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Why Teachers Don’t Have Enough Time (And What to Do About It)

Ask any teacher anywhere what their biggest barrier is, and without a doubt, they’ll say time. And it’s true. Teachers never have enough time. There’s a lot to pack in and the day is short. So we have two options. Keep going like always and continue to be frustrated, or start solving it. While there are for sure some things we cannot control, there’s always something we can do. Finding ways to gain even minutes back each day here and there can be very helpful. And it’s very possible to do that. Here are some ways to make it happen.

The most overlooked place teachers tend to lose time?

During instruction itself.

Some common things that happen every day that eat away at our time:

Long transitions
Too many transitions
Not getting started on time
Small group lessons that take too long
Calling on student after student, trying to get to the answer
Trying to find what we need (it’s always there somewhere!)

These are all things that can really add up. Just like those little trips to Starbucks slowly erode your bank account, these small moments don’t seem like much but really add up.

What can we do to fix this?

First, start with a time audit.

For several days, jot down some data points:

When does your lesson start (not what it says on the master schedule, but actually when)?
And when does your lesson end?
How long does it take students to transition from part to part, before, during, and after the lesson?
How much time is spent in each small group lesson, from beginning to end, including these transitions?
How many times did you need to search for something you know you had ready?

The key here is to actually write this information down, and to do it a few times. If you only do it once, it’s all too easy to call it a one-off and remain stuck in the swirling thoughts of “I don’t know where my time is going.” As long as you’re completely honest with yourself and truly jot down this information, you’ll see some patterns.

These patterns will help you set a clear goal. So, for example, if your time audit shows that you didn’t realize you’re starting your lesson about six minutes later than you intended, you can set a goal to reduce that amount of time by half or stop it from happening altogether–and then come up with a strategy to make it happen.

Once you know where your time is going, the next step is understanding why.

Next, be observed (or observe yourself).

It’s incredibly hard to capture where all the minutes go in the midst of teacher-student interactions during a lesson. Have a trusted peer, coach, or administrator come in to script, with timestamps, those teacher-student interactions during a lesson. Video recording yourself so you can script this out on your own also works beautifully, but can throw students off if they’re not used to it. Audio recording is less obvious to students, but it might be a little harder to capture what you need.

Then, take a look.

Is there a lot of calling on different kids, trying to get to the right answer?
Do you talk much longer than you realized?
Do you repeat yourself (or repeat what students said) more than what’s really needed?
Did the lesson stay on track like you had intended, or did it lose focus?

These transcripts or recordings will show you things you weren’t even aware were happening. Best of all, this will help you determine some real next step ideas to implement. Then, you can put one or two of them in place, reexamine what that does for your time, and then add in a next layer. Before you know it, you’ll have gained 5-10 minutes back every single day!

If you’re starting to wonder how many other small things add up, I’ve put together a resource that breaks down very common, sneaky ways time slips away from teachers. There’s no fluff and no sugar-coating. Just practical, effective ways to save time every day.

But even if every one of these small leaks are fixed, there’s a much bigger source of lost time.

Teaching in silos

We can get so much more bang for our buck when we integrate literacy skills into content areas and content into literacy. Jennifer Serravallo talks all about it in Teaching Reading Across the Day. It’s full of excellent tips, and highly recommend it. I even did a book study around this book in my private Facebook group,which you can check out here (but only group members can access the videos).

Not only does this integration help you streamline the time it takes to plan your lessons, it also greatly reduces how long you spend on gathering resources. When we weave literacy into content, students learn the skills more thoroughly. And that means much less time will need to be spent reteaching. Bringing in more writing to other parts of the day is an easy way to begin.

There are tons of opportunities to integrate inside the the literacy block itself, too. Leveraging your interactive read aloud so that it does more for you is one extremely powerful way to integrate reading skills. Getting more from this powerful tool is the jumping off point to using it to then teach writing skills, too.

The point is that there are things within our control . Quite a few. It just takes a hard, honest look at current reality and an open mind to do things differently.

By the way–if you could use some help figuring out why you don’t ever seem to have enough time,contact me to set up a coaching call. Together, we can figure out exactly where your time is going—and how to get it back.

If this post resonated with you, here are several additional previous posts, all centered on time-saving that might be helpful:

Coach from the Couch offers virtual literacy coaching sessions.

Who is Coach from the Couch? I’m Michelle Ruhe, a 25+ year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach. I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can. Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls!

Join my private Facebook group, Literacy Lessons for Elementary Teachers

Or, consider joining my Facebook community–a safe, supportive environment where you can ask questions, learn ideas, and share your thoughts among other literacy-loving educators!