By a Teacher Who’s Been There

If you’re anything like me, you’ve stared at your laptop on a Sunday evening, red wine or tea in hand, wondering where the weekend went. The tabs are open, the plans are half-finished, and that familiar wave of planning anxiety starts to roll in. You tell yourself, “Next week I’ll get ahead,” but somehow, the cycle repeats.

After fifteen years in the classroom, I’ve tried it all—post-its, planning parties, colour-coded binders, even planning with a friend on Zoom to keep each other accountable. Some helped, some didn’t. But over time, I’ve figured out a few strategies that genuinely make a difference. These are my top 10 tried-and-tested ways to cut down that Sunday stress.

It sounds counterintuitive—you're shattered after a long week—but hear me out. I started using my PPA slot on Friday afternoons to draft the following week's lessons. It’s not perfect, but just getting a rough outline down when your head is still in “school mode” makes Sunday planning feel less like starting from scratch.

Bonus tip: I use a digital planner now (shoutout to the one from Teachers Planning Tool—it’s saved my bacon more than once), and I just click “duplicate” from last week and tweak.

Let me say it loud for the people in the back: Your lesson plan does not need to be Pinterest-worthy. I once spent three hours crafting a pirate-themed maths lesson with buried treasure clues. The kids were far more interested in the fraction dice.

Your energy is better spent making lessons clear, not complicated.

Rather than planning one lesson at a time, chunk your units. When I plan a 6-week history unit in one go, it gives me a bird’s-eye view of where I’m going. I’m not reinventing the wheel every week, just following a roadmap I already built.

Tools like the Teachers Planning Tool can help automate this. You put in your topic, age group, and outcomes, and it generates a full sequence in minutes. Magic.

I give myself 45 minutes per subject max. Once the timer dings, I stop. Parkinson’s Law says work expands to fill the time available—and it’s true. Some of my best plans were done in 30 minutes because I didn’t allow myself to overthink.

Reusing a plan doesn’t make you lazy—it makes you smart. I used to feel guilty pulling up last year’s files. Now I see it as version 2.0. You’ve already tested what works; build on that.

Teachers Planning Tool lets me store and edit previous plans with a few clicks, and it even suggests improvements based on outcomes. That’s not cheating—that’s evolving.

Every teacher has a strength. I’m good at creative starters; my colleague Emma is brilliant with differentiation. We started trading ideas on a shared drive. Suddenly I had engaging plenaries and she had engaging openers.

Planning doesn’t have to be solitary. Whether it’s with your year group team or through an online tool, sharing lightens the load.

I realised how often I was typing the same phrases: “WALT: identify key features of…”, “Starter: recap previous learning…”. Now I have templates I can adapt. It saves time and keeps my planning consistent.

Our school recently switched to using Teachers Planning Tool, and now these standard phrases are built in. I just select what I need from dropdowns. No more Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V fatigue.

This one was unexpected. I once asked my Year 5s what they wanted to learn about Ancient Greece, and their questions became the backbone of my lesson plans. When kids are invested, lessons practically plan themselves. Plus, it gave me a mental shortcut: I was planning with them, not just for them.

There’s nothing worse than finishing your plan at 9pm Sunday night and realising you don’t have the worksheet—or worse, you saved it as “Maths 17 FINAL FINAL REAL THIS TIME.docx”. Create folders by topic, keep names consistent, and you’ll thank yourself next term.

Better yet, link your resources to your digital plans. That’s something I’ve started doing with my online planner—it’s all there when I need it.

This one’s personal. My daughter once said, “Why are you always working on Sunday?” That hit hard. Teaching is important, but it isn’t everything.

Now I protect my Sundays. I plan on Fridays, tidy up on Saturdays if needed, and Sunday evenings are for my family. Or a bath. Or Bake Off. Your wellbeing is part of your planning strategy too.

We’re teachers. We plan. It’s part of the job—but it doesn’t have to be the whole job. The goal isn’t to eliminate planning, but to make it manageable, efficient, and maybe even enjoyable.

If you’re still stuck in the Sunday stress cycle, try one or two of these strategies. You might be surprised at what a difference it makes. And if you need a hand, the Teachers Planning Tool is always there to help you lighten the load.

Because the best lessons don’t come from burnout—they come from balance.