How Many Hours I Work as a Full-Time Teachers Pay Teachers Seller

Have you ever wondered how many hours you work in your Teachers Pay Teachers store? What are your must-haves when working? Do you multi-task or focus on one task at a time?

Suppose you haven't heard my story yet; hello! My name is Keith, and I quit my teaching job in June 2021 to pursue TPT full-time. You're probably wondering why. The first six months of 2021 were hard. We started face-to-face classes in January of 2021, and I got terrified. I lost my closest Brazilian colleague to COVID, and my boyfriend lost his dad to COVID in June. I would always complain about leaving the house, leaving my dog, who was still a puppy at the time, and was just not happy anymore, mentally and emotionally.

Now that you know about my story let's return to the first question. Have you ever wondered how many hours you work in your store? I have, which is the second reason I decided to track my working time. The main reason is the book Catapult Your Productivity by Damon Zahariades. You've probably heard his name a few times in my other blog posts.

Most people think they are using their time wisely. According to his book, research suggests that full-time office workers put in less than 3 hours of productive work each day. Some researchers claim the actual amount is closer to 90 minutes.

But what most people don't realize is we waste a ton of time.

Hence this blog post.

So, if you're curious about how many hours I worked last week, keep reading.

MONDAY

On Monday, August 22, I worked for 7 hours and 15 seconds. (But trust me, the amount of time I sat in front of my laptop was way longer than that.) These were my tasks:

Planning and product creation took me 1 hour and 6 minutes. I have already started creating some fall products, and I sold one a few days ago.
As you can see, I took a quick break and started working again. I am way more productive in the morning. Sometimes I take naps in the afternoon, and the level of productivity goes from high to okay. I continued creating products until 4:50 in the afternoon, and at 5 PM, my boyfriend and I walked the dogs.
I edited my TPT categories on Monday, so they look pretty, and wow, that took me more than an hour! Is that necessary? No. But do I want to do it? Yes. And that, my friend, is an example of wasting your time. Or maybe, it's not really about wasting your time but cutting back time on things that are not important.

TUESDAY

On Tuesday, August 23, I worked for 5 hours. These were my tasks:

I created a freebie for my email list and continued with my product creation. You may be wondering why I always create products. I make products in a product line. So, after one product, I proceed to the second and the third. Bundle them together, and we have a product line.
I uploaded my products to Boom and then took an early break.
I decided to create worksheets to go along with the digital product I was making. Printables are easier to finish, but I'm a perfectionist (sometimes, and I need to let go of this!), so I can't decide on font combinations or borders on one whim.

WEDNESDAY

On Wednesday, August 24, I went ham and worked for 9 hours. As you can see, I started working as soon as I finished lunch because I needed to do product photography (I had to catch the natural lighting). After that, I edited the photos and videos, made covers and thumbnails, and finalized the worksheets.

I also uploaded the worksheets on the same day, so it was a jam-packed day for me.

THURSDAY

On Thursday, August 25, I didn't know what else I did aside from editing my morning routine blog post. I think I did some covers, thumbnails, and previews and uploaded my fall sequencing decks to TPT, and then bundled them all together.

FRIDAY

Friday was a bundle day. Someone offered a piece of excellent advice that I should create mini bundles for my huge bundles and bundle my digital games according to grade levels. And that's what I did. If you check my TPT store, you will see what I mean.

SATURDAY

Today's a Saturday, so I wrote and scheduled my email for Tuesday this morning. It took me an hour to write one email, geez! I was pretty distracted. Maybe the caffeine had not kicked in yet, but my productivity level went above the roof because I finished a blog post in less than an hour. I also added some graphics, proofread it, and scheduled it right away!

Then, I took a shower so my boyfriend and I could go grocery shopping because we don't have food for next week! I'm currently writing this blog post, and I'm at 52 minutes.

Last week I worked for 22 hours, which was inaccurate because I kept forgetting to turn on the timer. (By the way, if you're curious, I'm using Toggl to track my time). I worked on some products, created pins, and updated my titles and descriptions for products with low pageviews (I have a lot!).

How about you? How many hours do you work in your TPT store in a day? Are you working full-time or part-time?

Talk soon!

The Viral Teacher