Guys! We did it! We made it passed quarter one! Happy Dance!!! In all seriousness, we are starting to feel the burnout from teaching. The drag of October and November is upon us but that doesn’t mean we are simply going to fall into the monotonousness of it all. In this post, I’m sharing 10 tips for work-life balance for teachers, so let’s dive in!
Ah, that elusive work-life balance. It is totally possible to achieve I promise you. But there is a serious mind shift that has to happen in order to make that balance achievable.
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Mindset Shift to Achieve Balance
You have to believe that work-life balance is possible.
Now, don’t click away just yet. This isn’t a woo-woo sort of thing. Rather it’s a goal-setting thing.
Do you know the power of visualization? If you can see it, you can be it.
So close your eyes, or journal about your future work-life balance.
What does it look like? Sound like? Feel like? How is everything getting done?
Really immerse yourself in your visualization.
Now put the pen down, and let’s make it happen!
A note about work-life-balance
Before we get too much further, know that Work-Life Balance for Teachers is going to look different for everyone. Maybe for some, it’s leaving school at school. Maybe for others, it’s cooking dinner for their family without stressing about emails. For me, it was all about free weekends in the beginning.
No matter what work-life balance you are trying to achieve you can get there.
But work-life balance is also a cycle of sorts. Meaning you are going to have times when the scale is tipped more in favor of work, think back to school or conference week. You are also going to have the scale tip more toward life, think summer break. You can have a work/life balance while still working on some part of the work-life balance.
This balance isn’t an achievement once and has it forever. Sadly, this will take some boundaries to set up but also it will have to be reevaluated regularly.
But have no fear, these tips on work-life balance are here to help.
Some of these ideas are better for starting your work-life-balance journey and others are perfect for maintaining that balance. Pick and choose the ones that work best for you at your specific time in life.
10 Work Life Balance for Teachers Tips
Shrink your work
Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start! (cue Sound of Music soundtrack) This is the tip that will help all of the other tips fall into place. We have to shrink our work to fit our workday.
I know that this is hard teacher friend, but it needs to be done. Prioritize what is really important, and cut out what isn’t.
I’ve written an entire blog post about prioritizing a to-do list if you need help with this tip. Check out the blog post here.
If work can’t fit into the time of day allotted for it, something has got to go. Maybe it’s an additional time commitment, maybe it is not grading every single piece of work a student does. Determine what can go, but also note what NEEDS to get done. What has high importance is what gets to stay.
So much of our work as educators is fluff, but on the flip side, so much of what we do is important. Keep what matters, let go of the rest. Work-Life Balance for Teachers is achievable!
Work Life Balance for Teachers: Time it Out
I love a good-timer session. In fact, as I write this blog post I have a Pomodoro timer going in the background. I use timers for classroom use, to run every part of my class period, and then I use them for myself.
I discovered a technique called Pomodoro that has changed so much of my time management. Simply put a Pomodoro is a set section of time with breaks in between. For example a 25-minute timer with a 5-minute break at the end. So if you want to work for an hour, you would have 2 Pomodoro sessions, 25 minutes on then 5-minute break then 25 minutes on, and ending with a 5-minute break.
This technique is awesome for longer work sessions like grading and report cards. I usually will pull up a Youtube video and work through this. My favorite channel is The Sherry Formula for this. However, you don’t need a video to walk you through the rounds! A normal timer app works perfectly well too.
Make a To Do List
This maybe should have been tip number 1 but actually have a list of what you need to do. It could be a digital list (I love Notion) or a paper pencil notepad like what I use at school. It doesn’t matter the form. But the idea is the same, get all of your ideas out of your head.
Seeing your to-do list visually can help you prioritize but it can also give you the satisfaction of crossing off a completed task.
A to-do list also gives you a road map of what to complete during your plan period or work sessions. This road map gives you direction but also stops you from staring off into space or wasting time wondering what to get started on.
I round up more to-do list tips in this blog post if you are looking for more Work Life Balance for Teachers tips.
Get students involved
Disclaimer- the youngest I’ve taught is 3rd grade so I don’t know if this would work for the younger grades. Kids LOVE to help! Even my middle schoolers will pitch in with a task every once in a while.
Tasks for kids include:
- Delivering copies to other teachers so that you don’t get pulled into an hour-long conversation
- Cleaning the room
- Organizing the library- I would make this a whole class activity before winter break and then again at the end of the year
- Cleaning table bins- a weekly task I set my homeroom kids in on
This can also work on the home side of things if you have kids or a spouse. Don’t be afraid to ask for help! No one can do it all forever and still have Work Life Balance for Teachers.
Set in Stone Events
Now that we have talked about shrinking the work requirements, let’s tackle spending more time on the life side of the equation.
Having set-in-stone events on the calendar is helpful. When I first started chasing a work-life balance I found that having an event on the weekend helped me in two ways. First I had something to look forward to, and second that automatically took out time that I couldn’t work on school stuff.
I try to have a couple of events on my monthly calendar that cannot be moved or changed. Think of plans with a friend, a festival, holidays, or anything that strikes your fancy. If there is an event on Saturday, I don’t work on school stuff on Saturday at all. This really started to help me prioritize my school day better because I knew that I couldn’t play catch up on the weekend.
Learn to say No
This is a bit opposite of tip #5 but sometimes you have to say no. Whether for school or home, saying no might be the thing that helps you balance your life. Extra commitments take extra time and/or money and/or effort. Is it worth that? What would you rather be doing instead?
As someone who prioritizes alone time above everything else (hey there, I’m an Enneagram 5), this is actually an easy tip for me to do. But sometimes I get caught up in trying to help other teachers more, or saying yes to something that I know I will regret saying. Taking a moment to think something through is so important.
Practice saying “let me think about it” or “I can’t right now but maybe I could help next week/month”. These are easier ways to say no without giving a hard no. And it gives you time and space to think about how that additional commitment would impact your balance.
Let’s Get Physical
Taking care of your body will help you take care of others. And in a profession where that is practically a requirement, we need to make our health a priority. Just like on an airplane, where you put on your oxygen mask before helping someone else, we need to take care of our bodies first.
This might look different depending on your stage of life. From taking vitamins to scheduling doctor appointments to meal prepping, there are tons of ideas.
For me taking care of my body looks like meal prepping my smoothies for the week, moving my body once a week, and drinking 10-12 glasses of water each day.
Take time to care for your body and your body will care for you.
Take a Day: Work Life Balance for Teachers
This tip could have gone along with taking care of yourself but I think it deserves its own space. Take a day off.
This could be a day off to do absolutely nothing. Or it could be a day to catch up on some life tasks. I usually take a day off after conferences and state testing to just regroup and recharge. Do laundry that has been piling up, meet up with a friend for lunch, clean out my closet, or just binge some Netflix. Everyone needs a mental health day every once in a while. So take a day off and use it just for yourself!
Make a Change
Sometimes, things don’t work out. So don’t be afraid to make a change. This could be big, like putting a side hustle on hold, or this could be asking for help with carpool duty. Whatever it is, change it up. Try something for a week or 2 and if it doesn’t help you balance life better then let it go.
Change doesn’t have to be bad! I changed schools and it ended up being the best change I did for myself. I now have a better work-life balance than I ever did at my last school. But change doesn’t have to be that drastic. Even something small like choosing to get to school 10 minutes earlier changed how much I got done in my school day.
Give yourself grace
Change isn’t going to happen overnight. You aren’t going to magically wake up tomorrow and have a work-life balance. Try out one of these tips. If it works, awesome! But you might have to tweak one of these tips to work better for you. Work-life balance is a cycle, not an achievement. There will be balanced days, where you are seemingly doing it all. And there will be unbalanced days where you are at school for 12 hours. In the grand scheme of things, the idea is that each day is balanced, each week is balanced, and each month is balanced. But life isn’t perfect and so your work-life balance won’t be perfect either. Give yourself grace.
Other Work Life Balance for Teachers Tips
Looking for more ways to achieve that work-life-balance? These blog posts round up a bunch more tips than the ones that I shared. Be sure to check them out!
- Work Life Balance – Mental Health America
- Work-Life Balance is a Cyclem Not an Achievement – Harvard Business Review
- 6 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance – Forbes
- 10 Ways Teachers Can Achieve Better Work-Life Balance – Studies Weekly
- A New Way for Teachers and School Leaders to Think About Work-Life Balance – Edutopia
- That Tricky Work-Life Balance: How One Teacher Found a Solution – Education Week
I’d love to know from you! Do you have a good work-life balance? What is your Work-Life Balance for Teachers tips? What are you still working on?
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