Ep 362: Teacher Planning Is Deciding, Not Building From Scratch

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If "teacher planning takes every available minute," you're not alone—and this episode drills into the hard truth every multi-prep secondary teacher needs to hear. The primary keyword phrase for this episode: "planning is deciding, not building from scratch." That’s the shift host Khristen Massic, a legit 10-year high school engineering teacher turned teacher coach, wants you to make. If endless tabs, empty planning periods, and late-night spirals sound familiar, this one's got your name on it.

You know the drill. You sit down to "plan" but end up buried under a mountain of emails, grading, or chasing down the fantasy of the perfect resource. Suddenly, the actual planning happens after hours, when your brain is fried, and your energy is gone. The classic mistake? Believing planning means creating everything new, hunting for the perfect activity, or crafting slides from scratch. Host Khristen Massic calls BS.

Here's the hard-won teacher tip that kicks open the door to classroom sanity: planning is deciding—nothing more, nothing less. It's figuring out what students really need, what you already have, what's missing, and what actually needs your creative labor. Not every activity, not every slide, not every worksheet needs to be invented from the ground up. Khristen’s advice is freeing: split the tasks, get clear, and stop letting planning eat you alive.

Picture this: you know which unit is up next, open up your drive, and get lost in a rabbit hole. Three activities look promising. One “sort of” fits but needs edits; another is pretty, but you’ll have to make a handout. Maybe you even find last year’s half-assed version and wonder why you’re reinventing the wheel. Suddenly you’re not planning—you’re drowning in choices and tasks, and your time? Gone.

That’s not a time problem. It’s a decision problem. Planning is deciding which resources need to be adapted, which can be reused as-is, and which genuinely must be built. The magic is in separating the act of decision-making from the act of creating. Khristen points out that this is especially vital in the secondary classroom when you’re juggling multiple preps without a ready-made curriculum. Your pile of materials isn’t nothing—it’s raw material. Good planning is about sifting, not starting over.

She also drops a hard truth for perfectionists: you do not need ready-for-the-history-books perfection before teaching tomorrow’s lesson. Ask yourself, “Is this unit ready enough to teach?” Not “perfect,” not “finished forever”—just ready enough. Because the real insights come once students are in the room and the unit is actually in motion. What looks good on paper might flop in real life; what feels half-baked might be exactly what those kids need.

If you’re feeling crushed by the pressure to build an entire curriculum every time you plan, this episode’s for you. It’s a battle cry for tired secondary teachers: put work life balance back within reach and make planning serve you, not the other way around.