so like in Gmail, this is like your vacation mode. Okay, you’re turning this on Friday. As soon as you finish your last check and you scheduled to go through the weekend. Y’all This is an auto reply, so that any email sent to you over the weekend, get a response immediately. I cannot tell you how much this will save your mental sanity to know that like you can truly unplug and not check your email because they are getting a response from you. You’ve already typed it up in this auto reply. You have a thank you like for sending me your email. And then you have a statement that says I do not check work email during the weekend. I will be back Monday at and maybe you pick it depends on when you prefer to check your email. Maybe you’d like to get in there early on a Monday and say Monday at 730 I’ll be catching up in my inbox you can expect to reply then. Or maybe you just say Monday during my planning period. Or maybe you leave it more open ended. I will return all emails that I get over the weekend by the end of the school day or you know by the end of the day on Monday, but you tell them when they can hear back from you. And then I always have something that’s like, in the meantime, here’s some frequently asked questions, you know the answers to them. And I have like a bulleted list of like a q&a, I do this for my business too. And I’m out of town. Because 90% of the time, something someone’s asked me about is already in the read first PDF, or maybe for you, it’s already on your website, or maybe and you can make these specific to like, it doesn’t have to be the same thing every weekend, you can tweak it be like, hey, frequently asked question was this project due, it’s due Tuesday of next week, here’s the rubric for of what’s going to be graded, here’s the expectation, like, you’re just going to try to be pre emptive, about all these things. And then you’re gonna schedule that. The other thing I really recommend, and this is a tip from my relationships unit, which is a mini course, in my virtual professional development that I have, which I’ll link in the show notes, if you want to check that out. But is I recommend at all times, you have this in your signature 24/7 Go into your email signature right now, and put in it when you respond to emails. So like, you’ve probably gotten an email from someone before from their iPhone, and it has like their name. And then underneath that, you know, it says like, excuse my brevity, this was sent from my iPhone or something, I want you to have something like that in your signature. Okay? A lot of times we have like her name. It’s like Rebecca Joyner high school science teacher, you know, student council advisor, it’s like all of our credentials, which is like, cool, but also, who cares, you know, what you should put in your signature, I should put Rebecca Joyner and put, you know, I checked my email Monday through Friday, at seven 8:30am. And at noon, because maybe you do a double check, you do it in the morning than you do at lunch, please be patient as the rest of that time I’m working with students, or I’m not at work, you know, you can say some sort of statement like that I have something a lot nicer written out, you know, in that PD course, it’s not like I’m just leaving you hanging there. But put that in your signature so that all times it is very clear. And then if a parent gets on you that you didn’t respond to be like, per my email signature, I am teaching all day long. So the only times I’m able to check my inbox are this time and this time, so that’s when you can be expected to potentially hear from me, I just think doing this and being proactive about it, it saves so much headache, and you’ll stop those parents in the tracks, they’ll want to email you 18 times, because you make it clear that this is when you’re actually going to check your email, I think we have gotten to the point where we have such few boundaries. And I think the pandemic really did this because of virtual teaching. It wasn’t necessarily like teacher’s fault, it just happened with the nature of virtual teaching. And now we really need to rein it in and again, about how much we’re on our computers and on our email, you know, when it’s not, you know, an emergency, and it’s not part of your job description, and I’ll link in my show notes, podcast episode that I have about this as well, because I’m so passionate about this. So you’re gonna do your last email check of the week, then you’re gonna put your weekend away mess messenger like auto reply on. And then if you have time left from when you plan to leave, then you’ll kind of do a grading backlog check in on anything, you’re like, Oh, I could knock this out real quick, get some things graded. And then here’s my last tip for you, I want you to leave on your desk. So that the first thing when you come in and walk into your desk on Monday, like I usually have, I have like a desk calendar that it’s like a month at a time. So I have like that monthly visual, like a handwritten visual than on my laptop on top of it closed. And then on top of that, I might put the one section of labs that I didn’t have a chance to finish grading it because that’s gonna be the first thing I’m going to attack when I come in on Monday. But you’re going to leave on the top, the first thing you need to attack when you walk in on Monday, that decision is made. And then you leave. The goal is you’re setting up your room so that you don’t need to think about one thing work related all weekend long. Because you know, Monday, you’re going to be ready to go for the week. It gives you so much peace on Sunday, knowing that that’s all done. And then Monday when you get it. It’s not like okay, what do I need to do for the week? It’s like, No, I’ve already decided. And I’ve also already served feature me by putting right here, the number one priority. Sometimes for me, the thing would be on Monday, it’d be I leave a post it note for myself that Monday when I walked in, it was like, Hey, first things first, go prep this lab that you have to do in third period. And then I would just know, okay, that’s that’s what I’m going to knock out with my 20 minutes before the classes start today. Okay, so we’re setting ourselves up for success we’re getting, we’re doing all this work on the front end, when you know your reward is I’m doing all this. And as soon as I walk out, I’m free for the next 48 to you know, 60 hours. And then you can come in Monday and just attack it. Now my last tip for you is more of like a life tip. I also recommend meal planning and grocery ordering or grocery shopping on Fridays. Now I know this seems crazy. And everyone kind of has their pitch for a certain day. But for the longest time I did this on Sundays. And then if you’re anything like me, I would not want to do it on Sundays. And I would feel guilty on Sunday being like I should do this, but I don’t want to. So I’d push it to Monday and then I’d have to like leave work on Monday to go grocery shop and it just was like, well, it was the worst when I switched to doing on this on this on a Friday. Like it changed my life. And I mean that I do mean that dramatically. It made my life so much easier. Okay, here’s why I love it. Again. I have this reward on Fridays at waiting me of the weekend. And that gives me some pep in my step just to kind of get me through these last few tasks. I love it because As I am going into the weekend, when I’m at home the most with a full fridge. I love it because I’m going into the weekend when I have the most time to cook to actually do so. And then I also love it because when you grocery shop on Friday, then you start running out of things like Wednesday, Thursday, which is perfect because it’s mid week. Then if you don’t have anything left that you want to do for dinner, or you know, you bought these avocados for tacos, and they went bad by the time you got to Wednesday, then you’re treating yourself to take out on a Wednesday or Thursday. What a midweek treat to know like you’re gonna leave work on Wednesday. And you’re gonna get takeout today, as opposed to when you grocery shop Sunday, Monday, then you start running out of food Friday, Saturday. And then you’re getting takeout on Friday, Saturday, which again, Friday and Saturday in and of themselves are already a reward because it’s Friday, Saturday, we don’t need the extra ordered takeout. Let’s spread the takeout reward to like a different day of the week where there are no rewards. Because Wednesday is like blah, hump day. I love that. And then the other thing I’ve loved doing to to really protect from Sunday scaries is I don’t do social media on Sundays. I think it helps me to have like less envy. I’m not seeing what other people did with their weekend and maybe being like, Oh, I didn’t use mine as productively or I didn’t have as much fun as I could have. And it also I think I just think it’s a good quieting of my mind before another work week to not be on my phone as much. And I just think it helps me just really suck out the energy and the peace and the joy and the rest from Sunday, more than I could if I’m spending that time on my phone because you’re amazed, you’ll be amazed how much time you reclaim not being on your phone on a Sunday. And so that’s what I do. I

hope these tips help you. I mean, y’all, I even do this now. And I’m not you know, in the classroom, I sit down every Friday at the start of naptime and I plan out what I’m going to be doing during all my different working blocks. During the next week. When I have childcare when the kids are resting and I can work then I get it all planned out. You know, I do all my final tasks and I close up shop. And now when I’m coming in on Monday, I know exactly what I know that I know what’s been done. And I know exactly what I need to do now to get started again and you’re just making all these decisions and accomplishing so much for future you. And I promise it’s a game changer if you’re willing to try it. So if you are let me know. Leave a review today. If you’re going to avoid Sunday scaries next year by trying this send me a DM on Instagram. I’d love to hear from you. And I mentioned a couple of other podcast episodes, you can grab links to those in the show notes at it’s not rocket science classroom.com/episode 139 Alright, teacher friends that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to It’s not rocket science classroom.com/challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in and I’ll see you here next week. Until then I’ll be rooting for you Teacher friend.