You're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher and the elementary music Summit. Each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that music teacher.com
Welcome back to that music Podcast. Today I'm going to share one of my favorite like executive functioning life hacks that I've learned as a business owner, that actually I think would be really helpful in the classroom, and that is using project management software. So if you've never heard of project management software, there are a ton of free and paid options online. We personally, here at that music teacher use something called Asana, A, S, a, n, a, we've used it for years, even before I we were even a team, when it was just me. But essentially, you know, there's things like monday.com, clickup, I think is one. Trello is another, free one. Air table can be used as as project management. There's a lot of different options. Again, we use Asana here at the team, and that's what I used when I actually tried some of these. These, what I'm going to talk about today in the classroom was using Asana. So the whole idea of project management software, whichever one you decide on, or if you end up using one, is to basically just have all of the things you need done, all of your tasks, all of your projects, so to speak, in one place. So the way that we use project management software here at that music teacher is, for instance, I'm recording this podcast right now. I have the project pulled up. It says that I need to record this episode, I need to submit it to Bree to edit it. And then in that task, you know, Brie has the editing, the scheduling, those things like that, but it's all in one place. So everything about this podcast episode is in one what we call a task, and we can have subtasks on that. For instance, in the subtasks we have record and upload, we have editing and scheduling. Those are things that are inside this. But it all the things to make this podcast episode happen are in this one task. Now, what does this mean? Why are why am I talking about this, and how can this help us in the classroom? So this is a really good way to think about all the moving pieces that we have going on. So we have lesson planning, we have performances, we have maybe letters of reference you have to write, or, you know, auditions for this, that and the other thing, or communication with PTO, whatever. So you could have essentially a project for each of these different things. So you could have a lesson planning project, and you can set it up so that when you log in during your planning time, it will basically say, all right, these are the lessons that I need to write. And then you write them, it kind of reminds you what to do when, so that when you actually have time to sit down and do the work, all you have to do is do the work, not remember what you need to do, where you need to put it down together. So that's one way you could use for lesson planning. So I use this in my classroom at one point where it would basically on a rotation. So I set it up on repeating it would say, all right, write next fifth grade lesson plan, or write next first grade lesson plan. So when I logged in that day during my planning period, I'd say, All right, I need to write a first grade lesson plan and a kindergarten lesson plan. So I would write the lesson plans, and then I would mark them off, and then that was essentially go to the bottom of my queue, so that you know, it wouldn't, you know, notice that, hey, I have another lesson plan for this, this next rotation, so I don't need to write another first grade lesson plan until I get done with it, and by that time, I would have already written another one, because it would have had a recurring task. So it would have told me again. Now what I think this works better for? It makes a little bit more sense. But why? Why you would need so many kind of using this complex software is program management, so concerts and things like that. So if I were you and I were to use project management for a concert, I would have, let's say kindergarten for or let's do third grade. Let's do a third grade folk dance night. That would be the project. So there are a few things that are going to have to have to happen. I'm going to have to send home notification letters to students so that they know when it when it is, and in invitations to parents, I'm going to have to, you know, maybe add it to the school newsletter or to the school calendar. These are all tasks that you're going to have to do repeating for pretty much any performance. So once you have it done, you can kind of copy the template and it already goes through. You're going to have certain things like, All right, we need to make sure we print the programs. We print the programs. We have to design the programs. We have to make sure all the names are correct. We have to have somebody double check it. We have to also teach all the different parts on the program. So for instance, if I have say, let's say six different folk dances that I want the students to know for the performance, then I'm going to have those in as essentially a task, and then I'm going to break those up. So when I go to lesson plan, all right, I'm writing a third grade lesson plan. All right, what do we need to teach? Let's go into the other project management plan and see all right, What songs do we need to get to? Where? Where do they at? So that make sure that we, by the end of the project, by the performance, the students, know how to do all the PErforM, all of the folk dances, or whatever we're learning. So you could break it up and.
To like pre tasks, performance tasks, and then post tasks, things like having the students reflect, sending thank you letters to the you know, the teachers that showed up and helped corral the children, whatever, how whatever that works for you. The idea of project management is to figure out how it works for you, and that's why I love these different like, for instance, Asana has different views. So you can see it on a calendar view. You can see it in kind of task cards. You can see it in just a big old list. But the whole point of it is finding a way to visually represent the all the stuff that's on your plate. If you are anything like me, you sometimes we spend so much time remembering all the things we need to remember that was just immense. It's just like emotionally and mentally taxing. ADHD, fam, where are we at? But I loved adding into my online projects, into project management, and that's part of the reason why I did it so early in the company, even when there weren't any other team members, was because I wanted to spend all the time that I had to sit down and actually do the things. For instance, if you know you're having a playing period, whatever, I wanted to spend that time. Spend that time doing the things, rather than telling, figuring out what I needed to do. So the the entire idea of using project management software, wherever, whatever software that you end up using, if you end up using anything at all, is to spend a very small amount of time setting things up so that for the rest of the year, you can log in during your planning period and know exactly what you need to do and exactly when that is due. So for instance, if I had someone, if I had someone give me a Vanderbilt assessment, and it's due this day, I would add that as a task, so that when I logged in, I knew that I could get that done. I don't have to worry about, you know, keeping it all over my you know, I was able to get it done because it was in my task management software. Same for thing, same thing if you have an assessment. So if you have your principal coming in for assessment, and they have a specific form that you need to fill out before you do your assessment, or maybe you'd have to do a, I don't know, whatever an SLO putting that in as a task can help you not only remember that exists, but remember all the different information in one place. So for instance, if you have new, you know, value added or SLO data that you have to use, and there's a new rubric, you can attach that rubric to that task, so it's all in the same place, rather than having to go into finding all the different emails and things like that. So I'm going to give you two different options if you want to give this a shot. So option one is the one that I would suggest if you're really into, if you think this is if you're, like, really lit up with this, which is using Asana. It's free as a na.com We'll put the link in the show notes. But if you have Google, if you're a Google school, you can actually do a lot of the project management stuff in Google, especially if you do it kind of basic. So for instance, in your Google Drive, if you're in your email, you're on little you know how this little like the sidebar, I guess you could have your calendar going into tasks. You can create different tasks for today. You can make those repeat. You can also add some details in there. You can sort them. You can star them. So that's kind of like a basic way, and that's actually how I got started. Was using the tasks rather than any sort of like higher level task management,
was being able to
use a little simple and what I love about that is it's right next to my email. And so if there is an email I need to respond to I can just drag the email over into tasks and say, respond, and that way my inbox wasn't getting super cluttered with to do list, it was just correspondence. So again, this is not going to be for everyone. You might be the person that has your Aaron Condren planner, and you're just like, This is my thing. And the digital side of things where project management isn't really your you're not really, you're not really feeling this episode, and I totally get that. But if you're feeling like you're struggling to know what you need to work on, and you feel like you're spending most of your time planning out the things and reminding remembering things, I highly recommend you give one of those two options a choice or a chance to help you regain some time in your classroom, because we all know we have very little planning time, so whatever time we can use to
invest some time at the beginning to set up project management, so that when you are lesson planning, you're sitting down to lesson plan, that's all you're doing. You're not trying to figure out all the other stuff. I think that's a good investment on your time, and I think that's something that could be really helpful. So if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. The best way to get into the best way to get in communication with me and my team is by sending an email Hello at that music teacher.com we are here to help you. We want to help you be the best music teacher you can be. So please, please, please feel free to reach out. We'll be back next week for another episode of that music podcast, and like I am many things, because it's so important. Thank you so much for making a difference in the lives of the students that you
teach you.
