I have a student named after an inanimate object

I asked her to repeat her name a couple of times, thinking it was a foreign name that just sounded, to my untutored Western ears, like an English noun. But no, she even spelled it for me, smiled widely, and said, "It's a good name, yes? I chose it myself."

To my credit, I did not laugh.

In other teaching news, I appear to have been ambushed by a pattern I trained myself into last year, but I am not convinced it is a good one for my current situation. Last year, I was trying to write my dissertation, run a reading group, run a department seminar series, edit a volume of conference papers, organise a nationwide workshop, and tutor three classes. So I made a little rule that I only did teaching prep on the (two) mornings of the days I taught. I allowed myself to use the whole morning, so up to three hours of prep per class, but not to pre-prepare the day before. And marking was restricted to weekends. That way I could ensure that teaching didn't expand to take up time that should have been devoted to more important, but less urgent matters.

This semester I pretty much only have to teach. So my plan was to be super-duper prepared and have all my classes for the week well-planned in advance. Photocopies, overheads, readings, assignments, all were to be neatly stacked and ready to go. Unfortunately, I seem incapable of doing this. I procrastinate mercilessly up until the day of each lecture, and then spend all morning getting things ready. I don't eat lunch, don't take breaks, panic about whether the photocopier will be in use all bloody morning... In short, I work myself into an unnecessary state of anxiety.

I have no idea why I do this to myself, unless it is that my routine from last year has embedded itself deep in my subconscious.

I realise asking questions of our "readership" is kind of dumb when we don't have one yet, but maybe someone will come across this post in the archive and comment on it then. So how far in advance do you prepare lectures, tutorials, assignments, etc (when you teach a course for the first time)? Have you found any good methods for making yourself plan lessons early and often?