3 Teacher Tasks You Should Stop Doing Right Now (and What to Do Instead)

Teaching might be the only job where the to-do list never ends. Grading, lesson planning, emails, meetings, and covering classes all pile up until the list grows into tasks you never even signed up for. The work follows you home like a shadow, interrupting your evenings and stealing your weekends. Some nerve, right?

A lot of what we do as teachers doesn’t actually move the needle for our students. These tasks drain our energy without giving much back.

If you’re feeling stretched too thin and wondering how to manage your time better as a teacher, here are three tasks you should stop doing right now, along with smarter alternatives that save time without sacrificing student success.

1. Stop Grading Every Single Assignment in Detail

We’ve all done it. Staying up way too late, red pen in hand, falling asleep mid-mark. But in reality, most students glance at the grade, maybe skim a comment, and move on. Meanwhile, you’ve lost precious hours you’ll never get back.

Do this instead:

• Grade for completion on daily practice.

• Try open-note and classwork quizzes. A sneaky way to hold students accountable without grading every sheet.

• Give focused feedback only on major assessments, not everything.

• Use peer checks, self-assessments, or exit tickets to guide learning without piling it on your desk.

If you’ve ever searched “grading hacks for teachers,” this is the big one. Stop grading everything in detail, and reclaim your evenings.

2. Stop Reinventing the Wheel for Every Lesson

Every week does not need brand new slides, a fresh lab, or an activity you discovered on Pinterest at midnight. Creating everything from scratch is exhausting and it is not sustainable for the long run. Teachers often feel pressure to constantly come up with new material, but the truth is that students thrive on consistency and well-designed resources more than novelty.

Do this instead:

• Build a digital library of reliable “go-to” labs, bellringers, and sub plans for each unit. Having a toolkit you can pull from prevents the Sunday scramble and gives your students structure.

• Reuse and adapt what already works. If an activity or lab engaged students last year, bring it back and tweak it for this year’s group.

• Lean on high-quality, ready-to-use science lessons that align with standards. This saves hours of prep time while keeping your teaching effective and engaging.

And if you want to skip the late-night search altogether, join SciAcademy. Inside the membership, you will find a rotating library of lesson resources, labs, and sub plans designed specifically for physics and chemistry teachers. Everything is created by a veteran high school physics and chemistry teacher who understands the challenges you face every day. You get classroom-tested resources that save you time without sacrificing quality or student engagement.

3. Stop Saying Yes to Every Extra Task

It starts small. Admin asks you to cover a class. A colleague asks if you can help with an event. District staff invite you to lead a training at the next PD day. Each request seems reasonable in the moment, but before you know it, you are sitting in meetings you do not need to be in, running clubs you never planned to lead, and watching your prep period disappear. I have been there too…like…all of last year.

Do this instead:

• Protect your planning period and your lunch. Those minutes are your time, and you deserve to use them well.

• Practice saying no politely but firmly. Try,“I’d love to help, but I am at capacity right now.”

• Keep your focus on what directly impacts your teaching and your students. That is where your energy matters most.

Learning how to say no is not about being unhelpful. It is about setting healthy boundaries so you can show up as your best self in the classroom. Teachers who search for guidance on how to set boundaries as a teacher or how to say no to admin requests are really looking for permission to prioritize their time. Consider this your permission slip!

Final Thoughts

Great teaching is not about doing everything. It is about focusing on what matters most. And that would be your students, your energy, and your ability to show up fully in the classroom. When you protect your time and streamline the parts of the job that drain you, you can put more of yourself into the moments that truly matter and feel good about it.

For everything else, there is SciAcademy.

When you join SciAcademy, you get:

• Full-year physics and chemistry lessons that are ready to use.

• Go ahead and check the pacing guides to see what’s dropping each month.

• Printable labs and activities designed to work even with large class sizes.

• Emergency sub plans you can rely on when life throws you a curveball.

All of these resources are classroom-tested and created by a veteran high school physics and chemistry teacher who understands exactly what today’s teachers need.

For less than the cost of a coffee run, you can reclaim your evenings and weekends and step into your classroom with confidence and calm.

✨ Ready to stop spinning your wheels and start saving time? Join SciAcademy today and take back your most valuable resource: your time.