How to Easily Free Up Your Time: Delegate These Now

I'm a firm believer in the motto, "Work Smarter, Not Harder." You can't do it all! There's a pile of marking toppling over on the desk, last month's marking is waiting to be filed, and report cards won't write themselves! To free up some time you've got to DELEGATE!

Photo of bookshelf with text, "4 Simple Tasks You Should Delegate to Students."

Home-School Notices

Communication between home and school can get crazy at different times throughout the year. I try my best to keep most of my communication digital, but there are often notices from the office, fundraisers, book orders, and other hard-copy items that need to be distributed.

I can't tell you the number of times someone has knocked on my door with a handful of papers to go home after my break has ended. Or I grab a stack of papers from my mailbox and forget them beside the photocopier. And once in a while, I'll find a notice in my classroom, one that I've left in an obvious place where there's no possible way I'll forget to hand them out and leave my students missing out on a valuable experience... with a due date already long past. Oops.

I've stopped being responsible for this.

My classroom job board is printed on heavy paper, laminated, and fixed with adhesive magnets. I rotate the jobs weekly.

One of my several regular classroom jobs belongs to two "Paper Managers" who are responsible for collecting the packets of notices from a central location and distributing them into my student mailboxes.

My mailboxes are magazine file boxes from Staples.

Student Work Return

I keep a central location for student work to be turned in to me and returned so that I don't continuously have piles on my desk. (That happens without their help, so this system helps me control it!)

When students need to hand work in, it goes straight into my "In Bin," and when I'm ready to return it, I just place it into the "Out Bin" which my Paper Managers check daily. Anything they find there is passed out to the rightful owner at an appropriate time throughout the day.

Grab these free bin labels right here:

Classroom Library

I have built a massive classroom library over the 2+ decades I've taught. The movement of books in and out is constant, but I rarely look at this space unless I'm helping a student locate their next read.

I have a student monitor who is responsible for keeping the books tidy, reshelving titles placed in the return bin, and letting me know when they spot books that need repair.

Managing Classroom Technology

My students also have full control over managing our classroom technology. Once I had our tech station set up, it was all out of my hands. My "Tech Team" ensures that all devices are returned to their proper location and plugged in at the end of each lesson.

Because I've assigned students to this, we have yet to have any issues with tech batteries dying or devices going missing.

I've labeled my Chromebooks, their charging cords, and the storage rack (a dish draining rack from the dollar store!) using washi tape I purchased at Michaels.

Photo of classroom iPads with custom wallpapers.

The dish rack is even perfect for my iPads in these thick carrying cases! You can grab the iPad wallpapers from my TPT store by clicking the image or right here.

Delegating these simple tasks to my students has helped me better maximize my time for other classroom priorities—you know, planning great lessons, creating exciting hands-on activities, and ridding my classroom of the smell of preteen feet at the end of the day!

Woman holding sneakers out and plugging her nose.

Other Things to Delegate

There are so many tasks you can delegate in your classroom! I'm listing some additional ideas below, and would love to add your ideas, too! Leave me a comment below or reach out by email.