Setting Up Your System

You've seen the five folders. You understand the concept. Now let's build it.

This article walks through three things: setting up your folder structure, choosing your tools, and creating the single most valuable document in your system — your "My Teaching Context" file. Budget about 20 minutes. You'll walk away with a working system, not just a plan for one.

Create Your Folders

Open your tool of choice and create these five folders:

• 00 Inbox — (the 00 prefix keeps it at the top)
• 01 Projects — active work with deadlines
• 02 Areas — ongoing responsibilities
• 03 Resources — reference material by topic
• 04 Archive — completed work

Inside Areas, create the subfolders that match your teaching life. Start with these (you can always add more later):

• Areas/Curriculum
• Areas/Classroom Management
• Areas/Assessment
• Areas/Parent Communication
• Areas/Professional Development

Inside Resources, add a few topic folders:

• Resources/Lesson Ideas
• Resources/Student Strategies
• Resources/Pedagogy

And create a Journal folder at the top level:

• Journal/Daily — for daily capture notes
• Journal/Weekly — for weekly reflections

If you're using Obsidian: Download the SmartChalk vault template from the TeacherOS start page. It includes all folders, starter templates, and an Obsidian configuration that sets up the right defaults. Unzip it and open it as a vault.

If you're using Notion: Create a new workspace. Add these as top-level pages, then create sub-pages for the Area and Resource categories listed above. Notion databases work well for Projects (with a status property) and Journal entries (with a date property).

If you're using Google Drive: Create these as folders. For your Inbox, pin a Google Doc called "Inbox" to your Drive homepage — it's faster than creating a new file every time you want to capture something.

Create Your Teaching Context Document

This is the game-changer. Your Teaching Context document is a single file that tells any AI tool everything it needs to know about you as a teacher. Without it, AI gives you generic output. With it, AI gives you your output.

Create a new document called "My Teaching Context" and put it at the root of your system (not inside any folder). Fill in these sections:

About Me Write 3-4 sentences: your name, school type, subjects you teach, grade levels, years of experience. Be specific — "I teach 7th grade life science and 8th grade physical science at a Title I middle school with 65% ELL population" gives AI far more to work with than "I'm a middle school science teacher."

My Teaching Philosophy What do you believe about how students learn? Two to three sentences is enough. Don't overthink this — write what you'd tell a new teacher at your school. "I believe students learn best through hands-on investigation followed by structured reflection" is perfect.

My Students Describe your student population in broad strokes: class sizes, reading levels, notable demographics, common IEP accommodations, ELL support structures. This context shapes every AI-generated lesson plan, rubric, and assessment.

How AI Should Help Me This section tells the AI how to behave. Write something like:

• Check my existing notes before creating something new
• Keep suggestions classroom-ready — I don't have time for heavy modification
• Suggest connections to other things I've captured
• Respect my teaching philosophy when making recommendations
• Default to [your preferred instructional model] unless I specify otherwise

My SmartChalk Skills List the SmartChalk skills you use most and a one-line note about when you reach for each one. Start with two or three — you can add more as you explore.

The Setup Guide Skill

Want help filling in your Teaching Context? SmartChalk's Teaching Second Brain Setup Guide skill walks you through each section with guided questions. Paste it into your AI tool, answer its prompts, and it generates a customized context document you can copy into your system.

One More Thing: Your First Inbox Item

Before you close your new system, add one item to your Inbox. It can be anything:

• A lesson idea you've been meaning to write down
• A link to an article you want to read later
• A note about something that worked in class today

This matters more than the folder structure. The system is alive the moment you start using it.

Your one action today: Create your "My Teaching Context" document — even a rough version changes how AI works with you.