I usually advise you get situated comfortably on your couch over a weekend or in the

evening, with all of your papers, your laptop with access to your e-mail accounts, your school
bag, your school in-box, your voice mail, your notes from parents, your lesson plans, memos
from your principal, and anything else where your to-dos may be lurkingincluding
your brain. Then, step by step, dump all of the relevant items into your chosen Upcoming
To-Do List.

Organize Your List

Whichever tool you use, your Upcoming To-Do List should have a few key columns to help
you make choices about which to-dos to tackle when.

When to Start the To-Do

This is the beginning of the range of time in which you want to accomplish the upcoming
to-do. For some to-dos, this may be a specific week. For others it may be a certain month.
Still others may get the categorization Rainy Day, meaning you know you want to do it at
some point but you dont want to assign it a date yet.

The Actual To-Dos

This is the column in which you list the items you want to accomplish. The key here is to
be specific and clear. For example, if you want to schedule a doctor appointment for next
September but it has to be scheduled in May, this to-do would land in your May list.

Other Possible Columns

Category. This is the category of work into which the to-do falls, such as Grading, Home,
Planning, and so on. Organization of lists by categories is the concept (as mentioned earlier)
that David Allen codified in Getting Things Done. For example, you may generate a bunch
of to-dos for your classroom and a few for home. This distinction is useful if one week you
have an extra few hours without students in your classroom and want to do more Class-
room to-dos.
Length of time something will take. Many of us struggle with figuring out how long
things may take to accomplish. Although some of that ability comes with time, I find it
helpful to at least provide an estimate in this list so that I can be aware of when it should be
tackled. Even if you have a jam-packed week, a call to the doctors office will take only ten
minutes and could be slotted between your other commitments.
Table 3.1 provides a sample of an Upcoming To-Do List.
This list will get very big very fast. In fact, the longer it gets, the better it is, because this
means you are really emptying everything out of your head and putting all of your to-dos
in one place where they belong. Having to look in only one place for what you have to do
or would like to do will save you a ton of time.

74 The Together Teacher

Rule 2: Take It with You!
As you have seen, I recommend printing out your toolseven if you have a bias toward the
electronicso that you have a single place to catch everything that comes your way, even
when your laptop is not open or your gadget is not in front of youwhich most often it will
not be during the teaching day. You will want to always have your Together Teacher System
on you because you never know when a fellow teacher might ask you to send her a resource
as you walk to lunch, or when the school office staff will find you in the hallway and give
you a quick reminder about an upcoming parent night. Always have your Together Teacher
System with youeven when you go to the restroom. I promise: you will thank me later.
Walking down the hall empty-handed will guarantee that certain to-dos will fall through
the cracks.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT, AGAIN?

Sometimes you may come to the end of a month and find things that have not moved off
the list. Dont beat yourself up for not accomplishing everything in a given month. The point
of this tool is to enable you to make conscious choices about what to do and what not to do.
You may have had every intention of reading the book Yardsticks in April to learn more
about where your kids should be at each grade, but that month may have become busy with
preparation for the upcoming state test. This is okay because you made the choice to priori-
tize the state test over Yardsticks. You can always move this item to May on your Upcoming
To-Do List. As Kate describes, The Upcoming To-Do List allows me to empty my mind of
all the things that I would love to accomplish but just cant take on at the current moment.
For example, it allows me to know that I will paint my kitchen and frame my photos in July
so I dont have to feel guilty about not doing it all winter. It also allows me to ensure that I
dont forget about all the things I cant do yetfor example, my doctor doesnt make appoint-
ments more than four weeks in advance, so if I want an October appointment I put it in my
September list so that making the appointment doesnt get lost in the shuffle of my life.

GET STARTED: NEXT STEPS

! Set aside time to corral all of your to-dos for both the short and long terms.
! Determine where you want all of your to-dos to live (whatever you choose, you should
be able to view it both on your computer and on your smartphone) and customize it to
meet your preferences.
" Microsoft Excel list (found on the accompanying CD)
" Microsoft Word list or boxes (found on the accompanying CD)

Corral the To-Dos 77

 " Microsoft Outlook Tasks
" Google Tasks
" Various other applications, such as Remember The Milk, Things, TuexDeux, or Toodledo
! Make the initial investment:
" Go through your e-mail in-box(es).
" Review any scraps of paper you have collected.
" Go through all of the papers on your school desk.
" Review any memos.
" Empty your brain.
! Determine the month in which each to-do needs to start.
! Take the to-dos for this month and create Time Blocks for them in your Comprehensive
Calendar.
! If needed, print out your Upcoming To-Do List and put it into your Together Teacher
System.

78 The Together Teacher