If you are a primary teacher, you know the feeling. Your day starts before the sun rises and ends long after your energy is gone. Between lesson planning, grading, meetings, emails, parent calls, and keeping the classroom under control, it can feel impossible to get anything really important done. Time slips away, tasks pile up, and your mind is a constant whirlwind of worries, reminders, and unfinished projects.
I have been there, and honestly, it is exhausting. That is why discovering Dean Jackson’s Focus Finder changed my life. This is not just another productivity tip. It is a full system that helps you get everything out of your head, organize it, and actually make progress without burning out.
Step 1: Empty Your Mind
Grab four sheets of paper and a timer. Set aside fifty minutes where you will not be interrupted. Write down everything on your mind, big or small, urgent or someday. From preparing the reading corner to creating worksheets for next week, put it all on paper. Include parent emails, professional development tasks, or classroom decoration ideas you have been postponing.
The goal is not to plan yet. It is to clear mental clutter and see clearly what is on your plate. By the end, you should have around one hundred items.
Benefit: Seeing it all written down brings relief. Your brain finally gets a break from juggling so many things at once.
Step 2: Organize Your Tasks
Once your list is complete, group similar items. Phone calls, errands, classroom projects, or online tasks. Give each group a folder or envelope. Then create focus tickets. Each card represents a single fifty-minute session of focused work. Prioritize the most important tasks on top.
Professional example: If you need to design a science unit, divide the project into a folder and make tickets like preparing experiment instructions, printing worksheets, or organizing materials. If you need to plan a parent-teacher conference, tickets could include writing the agenda, sending reminders, and preparing student progress reports.
Benefit: You now have a clear roadmap. No more wondering what to do first. Every step is in front of you.
Step 3: The Fifty-Twenty-Fifty Method
Here is where the magic happens. Take your top focus ticket, set the timer for fifty minutes, and work only on that task. When the timer goes off, take a twenty-minute break. Stretch, walk, drink coffee, or breathe. Then do another fifty-minute session. That is two hours of focused, high-value work.
Here is the secret most teachers underestimate: even just one focused session per week can resolve many tasks. Two hours of real focus is more than enough. Sometimes we think two hours is not enough, but that is false. When you really focus, time begins to stretch. You know exactly what needs to be done, and your peace of mind, order, and productivity grow.
Benefit: You achieve more in two hours than many teachers do in a whole day. The stress of multitasking melts away, and you finally feel in control.
Step 4: Make It Realistic
I understand that a teacher’s schedule rarely allows daily focus sessions. The goal is to reserve one or two sessions per week for both work and personal projects. The key is that these hours are truly focused, without interruptions. Bring your focus tickets and timer wherever you need them. Each session allows significant progress on your most important projects.
Professional example: When grading assignments, one session could focus only on reading and commenting on essays, another on entering grades, and another on preparing feedback letters for parents. Each task gets full attention and is completed faster.
Why Focusing on One Task at a Time Works Better Than Multitasking
Multitasking feels productive, but it is not. Jumping between lesson plans, emails, and grading drains energy, increases mistakes, and leaves projects unfinished. When you focus on one project at a time, you work faster, think more clearly, and finish tasks with higher quality. Having clarity about what to do creates calm, control, and satisfaction that scattered attention can never give you.
Even dedicating just one or two focused hours per week can make a huge difference. Less stress, more clarity, and the rare but wonderful feeling that your time belongs to you and not to your endless to-do list.
Even with the Focus Finder method, we know teachers’ time is precious. That is why my store exists, to provide ready-to-use resources that save you time and energy while supporting students’ social-emotional learning. Using these materials alongside a focused session means you can accomplish more in less time, stay organized, and maintain your peace of mind. You can explore the resources in my store, Class Plus, and see how they make your teaching day smoother and more productive, so your focus time is spent on the things that truly matter.
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