How to Prioritize Your Classroom Setup Without Losing Your Mind
It’s late July. I'm standing in my classroom looking at six different projects I want to tackle before school starts. My BNT cohost (& bestie) Amanda and I had walked through together earlier that week - being who we are, we immediately started making lists and planning things.
And then I remembered - I teach this. I literally talk to teachers about not overcommitting. I should probably practice what I preach.
So I went to the whiteboard and started sorting my project list by what's actually essential versus what's really just a nice-to-have. This video is that process in real time - and I think it might be the most useful thing I've done for my own mental health all summer.
My actual project list (and how I sorted it)
Here's what was on the board when I started - six things:
Recreate annotation kits for the tables
A secret project (curriculum-related - more on this later)
Dust the room
Glow up the Shakespeare Shrine
Create a charging cord checkout station
Create a QR code wall / frame system
Here's how I sorted them into Must-Have vs. Nice-to-Have:
Must-Have (needs to be done before students arrive):
Charging cord checkout station. If I want students to be able to check out cords and Chromebooks independently from day one, the system has to exist on day one. This is a routine — and routines need infrastructure.
QR code wall. I want QR codes up for Google Classroom, campus resources, counseling links, and student recommendations. But I have to make the digital assets before I can put them up - so the digital work comes first.
Nice-to-Have (can come later in the first few weeks):
Annotation kits. Love them. Want them. They don't have to exist on day one. Week two or three is fine.
Shakespeare Shrine glow-up. This is purely for my own soul. It can wait.
Dusting. I will absolutely do this the day before school starts. Not a second sooner.
The bigger lesson here
I am a person who defrags her brain by doing things. Making projects, organizing spaces, building things - it genuinely makes me feel better. But there is a real cost to overcommitting before school starts. You show up exhausted before the year even begins.
The things that need to be done before students arrive are the things that make your first day run smoothly - the systems, the routines, the infrastructure. Everything else can grow with the school year.
It's okay to not have it all done. In fact, letting students see things come together over the first month gives them ownership over the space in a way that a perfectly finished classroom never could.
Watch the full video for the complete walkthrough - including what I decided to prioritize, where the charging station is going, how I'm thinking about the QR code wall, and a peek at the Secret Project that I'm being cagey about.
Want a system for planning your whole year - not just your classroom setup?
SYS 102: Sustainable Planning at BNT University teaches you to map an entire year in one sitting using the Scope & Sequence approach - so you're never again asking "what am I doing tomorrow?" Free at the 100 level.
Also mentioned in this video: the Brave New Teaching Podcast Back to School mini-series — five days of free episodes to walk you through the back to school season. I'll link it in the video description, and you can find it at bravenewteaching.com.
