Teachers in Transition - Episode 183 - Planners Gonna Plan

Planners ‘Gonna Plan

Today on the podcast, we look back at 2023, we talk about which planners are the best, and we continue our journey of self-inventory for Petal 4 in the “What Color Is Your Parachute” mini-series by figuring what knowledge and skills we have and how those might apply in our fields of interest. 

What Color is Your Parachute 2024 and the Workbook 

Chart – The Fishermans’ Grid  (Your interests and collected knowledge)

Favorite Subjects Matrix 

Franklin Covey Leadership Planner

Happy Planner 

Erin Condren 

Commit30

O*Net Online

And remember to send your comments, stories, and random thoughts to me at TeachersinTransitionCoaching@gmail.com!  I can’t wait to read them.  

The transcript of this podcast can be found on the Episode’s page at Buzzsprout. . 

Transcript

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Teachers in Transition Ep 183 – Planners Gonna Plan!

Are you a teacher who is feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout - or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing something different or a new job or perhaps pursuing an entirely different career - but you don't know what else you're qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search and you just feel stuck. if that sounds like you, I promise you are not alone. my name is Vanessa Jackson; and I am a career transition and job search coach and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal with the overwhelmingly stressful nature of your day-to-day job and to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. You might ask yourself, What tools do I need to find a new career?  Are my skills valuable outside the classroom?  How and where do I even get started?  These are all questions you deserve answers to, and I can help you find them.  I’m Vanessa Jackson. Come and join me for Teachers in Transition.  

 Hi!  And Welcome back to another episode of Teachers in Transition. I am your host, Vanessa Jackson - a compassionate Career transition and job search coach who specializes in working with burnt out teachers who are ready for a career change but are not sure where to begin. Today I am going to start by reflecting on 2023, we’ll talk about the best planner to use and ways to plan in 2024.  We’ll also talk about the next step in our mini-series of personal inventory from the “What Color is Your Parachute” book. 

Today is December 30, and I want to wish all my listeners a Happy New Year!  I love to spend this week between Christmas and New Year’s reflecting about what happened last year and dream of what I want to happen next year. I’d love to share some of that with you today. 

Last year, when 2023 started, I never dreamed my life would be where it is now. I was happily working at a job for a large company, I got to work from home, and I managed to avoid shoulder surgery.  Lots of wins right up front!  I like to have a Theme word for the year, and for 2023, my word was PACE.  I wanted to remind myself that there was a lot in a year and to make sure I was saving time for fun as well as for work.  I also wanted to remind myself that I set my own pace.  I don’t have to follow any specific group or wait on something.  If I want to be happy, I set that pace.  I had plans for my year! And those plans motored along quite nicely for about 5 and a half months.  

In the back half of the year, I lost three close family members and a job.  That’s a lot to pack in a sentence with less than ten words. I have spent most of the last half of the year drowning in paperwork and responsibilities.  PACE was an excellent word for my year. I had a turtle on my desk to remind me of Aesop’s Fable about the tortoise and the hare.  I’ll sum that up.  A tortoise and a hare agree to a race.  The hare has never been beaten and is extremely confident that he’ll win. He quickly leaves the tortoise behind in a cloud of dust.  He gets so far ahead that he stops for a meal.  Meanwhile, the tortoise keeps plodding along.  When the hare spots the tortoise, he jumps up and races off again.  Soon he’s so far ahead that he takes a nap (because that meal was delicious!). And as he’s snoozing, the tortoise keeps moving forward.  In fact, the hare was snoozing so well that the tortoise passes the hare, and by the time the hare awakens, the tortoise is very close to the finish line and there is no way for the hare to catch up. 

The moral of the story being that the race won by the determined, and not the by the swift. 

I thought that about a lot in this past year. And I keep moving forward. 

 So as 2024 dawns, I start the year with a completely different set of responsibilities and blessings than I had at this time last year. I am now owner of Teachers in Transition and I am working with our founder, Kitty Boitnott to get everything moved over. I am no longer traveling hundreds of miles a week to take care of family, and while I miss them greatly, my car doesn’t miss the miles.  

In our next segment, I want to talk about planners. This a great time of year to talk about planners and planning, and I am a planner junkie! We shall not mention how many stickers I have to help with planning and tracking! We just won’t! (laughs).  But there are SO many systems out there.  Let’s see: Bullet journals, Happy Planner, Commit 30, Digital planners, Day-at-a-glance, Franklin Covey, - I have a teacher friend who swears by Erin Condren. My dad swore by Daytimer, I think it was called. And I am sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. 
 When I was first teaching, it was trendy at that school to have the Franklin Covey planner.  So I did too. That worked well enough in that job, but not in the next few, so I fell off that wagon.  Most recently, I really liked the Happy Planner and y’all, I INVESTED in it!  I have the magic hole punch, upgraded the rings, and SO Many books of stickers. I did make use of the gradebook pages to help track attendance and whatnot.  I taught performing arts, so I was not always at the computer to input things.  I loved that it was 100% customizable.  But when I wasn’t teaching, it wasn’t as useful for me – I wanted it to be.  But something just wasn’t working.  Once upon a time, I had GREAT success with a Commit30 fitness planner – that worked well for me at the time plus it fit in my purse easily. 
 
 I realized at some point that what wasn’t working for me was that I had so much to DO and no memory to do it!  Remember: The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that we’ll remember. I thought I’d try bullet journaling.  I love tracking things and looking at data.  I collected so many ideas on Pinterest.  But as it turns out, I don’t really have time to draw the cool trackers – or things.  What that became was my Giant Book O’ Lists with Nifty Bling on the Front.  It also fit nicely in my purse (laughs). Each page was titled with one day and I’d just write down everything that came up. I tried to use pretty colors just to keep it visually interesting. If a task didn’t get done, I’d X it out and write it again on the next day. That worked well enough for the to-do of it all, but I wasn’t putting in that month-at-a-glance that I needed. 

 It turns out that you have to know yourself well to find a planner that works for you. The best planner is one that you will USE and that works for you. I cannot do a digital planner. When I am scheduling appointments, I need to see them all the others ones laid out so I don’t overlap things. I found that with the digital calendar, I don’t really like all the alerts popping off and if I have to go hunt up my to-do list, it just isn’t going to get to-done! But as it turns out, that is what fits my life and my brain these days is Franklin Covey. For 2024, I have purchased the Leadership calender. I like that it has a place for a list of things to do, places to put meetings, and a whole page for notes, so I can write things down that happen during the day to reference later!  One of my favorite things this year is that the bookmark to mark the day has a place to insert a column (provided elsewhere in the system) that focuses on the most important things of the week. I am excited to put that into practice. I’ll put a link to this in the show notes and I’ll try to put some other planner links in there too in case you want to check those out.  It’s not an ad, I do not get anything for it, but hopefully the list can help you look around to find what will work best for you. 
 
 See, what I love most about planners is the potential they represent.  I confess I have a large collection of lovely notebooks too – the blank pages represent limitless potential.  They represent the opportunity to make dreams come true. There are places to list my to-dos and my ta-das!  I participate in a group where we have a yearly list of things we hope to accomplish in a year.  Some are big, some are small.  I am still cultivating mine, but one of my small ones is to find a good black turtleneck. A large one is write a book.  And there are a couple in there that I’ve carried over from 2023 – because it’s a guide to my year – not a set of commandments.  And 2023 went in a completely different direction and all I could do was to ride that wave. 

Now, I am looking ahead at a whole year where *I* get to steer my ship and decide my priorities. I love to cast ahead and plan – in fact, my daughter got me a shirt for Christmas this year that says “Planners gonna plan.” It was perfect for me!

It’s not a hack per se, but my best piece of advice for you this year is to reflect on all the “ta-da” moments in the last year. You have many. Some are large things, and some are small moments, but you absolutely have them. One of my personal ta-da moments is that I persisted in spite of tragedy, upheaval, and uncertainty.  I am still here.  I would love to hear some of your “ta-da” moments in 2023 and your goals and dreams for 2024.  You can email me at Teachers in transition coaching at GMAIL dot com or you can send a text or voice message to the podcast at 512-640-9099. 
 
 Our next segment is from our mini-series of learning more about ourselves and what we REALLY like from the book “What Color is Your Parachute” by Richard Bolles with Katherine Brooks.  I highly recommend this book – I am skimming the surface in our podcast time, but the book goes deeper.  I have a link to the book and the workbook in the show notes so you can click through if you’d like to purchase that.  This is week 5 in our mini-series here, and we are working on Petal 4.  If this is your first time listening, you don’t have to go back and listen to the other episodes first – you can just jump in and start with Petal 4 and go backwards later if you want. 

In Petal 4, we are going to catalog and summarize all the things we know from past jobs, hobbies, and interests.  I know it sounds like a lot, but trust me, it is easier than Petal 3.  As a little bonus, you can have an optional section for things you would like to learn.  The point is to guide us towards our ideal field.  

Let’s start by looking for our interests what is in your heart when it comes to your favorites. Here are some helpful prompts to help you think because you might be surprised. 

1.    What are your favorite subjects or hobbies to explore? I love history, unsolved mysteries, making quilts, making music, reading, movie trivia, providing helpful commentary. 

2.    What do you love to talk about? If you got stuck with one person for a loooong time, what do you hope they will talk about with you? I love talking about ways to fix education, how to work the job market, meaning and symbolism in movies, music, and books.  For my husband, I know that sports is on that list.

3.    What sorts of books, articles magazines or newspaper articles really get your attention?  I gravitate towards articles that share how we’ve solved some mystery – archeological, science, medical. I like creators who talk about the meaning behind the meaning in books and movies.  It’s funny – I didn’t like AT ALL to break books down in English class in high school.  Now I love it!  

4.    What are some favorite internet sites or tv shows for you?  What are those about? 

5.    What could you write a book about with just the knowledge already in your brain? In addition to being able to write a book of nauseating length on teaching beginners how to play band and orchestra instruments, I have a lot of experience dealing with bureaucracy and red tape. In the last year, I have become all too familiar with all the business left behind when you lose a loved one. 

6.    Where do you like to spend your time?  To no one’s surprise, I love to be on a stage performing.  I also like to be in quiet places where I can read, write, and think. I love to be outdoors - as long as aren’t talking about severe heat.  I do NOT like being outside once it’s past about 97 degrees.  I live in Texas, so last year that was basically June through September.. 

The book has additional prompts in it.  I encourage you to check them out! 

NEXT we are going to start listing skills.
 
 

As a reminder, we are looking for three things 

1.    Knowledge – which is often presented as a noun

2.    Transferable Skills – which usually starts with a verb

3.    Traits or self-management skills  - which are usually presented as adjectives or adverbs. 

As we move into this next part, remember, this is not meant to be accomplished in one sitting – you might even jot things in your phone as you think of them because you’ll have all sorts of insights when you are going about a regular day. I know how to use the notes app in my phone, but sometimes I also send text messages to myself to keep things close.

OK, so we are going to chart these things as we go.  If you are working out of an Excel sheet, I’d just set up columns for each one, but if you are writing on paper, then start by drawing an X- and Y- axis just like we used to do in math class or you can have large rows on a piece of paper.  Or maybe 4 pieces of paper. Whatever works best for you is the right answer.  I have also attached links to the publisher’s site in the show notes if you want to print these out if that works better for you. Each quadrant or row will have its own title. As taken from the book, those are:

·       Top left is – “What I know from my previous jobs”

·       Top Right is “What I know about or picked up outside of work

·       Bottom Left is “What fields, careers, or industries sound interesting to me”

·       Bottom Right is “ Any other hunches, bright ideas or things like that which occur to me. 

#1 Start with what you know at your current job. 
 This is a bit of a ta-da list. What technologies do you use daily? What people skills are you using every day? What are some things you find interesting that you regularly teach to others in your job?  (cough cough: critical thinking and reasoning, anyone?).  You probably won’t remember everything in one go.  That’s why it helps to keep adding to it during a week. Put things on there that do not seem like a big deal to you – do you know how to unjam the copy machine?  That’s  aTHING, y’all!

And don’t just think about the job you have now – think about all the previous jobs.  Once upon a time, I worked the register at a popular fast food place in the mall (in the late 80s when malls were a big deal (laughs). I was very fast at making change because I was doing most of the math in my head. (Credit cards were a rarity for food back then too.  There was probably a dinosaur somewhere in there too!).  I could make 40 salads in 15 minutes! 

#2. What you know outside or work:
 This list can be full of things that you have picked up along the way.  Were you in the chess club in high school?  That’s strategic thinking right there. Personally, I’ve picked up quilting and sewing. To be completely transparent, my favorite hobby is acquiring the skills to all the hobbies so I can do anything I want when I want to – like my cricut.  I haul that thing out maybe once or twice a year to make things. I hauled it out to make personalized notebooks for people for Christmas this year.  

Think about things you’ve studied at home. What rabbit holes have you chased down with a lot of videos on YouTube or actual courses you may have taken. As an example:  I’ve been learning to speak Spanish for the last four years.  What started as an attempt to communicate better with my students and their parents has continued well past my teaching tenure. I can read and write fairly well now. My conversational Spanish is lagging, but I am still working on it. And being more conversational is on my 2024 list!
 Put whatever you think of.  You’ll examine everything more closely later and pitch out what does not serve you. 

While we’re thinking of things – what have you just randomly learned out in the world? My dad taught me some basics with cars.  He started with changing a tire.  I had to change a tire on my car with only what was in the trunk and the book in the glove compartment.  This was also in the pre-cell phone era.  My dad loved telling this story to anyone who would listen. According to Dad, I tried every feminine wile in my little 16YO self;s arsenal to get him to help me. He just kept asking me how I was going to get this done if he wasn’t there? And I got mad. And I had to crawl in the trunk of this 2-door 1972 Thunderbird and flip the tire out with a lot of frustrated noise.  And he watched me make mistakes that required re-doing things.  The TLDR here is that I have learned how to change a tire AND how to decipher the book that comes with the car with a healthy dose of problem-solving skills. 

Finally, #3, you are going to list out jobs and fields that interest you.  O*Net Online is very helpful here – that’s the government site that catalogs and lists every job. Each job has its own page that talks about the job – what it is, what is generally makes, it is a job that is growing in need or shrinking?  O*Net starts with career clusters and you can start getting more specific as you go.  When I examine all my previous answers, I realize that I like figuring things out.  I like to solve problems and find answers to the unknown. I like to look for patterns. And, I like to use what I know to help others.  

now we are going to examine and pull out the best bits from all the bits of knowledge that we’ve flung at these lists.  If you are working off an Excel list, you can temporarily change the font in some boxes to things you’d prefer to avoid to white so you can focus on what’s left.  On paper, you can highlight the ones you like most.  There are many pathways to reach the destination here.

For the finale, we are going to take all the things from your lists and make a Favorite Subjects Matrix.  Set up Excel columns again (copy and paste is GREAT for this!), or draw a new grid with an X- and Y- Axis.  This time they are labeled like this: 

·       Top Left: Items that you have HIGH expertise and proficiency but LOW interest. 

·       Top Right: Items that you have HIGH expertise and proficiency and HIGH interest. 

·       Bottom Left: Items that you have LOW expertise and proficiency and LOW interest. 

·       Bottom Right: Items that you have LOW expertise and proficiency but HIGH interest. 

For those of you have math class flashbacks – good!  Just like those old graphs with Xs and Ys, positive and negative numbers, this quantifies your skills and interests.  And just like the grid from the days of yore, your ideal place is HIGH and to the RIGHT.   If you are looking at the HIGH interest, but LOW proficiency, then you have an area where you need to focus your attention to building new skills – called “Up-Skilling” out there in the business world. 

Did you get any surprises?  Few things surprised me more than when I realized that I loved to help others by figuring out the root of what was not working (like a little mystery!) and helping them to fix it - to get them moving in the right direction. Because here I am recording a PODCAST of all things. And I will then edit it using skills I gained during pandemic teaching to upload and send out into the universe in the hopes that someone – just like you - will find it helpful. And if you are ready, I am here to help you move forward in your quest to leave teaching. 

 *** 
 Before I go, I was to go back and touch on something from earlier in the podcast. I mentioned that I had a lot of loss and the weight of crushing responsibility. I need to share that I did reach out for help and talked with a therapist about grief and coping strategies. If you are going through hard times of your own – please don’t think you have to do that alone.  Talking with someone can help.  Talking with a professional can help a lot!  Many insurances have mental health benefits, and for those without insurance coverage, there are companies out there that will provide telehealth services at reasonable rates.  To be frank, my co-pays per month are about 80% of what these other places charge – and many of them will give you the first month at a discount. 

***

I’d love to hear what your favorite planner is, some of your ta-da moments from 2023, and I would love to hear about what skills and knowledge areas were your favorites! 

If you need help figuring out what you are good at and how to translate your skills, if you need help knowing what skills you need to add for a high-interest-low-expertise goal, or if you are thinking it is time to put concrete steps into action to leaving teaching, Teachers in Transition can help!  We have subscription models where you can have access to our products while you subscribe, and we also have up front packages where you retain access even after you have found that first job outside of teaching. Contact me for a complimentary discovery call to see how I can help you reach your goals in 2024 for a life outside of teaching. 

That’s the podcast for today! If you liked this podcast, tell a friend, and don’t forget to rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tune in weekly to Teachers in Transition where we discuss Job Search strategies as well as stress management techniques.  And I want to hear from you!  Please reach out and leave me a message at Teacher in transition coaching at gmail dot com.  You can also leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099. 

I’ll see you here again next week and remember – YOU are amazing!