Ep 364: Secondary Teacher Planning Starts With Sorting, Not Creating

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Ever get buried under piles of slide decks, worksheets, and half-finished projects, convinced you need to build every single piece from scratch? In this episode of The Secondary Teacher Podcast, host Khristen Massic takes you behind the scenes of smarter lesson planning with an approach called the “Ready Enough Sort.” If you’ve ever searched for “secondary teacher planning starts with sorting, not creating,” you’re in the right place. Khristen isn’t here to sell you on yet another endless to-do list—she’s showing you how to break the cycle and actually reclaim your evenings.

We all fall for the trap: thinking effective teaching means fresh, stunning resources for every unit, every year. Host Khristen Massic is calling BS. Before you pour hours into that next project or activity, hit pause and sort what you have. Pull every single resource for your unit out of its hiding spots—Google Drive rabbit holes, forgotten email threads, dust-covered folders, even that TPT download you never opened. The magic isn’t in making more stuff, but in seeing what’s actually there.

Here’s the heart of it: planning isn’t just about creation. It’s about making decisions. Most teachers, especially those juggling multiple preps, walk into planning thinking almost everything belongs in the “create” pile. Khristen calls that out—your teacher workload explodes when you default to creating. Sorting unlocks the truth: you already have more than you think, and a lot of what you planned to build, you just don’t need.

Want a more concrete approach? Picture this: you’ve gathered all your unit materials into one spot. Instead of diving straight into fixing or organizing them, you sort. Host Khristen Massic breaks it down into six clear categories—reuse, adapt, create, find, decide, and wait. Maybe you’ve got last year’s activity that hit all the right notes—