Latest / Teacher Approved: Elementary Teacher Tips & Strategies / 259. The Decide Once Strategy That Will Save Your Teacher Brain Next Year

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259. The Decide Once Strategy That Will Save Your Teacher Brain Next Year · Teacher Approved: Elementary Teacher Tips & Strategies

0:00
Heidi: This is episode 259 of Teacher Approved.
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You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping
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educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm
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Heidi.
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Emily: And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story
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Window, where we give research-based and teacher
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approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and more
0:21
effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from
0:25
each episode at secondstorywindow.net.
0:27
Heidi: We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to
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the show.
0:31
Emily: Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today's
0:38
episode, we are talking about a strategy that can make your
0:41
whole life easier, seriously, and sharing a tip for surviving
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your end of year events.
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Heidi: Let's start with a try it tomorrow, where we share a quick
0:50
win that you can try in your classroom right away. Emily,
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what is our suggestion for this week?
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Emily: Okay, this week, before the year ends, say thank you to
0:58
someone who helped make this year a little easier. Think
1:01
about everyone who helped you pull this year off. Maybe it's
1:06
your teammate who covers your class when you need to run to
1:08
the bathroom, or the cafeteria worker who somehow still smiles
1:13
while serving her 300th meal of the day, and maybe she saves you
1:17
the good salads or whatever.
1:20
Heidi: Yeah, yeah, the emotional job of being a lunch worker is
1:23
wild, and probably nobody ever thinks her. You know, the kids
1:26
aren't. But this doesn't even have to be someone from school.
1:29
It could be the parent who had your back during a hard moment
1:33
instead of making it worse.
1:34
Emily: Uh huh. So whoever it is, find a way to share your
1:37
gratitude. Just send a text, a note, or take a moment to talk
1:41
as you pass each other in the workroom.
1:42
Heidi: And we would like to thank all of you who have left
1:46
us lovely ratings and reviews. They help us out so much, and we
1:50
read every single one.
1:51
Emily: It's true we do, and they make it a little bit easier for
1:54
us to keep doing our podcast. So thank you.
1:58
Heidi: All right, everyone, let's start with a story time.
2:02
So I had a year with a ton of mid year student turnover. Now,
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my school always had high turnover rates, but that year,
2:08
it was like a third of the kids that I had at the end of the
2:12
year did not start the year in my class.
2:14
Emily: Oh my gosh. That is so hard. It's rough getting so many
2:18
new kids in the middle of the year, and every new kid that
2:22
comes in means a whole long to do list that you have to do when
2:26
you already have a long to do list.
2:28
Heidi: Yeah, oh, the pit your stomach when you get that
2:31
dreaded email. It means, you know, stopping everything, and I
2:34
had to go and figure out what they needed. So find a folder,
2:37
find a name tag, make a desk label, grab the parent info,
2:40
figure out where their cubby was gonna go. Oh, and then, of
2:43
course, you have to prep the class that this is gonna happen.
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Be cool, guys.
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Emily: Don't make us look bad.
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Heidi: Because nobody had ever talked to me about how to
2:53
efficiently onboard a new student, every single time it
2:56
was like starting from scratch.
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Emily: Yeah. And when something is so far outside your regular
3:01
routine, it feels like just a one off task, but it can start
3:05
happening like once a month.
3:07
Heidi: Yes. So you know, here I am getting ready for the third
3:11
new student of the term, and the light bulb finally turned on.
3:15
I'm not a quick learner. I was like, This is so dumb. I'm doing
3:19
the same thing over and over and over and forgetting steps every
3:22
time. So I sat down and I made a bunch of new student bags with
3:26
all of their supplies, including, I was very proud of
3:28
remembering this, the little popsicle stick that you put in
3:31
your name picker jar. And then, plus, I finally made a checklist
3:35
so all of my steps were in one place.
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Emily: And I'm really lucky that you figured all this out,
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because by the time I started teaching, you told me that I
3:43
needed to do this and that it should be part of my back to
3:46
school prep to make these new student packs. And oh, it was so
3:50
easy to just gather everything while I'm already setting
3:53
everything up at the beginning of the year.
3:54
Heidi: But what was even easier was the time that one of my
3:59
students switched schools and landed in your class. So because
4:02
we were doing the same things, I could just hand you all his
4:04
stuff, all ready to go.
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Emily: That did work out that year, although I'm not gonna
4:09
lie, I was pretty much ready to send him back after a few days.
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Heidi: He was a rough one. I can't say I was too sad to say
4:16
goodbye there.
4:17
Emily: Yeah, I'm still salty about that. But today's episode
4:22
isn't about preparing for a new student. We're just going to
4:24
apply that principle to other parts of your school day. This
4:28
is an idea from our favorite Kendra Adachi at the Lazy Genius
4:33
podcast. We love her stuff, and if you like us, you'll probably
4:36
like her too.
4:37
Heidi: Yes, but remember, the rule is that you are not allowed
4:40
to like her more than us. Okay? Everybody got that?
4:43
Emily: Yes, absolutely, you, if you're listening to us, you
4:46
implicitly signed on the line that you wouldn't do that.
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Heidi: Loyalty contract.
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Emily: Yep. Okay, so Kendra calls this concept Decide Once.
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The idea is that there are a million tiny decisions in your
4:58
life that don't actually need to be made over and over. They just
5:02
need some thoughtfulness about what the best action is, and
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that's your decision. Then the next time the situation pops up,
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you just move forward, because you already know what to do.
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Heidi: This is an especially useful strategy for teachers,
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because there are so many decisions. The whole day is
5:17
nothing but decisions. If you are in the middle of teaching a
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math lesson, you have to decide if the pacing is appropriate. Do
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you need to slow down because the kids are confused or speed
5:26
up because they're bored? Do you need to redirect the kid looking
5:29
out the window, or is he just processing? How do you respond
5:32
to this student's answer to encourage richer thinking, what
5:35
modifications does the assignment need?
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Emily: Yeah, and that's just in 30 seconds. If you expand that
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out across the day, your life is just one decision after another,
5:46
and even if it's invisible, making a decision is literally
5:49
work.
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Heidi: Yeah, the average teacher makes something like 1500
5:53
decisions a day, and every single one of them costs you a
5:59
little bit of energy. That's why it's called decision fatigue.
6:02
Emily: And we did a deep dive on this back in episode 79 so if
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you want to go check that one out, but the short version is
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that by this point of the school year, your decision making
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battery is at 1%.
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Heidi: And while there may not be a ton that you can do right
6:17
now to charge that battery, there's a lot you can do to make
6:21
sure that it doesn't get drained as much next year. You may not
6:23
know everything that's going to happen in your classroom in the
6:26
next year, but there is so much that you can predict. You will
6:30
face student behavior challenges and overflowing inbox and sub
6:33
plans, those are guaranteed.
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Emily: Yep, and deciding once how to handle just those three
6:39
situations would make your day so much easier to navigate. But
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there are so many more potential decide once opportunities. So
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let's look at five categories of decisions and help you identify
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where you could be making fewer decisions.
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Heidi: And in case you're wondering, no, we have not
6:56
forgotten that this is the end of the school year. We know you
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are tired, but this moment offers a chance for change that
7:03
is going to be hard to come by later, and it's because you are
7:07
tired that it works so well.
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Emily: Being fed up is your signal that something needs to
7:12
change. Once you have a few weeks of summer break behind
7:15
you, that vision will be less clear. You'll forget how
7:18
frustrating managing your homework folders was until
7:21
you're two weeks into September and fighting the same battle. So
7:25
use your annoyance to make next year less annoying.
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Heidi: And that is the whole framework of this episode. What
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made you crazy this year? If something happened more than
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three times, that is a problem with your system, and system
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problems can usually be solved at one time.
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Emily: Okay, so our first category is the big one. Decide
7:46
your default response to predictable problems. So we're
7:50
talking about the behavior stuff. What do you say when a
7:52
student blurts out? How do you resolve arguments at recess? How
7:56
do you redirect kids who are talking during work time? This
8:00
isn't the stuff that shows up on your pacing guide, but it's what
8:02
you spend 75% of your day managing. I made up that figure,
8:06
but it feels accurate.
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Heidi: 90% feels probably more like it. And if you aren't sure
8:11
where to start, ask yourself, what situations kept pulling me
8:15
into the same conversations over and over all year long? Maybe it
8:19
was the bathroom. Some teachers spend the whole year being
8:22
asked, Can I go to the bathroom? Can I go to the bathroom? Can I
8:25
go to the bathroom? And answering that one kid at a
8:28
time, and that drains you.
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Emily: And the answer is, not deal with bathroom requests
8:32
better. The answer is, decide once, what is your bathroom
8:36
system? Is it a sign out? Is it a hand signal? Is it two passes
8:40
a day? Pick one and use it until it stops working, and hopefully
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it never does.
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Heidi: And that's the same with blurting. You can decide right
8:50
now, what is my go to response when a kid blurts out? Maybe
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it's a hand signal. Maybe it's an acknowledgement and a
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reminder. I can tell you have something to say, and I'm going
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to come to you in two minutes.
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Emily: The point is you don't have to decide what to do on the
9:04
spot, because not only is that exhausting, but it also means
9:07
your response is inconsistent, which kids pick up on so fast.
9:11
My kids pick up on that at my house, those inconsistent
9:14
systems get tested constantly.
9:17
Heidi: Yeah, kids are crafty. They're always playing the odds
9:21
that if they keep pushing, this will be the moment you cave, but
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if you respond the same way every time, they learn that what
9:28
you say is what you mean, and they will stop testing you so
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often.
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Emily: To solidify your decide once decisions. Write a script
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for what to say. Maybe your decide once is that when a
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student is staring off into space during work time your
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prompt is, It looks like you need some help getting started.
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The first step is to blank. So put it on a card or a sticky
9:48
note and keep it somewhere handy until it becomes an automatic
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response that you don't even need to reference.
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Heidi: Most of the discipline problems you face fall into
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predictable categories. The extra talking, daydreaming,
10:00
blurting out, interruptions, and because they're predictable, all
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it takes is one decision to guide your response every time
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they happen.
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Emily: Okay, the second category of decisions involves your
10:12
boundaries around work. This is email, grading, availability,
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all of the emotional labor stuff. And the question to ask
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yourself for this one is, where did I feel resentful this year?
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Heidi: Resentment is a big clue that you're letting other
10:27
people's priorities dictate how you spend your time.
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Emily: I love the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown,
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and he has a quote that stuck with me, if you don't prioritize
10:37
your life, someone else will. Teaching may be the only
10:40
profession where everyone from central office administrators to
10:44
random people online feels entitled to tell you how to
10:47
spend every minute of your day. Even though most of those people
10:51
have no clue about the realities of running a classroom, they
10:54
still have opinions, and they're not shy about sharing them. So
10:57
if you let outside expectations determine your priorities,
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you're going to spend every day bouncing around like a ping pong
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ball in a blender.
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Heidi: That's visceral. And that's why deciding once can be
11:10
so useful here. If you don't determine what's reasonable for
11:14
you, other people will. Take email, for example. I just saw a
11:18
teacher on threads yesterday. She got an email from a parent
11:22
at 9pm asking what the teacher was doing to help find a lost
11:26
water bottle. That's not a situation that needs to be
11:29
handled at 9pm.
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Emily: Oh my gosh. Of course, if you wait to respond, you end up
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spending the whole morning before kids arrive answering
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everyone else's urgent questions instead of managing your own
11:40
tasks. So what are your email rules? Maybe you decide on a two
11:45
stage email boundary where you scan the inbox for essential
11:48
information before school and only reply to what's truly
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urgent, and then use 15 minutes after dismissal to reply to
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everything else. That way you prevent email from consuming
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your prep time.
12:00
Heidi: And you can apply the same philosophy to grading. If
12:03
you don't decide for yourself, then every single paper in your
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inbox becomes its own decision. Do I grade this? Do I need to
12:10
write feedback? Do I spend my prep time on this, or do I take
12:13
the stack home with me and grade on the couch?
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Emily: And grading is important, but it cannot be allowed to
12:18
consume the time and energy you need for actual teaching and
12:22
living your life. So decide what gets graded and at what level.
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If the purpose of grading something is to determine if the
12:29
students understand it, what's the minimum you could look at to
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make that decision? Maybe you only grade the even problems on
12:36
a math page.
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Heidi: And are there things that you can just skip grading
12:40
altogether? When I taught, we corrected our morning work as a
12:43
class, because the discussion was actually part of the
12:46
learning, so I never bothered to grade the page.
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Emily: Oh no, not ever. Do not grade morning work unless you're
12:53
required to grade every assignment. But even then, are
12:56
there some things that can be checked for completion only?
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Heidi: Yeah, you can just decide once that you save your best
13:03
efforts for assignments that will inform your instruction.
13:06
Emily: Now, in a perfect world, every assignment would be viewed
13:08
as a formative assessment, but until the district hires a
13:11
secretary to handle your paperwork, you do have to be
13:14
selective.
13:15
Heidi: Yeah, unless they're going to offer you some better
13:18
support, you need strong boundaries to protect your
13:21
peace. Apply that to your work hours as well. What time do you
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walk out of the building? What time do you stop responding to
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messages? Are you on Class Dojo or, you know, whatever app on
13:31
the weekends? Because if you don't decide, you're going to be
13:34
answering those parent messages about water bottles at 9pm and
13:37
then resenting it.
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Emily: And that trains people that they have unlimited access
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to you, which means they'll keep expecting it. So decide when
13:45
you're off duty. Maybe it's, I do not respond to messages after
13:47
five, and I do not respond on weekends. Whatever your number
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is, decide once and stick with it, and maybe make sure your
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email is not on your phone.
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Heidi: Yes, very wise. Okay. Number three is to decide your
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flow of stuff.
14:01
Emily: Stuff. Piles. Unfinished tasks, ugh. The papers on the
14:06
counter that you've forgotten exist. And the question for this
14:09
one is, what kept piling up literally on your desk or in
14:14
your brain all year?
14:15
Heidi: I saw a quote once that has haunted me ever since,
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clutter is the physical manifestation of unmade
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decisions.
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Emily: Oh my gosh, it's so true.
14:24
Heidi: As someone who struggles to make those decisions and
14:27
therefore deals with a lot of clutter, that just felt a little
14:30
too personal. So I promise that I'm not being judgmental when I
14:35
say that the stack of papers on your desk is not paper. It's the
14:39
decisions you've not made yet. Do I need to save this file,
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grade this, send this home, or throw it away? Until you decide,
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it stays like an open loop in your brain.
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Emily: Oh, it's so hard. I feel like I hit my decision fatigue
14:52
early. So I feel like I I'm burned out on decisions very
14:56
early in the day. And so there's always so many, so many
14:59
decisions piling up around my house. Okay, but one of the
15:02
easiest wins then in this whole episode is to decide how you are
15:06
going to handle the papers that come in frequently. If you don't
15:10
have a specific turn in system for student work start there.
15:13
Heidi: But also consider how you handle unfinished work. Now, I
15:17
never did get a good system down for this, so it meant I had to
15:21
make a decision every single time it came up. Save yourself
15:24
that hassle. Decide, do you have a basket for all unfinished
15:28
work? Maybe your kids have a folder in their desks.
15:31
Emily: And then also decide when it comes back out, because part
15:34
of the problem is having a system for stuff going in and no
15:37
system for stuff coming out, and then it just becomes a paper
15:41
graveyard.
15:42
Heidi: Yeah, so decide once unfinished work goes in this
15:46
folder. Every Friday we do a finish up Friday for 30 minutes,
15:49
or whatever the rhythm is, but the cycle is decided.
15:52
Emily: Yes. Another strategy that can help is deciding once
15:56
to adopt the One Minute Rule, which is something we picked up
15:59
from Gretchen Rubin.
16:00
Heidi: Yes, and we love Gretchen Rubin as much as we love Kendra.
16:04
Again, you will probably love her podcast if you have not
16:07
discovered her already. But remember the rule, you cannot
16:10
like her and her sister more than you like me and my sister.
16:13
Emily: Yes, correct. We have strict rules here, but the one
16:16
minute rule just says that if something takes less than a
16:19
minute, just do it now. Don't let a 30 second task haunt you
16:23
for weeks when you could have just done it and been done with
16:26
it. You will be amazed at what a difference just that tiny switch
16:30
makes. And I try to keep that going for myself at home. And
16:33
the other one is the one touch rule, where, if I'm holding the
16:36
mail, for example, I deal with it right then. I try to, okay, I
16:42
try to deal with it right then. I tell myself, one touch rule,
16:45
one touch rule, don't set it down, deal with it now. So those
16:49
can go hand in hand, one minute and one touch.
16:51
Heidi: It's just too much stuff all the time. Okay, our fourth
16:56
decide once category is to decide your repeatable routines
16:59
for the situations that come up over and over again. These are
17:03
your SOPs, your standard operating procedures. And the
17:07
reflection question here is, what situations left me
17:10
scrambling to remember what I did last time?
17:13
Emily: Like the new student bag situation that we were talking
17:16
about earlier. That is a perfect example. Getting a new student
17:19
isn't a hard situation, is just interruptive, because you have
17:22
to stop everything and switch gears so you can make a whole
17:25
bunch of decisions.
17:26
Heidi: Your new student protocol is a great place to add an SOP,
17:30
like we said, but consider your system for helping absent
17:33
students who come back and need to catch up. Maybe there's a
17:36
folder on the absent students desk, and you assign a buddy to
17:39
add any missing work to it, done. I
17:41
Emily: t's also helpful to decide your SOP for making sub
17:44
plans and events like picture day and field trips. These are
17:49
things you only do once or twice a year, but it takes real effort
17:52
to manage them if you start from scratch every time.
17:55
Heidi: You will be so happy to have these done. Once you see
17:59
how many decisions you're saving, you're going to wonder
18:01
how you ever manage without these.
18:04
Emily: Okay, our last decide once category is to decide how
18:07
you collaborate with other adults, and the question to ask
18:10
yourself is, where did working with other adults feel unclear
18:14
or frustrating this year?
18:16
Heidi: Honestly, the kid part of teaching is hard, but it's still
18:19
so much easier than dealing with other adults. It's the co-worker
18:23
drama that just tips me over the edge.
18:26
Emily: Oh yes, it's so hard. It shouldn't be this hard. We're
18:29
all grown ups. But the tricky part about using decide once
18:33
here is that you likely don't have complete control over every
18:36
situation, so it is important to be clear with what you can
18:39
control.
18:39
Heidi: A great place to start is deciding in advance things like,
18:44
what will I volunteer for and what will I not? Because if you
18:47
don't decide that ahead of time, you're going to get pressured
18:49
into saying yes to things that you will regret for the next six
18:53
months.
18:54
Emily: So decide once. I will run one committee, but not two,
18:58
or I'll bring food for the team breakfast, but I am not the
19:01
person organizing it, or I'll cover one duty trade per month,
19:05
and that's it.
19:06
Heidi: Yeah, because somehow you're the one that's always
19:08
willing to cover for someone else, but somehow they're never
19:11
available when you need their help. And then the other piece
19:15
is, how are you going to share resources? Or are you going to,
19:19
because unclear expectations are a recipe for hurt feelings.
19:22
Emily: So decide for yourself. Maybe you decide to share your
19:26
Google Slides, but not to share materials, because those cost
19:29
you a lot of money, or whatever your version is, but you decide
19:33
once, and then you don't have to litigate it every time someone
19:36
asks.
19:37
Heidi: So those are our five decide once categories. Number
19:41
one, decide your default responses to predictable
19:43
behavior problems. Number two, decide your work boundaries.
19:47
Number three, decide the flow of stuff. Number four, decide your
19:51
repeatable routines. And number five, decide how you collaborate
19:55
with other adults.
19:56
Emily: Okay, is your head spinning because we just threw a
19:59
lot at you? But let's simplify. Sometime in the next couple of
20:03
days before this year fades from your brain, open up a Notes app
20:07
on your phone or grab a piece of paper and make a list. The title
20:10
is, what drove me crazy this year, and then write down
20:14
everything that bugged you, drained you or made you cry, and
20:18
then mark anything that happened more than once. Anything you
20:21
marked is a good candidate for the decide once treatment.
20:25
Heidi: And you do not have to fix all of these. The point is
20:28
not to overhaul your whole life. The point is to take a few of
20:32
those recurring frustrations off your plate. And if you are a
20:36
Teacher Approved Club member, we've got a special bonus
20:39
printable for you. We've made you a blank what drove me crazy
20:42
this year list just for this exercise. So if you remember,
20:46
you can grab it now. You can print it and handwrite on it, or
20:49
type it right in the Google Doc, whatever works for your brain.
20:52
Emily: And if you are not in the club and you want to know more
20:55
about it, you can find that link in the show notes too. The club
20:58
is where we go deeper on all the stuff we talk about here on the
21:01
show, with bonus resources, monthly trainings and challenges
21:05
to help you get where you want to be.
21:07
Heidi: Decide once is such a useful strategy because it keeps
21:11
you in control of the moment. You don't have to drop
21:14
everything else you're managing to tend to this one problem,
21:17
because you already know how to manage it.
21:19
Emily: And that is such a helpful framework that we
21:22
applied it to the whole school year in our new book Structure
21:25
and Spark. So think about behavior. A lot of teachers hit
21:28
a wall in December when your usual system stopped working. It
21:32
doesn't mean that you failed. It just means that December asks
21:34
something different of you than September does.
21:36
Heidi: Right. And if you have already decided that when
21:40
December rolls around, you're going to layer in a short term
21:44
behavior, reward system, you aren't scrambling on December 12
21:47
when the wheels start coming off the bus, you already know what
21:50
you're reaching for.
21:51
Emily: And the same thing in January. Suddenly, the seating
21:54
arrangement that was just fine before does not work anymore.
21:57
You know this is coming. Kids need a mid year reset. So you
22:00
can decide right now that when you get back in January, you are
22:03
going to separate kids a little more than you did at the start
22:06
of the year. You could literally pick out the new arrangement
22:08
before you leave for summer.
22:10
Heidi: That is the power of decide once. It's not about the
22:13
paper or the email. This applies to the whole year. When you know
22:18
what each season is going to ask of you, you stop reacting and
22:21
you start managing proactively.
22:23
Emily: That is exactly why we wrote the book. Structure and
22:26
Spark maps every season, from back to school to the home
22:29
stretch, and it gives you the engagement tools and behavior
22:32
systems for each one. So instead of deciding every August and
22:36
every December and every January, you're just going to
22:39
decide once how to handle what you already know is coming.
22:41
Heidi: The book comes out August 18, and pre orders are open now,
22:45
and they really do help us out so much. The link is in the show
22:49
notes, and we've got some fun pre-order bonuses coming your
22:52
way over the next few months. We would love to have you with us
22:55
for this.
22:56
Emily: Now for our Teacher Approved Tip of the Week, where
22:58
we share an actionable tip to help you elevate what matters
23:01
and simplify the rest. This week's teacher approved tip is
23:05
buy ice cream sandwiches. Tell us about it, Heidi.
23:08
Heidi: I don't think there's ever a bad time to buy ice cream
23:11
sandwiches, but this can be such a lifesaver at the end of the
23:14
school year. If one of your upcoming celebrations involves
23:18
an ice cream bar, you know kids love an ice cream bar, do
23:20
yourself a favor and buy ice cream sandwiches instead of tubs
23:23
of ice cream. They're so much easier to manage. You don't have
23:27
to find room in the faculty room freezer for a giant tub of ice
23:30
cream, usually around everyone else's tub of ice cream. You
23:33
don't have to have a line of 25 kids waiting while you try to
23:36
scoop bowls, and they're getting impatient, and the ice cream is
23:39
rock hard because it just came out of the freezer.
23:41
Emily: I think you still have ice cream PTSD.
23:43
Heidi: I do.
23:44
Emily: But with this, you can still have the ice cream bar
23:47
fun. Just unwrap the sandwiches and put them in a bowl and then
23:50
let the kids smother them in sprinkles and chocolate sauce
23:52
and whipped cream and all the things. And now they have a
23:55
little ice cream sandwich sundae situation.
23:57
Heidi: And the kids will still think this is magical. So save
24:00
yourself the hassle, save yourself the shoulder pain from
24:03
scooping for 20 minutes straight, and grab a couple of
24:06
boxes of ice cream sandwiches.
24:08
To wrap up the show we are sharing what we're giving extra
24:13
credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?
24:20
Emily: I'm giving extra credit to murdoku. So maybe people have
24:20
seen the murdle activity books that are for like kids and
24:23
adults. There's different versions. It's a fun puzzle book
24:26
for solving a pretend murder, and not in a gruesome way. But
24:31
murdoku is a really unique twist on it, because it's a logic
24:36
puzzle. So you kind of have a grid you're working from that
24:40
has some things on the grid, like furniture, and then you're
24:43
given a set of clues. And those clues help you narrow down from
24:48
the list, like, who could possibly be the murderer. And
24:52
it's so fun, and I like that they're quick to do, like, I can
24:55
just decide to do one, and it will take me, like, five
24:57
minutes. So it's not a big time commitment, either. And it kind
25:00
of reminds me of playing clue.
25:02
Heidi: That's what it sounds like.
25:03
Emily: Yeah. So anyway, I highly recommend this book if you want
25:08
to do some more analog activities. This one's really
25:11
fun.
25:11
Heidi: I'll have to check that out. I can add it to my analog
25:13
bag.
25:14
Emily: Yes. Okay, what are you giving extra credit to, Heidi?
25:17
Heidi: Well, this is less fun, but my extra credit goes to fast
25:21
drying stone sink trays. I was tired of getting that dried up
25:26
puddle under the soap dispenser. You know, where it gets, like,
25:29
gritty, like, I hate that. And I thought there had to be a
25:32
solution.
25:33
Emily: There has to be a better way!
25:36
Heidi: I could do a commercial. And that's when I found these.
25:39
They're just little stone trays that you set your soap
25:41
dispensers on, and they absorb water crazy fast. And plus,
25:45
they're really affordable. I think I got a set of three for
25:48
$12. And I will have a cheap problem solver. We need more of
25:51
those in life.
25:52
Emily: Yeah. And the funny thing that I'm laughing about is that
25:56
I just recently got one too, but not, not exactly the same. The
26:00
one I got is like two long pieces that have, like a half
26:04
circle cut out at the end. So you put it around your your
26:07
faucet.
26:08
Heidi: Oh, oh, okay.
26:09
Emily: And so then it goes, like, because I have a problem
26:12
where my back splash, like the grout right along my counter,
26:16
and the backsplash is always like chipping, because water
26:19
gets up there. And so I just barely got those. But I also
26:23
have, I have a drying rack for dishes that's the same kind of
26:26
thing. And I have a bath mat in my bathroom, outside my shower
26:30
that's like this.
26:31
Heidi: I didn't even think of a bath mat.
26:32
Emily: Yeah, so and I thought I would hate it but I've had it
26:35
for years. It's not cold. You know, since it's a stone, it
26:38
seems like it would be cold on your feet, but it's not at all.
26:41
And I just like that it's not a mat that's getting moldy.
26:45
Heidi: Oh, well I'll have to check that out.
26:47
Emily: Yep, all of the diato, I think it's diatomaceous earth
26:51
stuff. It's all the rage now, and it's, and there's so many
26:55
affordable places selling it too where, when I first got my bath
26:59
mat, there was like, one high end company that was doing this,
27:02
and nobody else was, but now you can get them cheap anywhere.
27:04
Heidi: That's good. I'm gonna have to look for something. So
27:07
my sink doesn't have a backsplash, but the grout
27:10
between, like the sink and the counter, or the latex, what is
27:15
it, silicone, I'm always having trouble leaking there. I wonder
27:17
if I can get something like, goes over the edge. I'm gonna
27:20
have to investigate now.
27:21
Emily: Yeah.
27:22
Heidi: Got me on a quest.
27:23
Well, that is it for today's episode. Decide once while this
27:27
year is still fresh, and start next year off with a whole new
27:30
bag of tools.
27:31
Emily: And if you're a club member, if you want the
27:34
printable version of the what drove me crazy this year list,
27:38
head on over to your dashboard on the club and look for it
27:41
there.
27:41
Heidi: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm
27:47
Heidi.
27:48
Emily: And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow
27:51
or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an
27:53
episode.
27:54
Heidi: You can connect with us and other teachers in the
27:57
Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.
28:00
Bye for now.
28:01
Emily: Bye.