I taught primary school for years before building templates full-time, and the biggest time-sink was never the teaching itself — it was the admin around it.

Here's the system that actually stuck, for me and every teacher I've shared it with since:

1. One planner, not five apps. Bouncing between a paper planner, a Google Doc, and a sticky note pile is where prep time quietly disappears. Consolidate lesson plans, seating charts, and behavior tracking into one place you open every morning.

2. Template the repeatable, personalize the rest. Roughly 80% of a weekly lesson plan is structural — standards, timing blocks, materials lists. Build that once as a template and only hand-edit the 20% that actually changes week to week.

3. Batch your printables monthly, not weekly. Printing worksheets week-to-week means a printer trip every single day. Pick one afternoon a month, print a term's worth, and file by week.

I turned this into a full toolkit — planner, editable lesson templates, classroom management tools, and printables — for teachers who want the system without building it from scratch. Link's in my profile if it's useful.

Curious what other teachers here do differently — always looking to steal a better method.