Ask any teacher (especially this time of year) how they're doing, and my guess is their response will be "busy" or some synonym thereof. The truth is that "busyness" is pretty much par for the course in this profession, and so this month (a particularly busy one) I thought I'd reflect a bit on how a teacher might best prioritize his/her time. Whether facing a time consuming class project, a district initiative, a stack of papers, a student need, a community event, an administrative request, a building committee, a licensure requirement, (the list goes on and on...) it must all boil down to one question: "Is it good for kids?" It may sound ridiculously reductive, but if that's not ALWAYS the central question, what are we doing here? And so, here's a flow-chart version of how I try to prioritize my time. Feel free to give it a try when your to-do list is seemingly insurmountable: 
