Friday, August 30, 2024
The Power of Simplicity
How Teachers Can Simplify Their Workload
Balancing the demands of teaching with self-care is essential for maintaining teacher mental health and effectiveness in the classroom.
Just like an overgrown tree that needs pruning, educators can benefit from periodically trimming their workloads to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
By recognizing that everything they do is a choice, focusing on essential tasks, and simplifying where possible, teachers can lighten their burdens and find greater joy and satisfaction in their roles. Regularly revisiting and adjusting these commitments helps maintain a healthier work-life balance, ultimately leading to a more fulfilling and effective teaching experience.
Read on to Learn How to:
- Recognize Your Agency: Learn how to see every element of your classroom workload (and your life) as a optional and a choice that only you have the power to make.
- Focus on the Essentials: What are the true non-negotiables for you in your classroom and your life?
- Evaluate Your Tasks: Ask yourself a series of questions to determine if each task is one you want to keep or trim out of your classroom or life?
- Simplify & Adjust: How can you make your non-negotiables and the tasks you truly desire to do easier and more manageable?
The Power of Simplicity
Teacher Self-care Lessons from My Overgrown Tree
A few weeks ago, I spent a Saturday morning tackling yard work with my kids. Our yard doesn't exactly have a lot of trees, but we do quite a few bushes and one small tree that desperately needed attention. As I pruned and trimmed, I noticed how the tree’s trunk had begun to grow crookedly and its branches were weighed down by heavy, untrimmed growth. After a thorough pruning, the tree seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and stand a bit taller, as if it could finally thrive without all that excess weight.
This moment reminded me of the importance of self-care for teachers. Just like that tree, we can become burdened by the weight of our responsibilities if we don’t periodically “trim” our workload. Teacher mental health can suffer when they try to juggle too many tasks or hold themselves to unattainable standards.
Prioritize Teacher Self-Care: What Can You Trim?
In order to best take care of yourself, it is wise to pause periodically and consider the load you're carrying. Follow these four steps to lighten your burden:
1. Recognize Your Agency
Remember, everything you do is a choice. You chose to be a teacher. AND you could choose to quit today! You choose to come to work regularly and you choose to fulfill your role, but that doesn’t mean you have to overload yourself with additional tasks. The first step is to take full responsibility for your own life choices.
2. Focus on Essentials
If you have decided that you do in fact want to continue in your role as an educator, there are certain job requirements you can’t just eliminate. For example, teachers are required to show up to work regularly and teach the content and curriculum. While negotiating the exact terms of our contract may be above our paygrade, there are many additional tasks and expectations that are self-imposed.
Many of us teachers like to over-achieve in a sincere desire to help our students. We like to add additional tasks onto our already heavy loads OR we complicate or add to some required tasks. And then we tell ourselves that we “have” to do these things when really the only one assigning them to us is ourselves.
If you realize you’re doing this, please don’t feel bad! This comes from such a good place! It comes from our good desire to make learning fun and enjoyable and effective for our students!
However, we can reflect on what is essential, what nonessentials we want to keep, and what can be trimmed. Do you really “have” to decorate your classroom with a new elaborate theme every year? Is it really a requirement to meticulously grade and score every single word your students write? Will you be fired if you don’t create personalized holiday gifts for your students? If you love doing these things or find they’re important to you, please keep doing them! You can (of course) choose to do anything in your classroom (within appropriate bounds and reason) that you want.
Just remember to be honest with yourself when considering what is truly essential and required for you in your role.
3. Evaluate Your Teacher and Classroom Tasks
Make a list of everything you’re doing in your personal, professional, and family life. Decide what to keep based on importance and impact. Some tasks are nonnegotiable, meaning you will absolutely choose to continue doing them.
However, there may be tasks on your list that are negotiable. For each of those actions, ask yourself:
- Why am I doing this action? What is my reason?
- How do I feel when I consider that reason? What emotion does that reason create?
- Do I like my reason? Do I like that emotion?
- If no, do I want to trim this task from my life?
- If I do want to keep it, how can I simplify, modify, or adjust in order to make this action fit better in my life?
4. Simplify and Adjust Teacher Responsibilities
For tasks you choose to keep, look for ways to simplify or modify them to fit better into your life. This could mean adjusting your approach or delegating responsibilities to students, coworkers, or partners.
It's okay to ask for help!
Regular Reflection: An Ongoing Self-Care Practice for Teachers
Just like the tree will need pruning again, so will your life! Plan time to periodically and regularly revisit your list of tasks and commitments. Simplifying and focusing on what truly matters will help you maintain a healthier work-life balance and enhance your overall effectiveness as a teacher.
By taking these steps, you’ll not only improve your mental health but also find greater joy and satisfaction in your role. Remember, teacher self-care isn’t a one-time fix but an ongoing process of maintaining balance and well-being.
I hope these tips help you find areas to lighten your load. Simplifying your life can make a significant difference in how you feel and how effectively you can perform your role.
Listen to the full podcast episode!
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Brenna Nelson
Long-time Educator turned Certified Life Coach
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