Balancing TPT and Teaching Full-Time

Kirsten 0:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the creative teacher podcast. This has been a question that I've gotten over the last couple of years. And I wanted to create an episode around this because I know it could help other TPT sellers as well. A question I get pretty frequently is how do you find the time as a mom and you know, as a full time teacher to work on TPT? Like how do you how did you manage all of this. And a lot of it has to do with being intentional with when I worked and what I worked on. And that is going to be the topic of today's episode, how you can manage your time as a TPT, seller and full time teacher.

You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.

teaching in this past October: 2021

So first of all, let's talk about what time management is. So we are on the same page, we're gonna go back to the basics. Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time that is spent on specific activities to increase effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. So this is a pretty blanket statement. It's just like you're planning, you're having conscious control of the time you have four specific activities. And in our case for being a TPT seller and running an online business. There's two types of things that are three that they mentioned effectiveness, efficiency and productivity. I wanted to talk a little bit about the difference between effectiveness and efficiency and how that can relate. We want to have both so there are some differences but we want to have both effective and efficient can both mean that they are capable of producing a result. But there is a difference.

Effective means that you're producing a result that is wanted and efficient is where you're capable of producing results without wasting time or energy or materials. When something thing is effective, it makes a result even if there are unnecessary resources to do so. So maybe you have to spend an extra amount of money to hire out. Or you are getting the best quality of product photography, or the best quality VA to help you with your business that could be considered effective.

When it's efficient, not only does it produce a result, it does it in a quick or simple way. Using as little time effort or energy as possible, I would say something that's super efficient is batching, like tasks together. So maybe if you're working on a few products, you're working one day working on covers, and thumbnails just batching like tasks together.

Another example would be, I'm batching my podcast episodes for the month. So I'm doing it all in one sitting, it's efficient. For me, I don't have to, you know, just imagine me recording this episode editing it, and then going back and recording another episode, that will be not efficient at all. So think about using as little time effort or energy as possible. And that one way to do that is batching. So in conclusion, you want to have both effectiveness and efficiency.

I'm going to talk about a few schedules that you could use to optimize your time and I'm going to name them. Of course, you know, to give it some cute names, I love names of things that are catchy, I guess, scheduling your time to work on your business can be very tricky. When you are a full time teacher and TPT seller, I'm going to give you some examples of when I would work when I was full time. And I also have some schedules that you can utilize that might help you optimize your time. So I would mostly work as a full time teacher, before school, I'm an early bird. So I get up really early before my oldest son and my husband. And I would be able to spend about 30 to 45 minutes of working really just on my own. So that was one time I would work. Another time would be after school, I'd come home before picking up my son from daycare, I would work on my business and I would you know work for maybe 30 to 45 minutes to an hour, then I'd be able to go pick my son up and you know, have dinner and all of that. If I had my son with me at home and my husband was working or was out, I would utilize nap time. This was mostly on the weekend. When I had my son I would work during nap time. Now, was it perfect? No. Sometimes my husband so graciously gave me a chance to work an extra hour after my son had woken up from his nap, I might have you know, pushed the limits a little bit. But generally, those were the times that I worked. And then summer was like, you know, summer was all out, I could take my son to daycare and I would be able to have a whole day working on my business. So in the summer, that was my full time job as being a TPT seller. All right.

So let's talk about some schedules. I kind of mentioned all of these in, in sharing how I worked, but I wanted to kind of break it down so that you can pick a schedule or just kind of see what you can incorporate in your week. So the first schedule would be mini mode, where you would work 30 minutes a day, four to five times a week. My mini mode was normally in the mornings before everybody woke up. That was my little mini mode time.

Another time could be Power Hour, where you work 60 minutes, a good hour, no interruptions about three times a week. Power Hour for me happened either at night, after rarely Haftar I would work after my son went down for bed or would be when I come home from school afterward. I just get started on my power hour and then I would pick up my son.

And then the next type of schedule is the weekend hustle. 90 minutes a day two times a week. So you're just working Saturday and Sunday during the weekend. If you have kids that would probably be during their nap time. Sometimes you can kind of spread it out morning, nap time and at night, whatever you choose. But those are three different schedules you can use to optimize your time.

You can always mix and match. I definitely did the weekend hustle in conjunction with a mini mode or power hour here and there. Here are some steps to plan your work session. This could be something you plan out, you know right before you have your minima. mode or power hour or weekend hustle, you can do it maybe when you plan out your week and what you plan on doing. But definitely have a plan going in, don't just start a Power Hour not knowing what you're going to be working on, plan it in advance.

So that's the first step to planning your work session, write down exactly what you want to get done during your session. And circle, the most important item that you need to get done this is your must do be realistic with what you're hoping to accomplish. 30 minutes is a really great time to work on a product cover. To work on a listing, you can work on your product cover and thumbnails, you could work on a few pages of a resource, you could schedule or interact with your Instagram account or schedule some posts Power Hour, you can get a little bit more done. So if you have a bigger resource you can work on maybe if you're having a digital version of your resource that could be a good time to work on your digital version of your resource. This could be a really good time to work on your blog posts.

And then if you're doing 90 minutes a day two times a week, this could be a really great time to batch your blog posts or podcast episodes or batch all your emails. So just having a set amount of time for just working on those bigger tasks that you wouldn't be able to get done in mini mode or power hour. So just plan in advance how long you're going to work and what you're going to actually work on and try to be as realistic as possible.

A second step would be to find a quiet spot. This is very key to find a place with minimal distractions, and have everything at your workspace that you need. Try to leave your phone away from it so you don't get distracted. But there's a third step you might need your phone for. But in general, just make sure you're not just going back and forth with the TV in the background, really find a spot where you can actually focus.

The third step would be to set a timer, set a timer for your planning session based on how long you need or want to work. So thinking about the three types of schedules, set a timer on your phone, and just like use your phone just for that purpose. Don't check your phone, just let it go off, let the timer go off. And then step four, though, would be to work one at a time, focus on one task at a time starting with your must do stop when your timer goes off. I think my little one agrees with that.

Last thing I'm going to leave you with I know this is a lot to unpack. And of course you can listen to this episode over again if you need to, because there's such great things in here that I have for you.

But here are a couple of tips to work efficiently and effectively. When you're working as a teacher, utilize templates. Make sure you have a template for everything. Try not to start from scratch. So have a product template where you can just you know you have your border already set you the name at the top your copyright at the bottom. And you're just putting in your information in that template, product cover templates, thumbnail templates, preview templates, email templates, blog post templates, there's so many different templates, you can do a template for pretty much anything, you can reuse it, especially things that have worked really well. And people have responded really well to definitely reuse it as a template.

Another tip would be to focus on one component at a time, and that I kind of mentioned that earlier. But you want to make sure you're batching like tasks together, or just whatever you're focusing on focus on it one at a time. Don't expect to work on creating a resource and also do a product cover and thumbnail with it at the same time. You might have to break it apart depending on what type of schedule you're on.

The last tip I have for you is to know your brand and your style, have an idea of how holistically your brand comes together, just knowing that makes it a lot easier. Knowing the type of voice you have in your captions. The type of resources you make, in general makes it a lot easier to get through these sessions when you have an overall brand strategy in mind. So definitely know your brand. Hopefully, as a TPT seller, you really have a good understanding of who your brand is and how you help your audience. Just make sure you really take that into consideration.

All right, so your creative action tip is to create your work schedule, decide which schedule you're going to use. And of course, you can mix and match depending on you know, each week might fluctuate. But there's the mini mode where you're working 30 minutes a day four to five times a week. Power Hour where you're working 60 minutes three times a week, and the weekend hustle 90 minutes a day, two times a week. Remember, the goal is to be effective and efficient with your time. Even if you're a full time teacher, you can absolutely make powerful steps as you're building your business. It's definitely possible. So definitely do not get discouraged. If you feel like a whole bunch of people are way ahead of you. There's so many different ways to optimize your time and just to stay focused, effective, efficient and productive. All right, well, that's the end of this episode. I will talk to you again soon.

Thanks for tuning in to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I cannot wait for you to join me in the next episode for more tips and inspiration. Have an amazing day.