The past few years have been a whirlwind of roller coaster–like change. And yet, one thing remains tediously constant: if you check the news right now, you’re going to see a headline that contains the words “Uncertainty Looms.” And it’s going to mess with your head. Why? Because uncertainty keeps our brains running on a hamster wheel of trying to prepare for the future without actually having enough information to sensibly do so.

Judson Brewer, a habit-change researcher, describes anxiety as a form of addiction. According to Brewer, every addictive behavior becomes a habit because it is, at least initially, reinforced with a reward.

This is a one-hour activity I recommend all teachers do before they start planning for the school year. I find this is one of the best things teachers can do to get their heads in the game and develop a feel for the flow of the year to come. It’s also something you can do before you ever set foot in your classroom. Think of it as a favor to your busier, less-rested mid-school year self.

Thirty minutes of no-lesson-plan time for a new teacher feels like a week and a half in normal-people time. The earlier in the year this happens, the more panicked you will feel. Sure, maybe you should have planned more diligently. Or maybe you did plan­. Maybe you stayed up late cutting out each individual pepperoni slice for your “fraction pizza” lesson, but you didn’t have the experience to know the activity would only take fourteen minutes.

Either way, here you are, watching the first few kids finish off the assignment. You look at the clock. Thirty minutes until the bell rings. You start hoping there’s a PA announcement, a fire drill, a real fire—anything to keep you from having to answer the dreaded question, “So, what are we doing next?”

Here’s something I remember from my first year of teaching: I stayed up very late every night making detailed lesson plans. Maybe too detailed. Definitely too late.

Then, one day, I saw one of my more experienced colleagues’ lesson plan. And it looked something like this: Math: Multiplication X’s 4.

As a speaker at new-teacher orientation events, of the first issues I try to address is that new teachers aren’t just on information overload: they’re on super-important information overload. With this in mind, an organizational system I share with incoming teachers or their mentors is a strategy I call “A Big Box.”