There is nothing more satisfying than going to your local school supply store and searching high and low for your perfect yearly planner/calendar. Nothing.

And that moment, after you’ve narrowed it down to three, after you’ve studied those finalists in great detail (“that one has room for me to put my after school activities, but this one doesn’t have the spiral which always gets messed up by the end of the year”), and you bring the winning planner to the cashier, well, let’s just say that I don’t even care that I’m spending my own money. [1]

Today I entered all the dates, and wrote in all the days off, shortened days, and important-to-know dates (e.g. Parents’ Night). And for the first quarter, I filled in my classes and all the meetings that I know about already.

And it felt soooooooo good. There is something robotic, yes, but comforting about filling in some of the planner. I was trying to pin my finger on exactly why — and I think I got it. There is so much to do in the beginning of the year that it can feel overwhelming. Filling in this planner not only is satisfying because its one more thing I can knock off my to-do list, but also because it forces me to think about the school year in manageable one day chunks, and not in these ambiguous terms like “unit.”

I now know what I need to do before school starts (namely: plan my first few lessons), and what I want to do before school starts (the list is too long to even contemplate retyping, but it includes things like “learn how to program in SAGE and create instructional packets for students” and “create a homework assignment sheet for each of my classes”– wishful thinking).

What I need to do is a lot, but you know what? I can do it!

So hooray for planners, my comfort in this time of turmoil as school quickly ramps up.

[1] The school actually provides us with planners, but I just don’t like them. I’m particular about certain things, and since my planner is my life at school, I spend my own money to get something I’m really happy with.