Inside: Teachers, are you feeling very overwhelmed at the moment? Keep reading for some helpful tips for overwhelmed teachers and make the change today.
Many people in society feel overwhelmed, particularly busy teachers. This article will delve into the causes of overwhelm and suggests some helpful tips for overwhelmed teachers.
I believe that the main culprit for societal overwhelm is that we really don’t give ourselves enough downtime to relax and refresh – even on the holidays or on the weekends.
Most of us are just busy ALL. THE. TIME.
In addition to this busyness, many of us find it hard to disconnect from the thoughts of each day when we get home.
This is then exasperated when our brains are constantly active; reading emails on your phone, regularly checking social media feeds, trying to catch the latest headlines and then using Netflix to relax – You know, catching the latest season of Stranger Things. The best!
The fact is we seem to fill up every spare moment of our days with something.
This is what I believe leads to the feelings of overwhelm that many of us have.
Our brains never experience complete rest.
Then, add all of this outside ‘noise’ to an extremely demanding teaching job, you’ve been doing for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years and the overwhelm goes through the roof.
It also doesn’t help when the magnitude of this problem for teachers is so underestimated.
We need to realise that teaching is getting harder and harder each and every year.
It’s a fact!
And you can’t just do nothing and expect a different result.
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Experiencing overwhelm as a teacher
The teaching role is so complex – the demands of changing year levels regularly, trying to keep up with the curriculum upgrades, plus all of the new initiatives that come along, as well as the need to learn new technologies for STEM and not forgetting the impacts of the school being data-driven.
I feel exhausted just thinking about it all and I know you do too – the feeling of it all – being too much and wanting to quit is real!
I’d honestly suggest that if you’re truly feeling so overwhelmed at this moment and it’s negatively impacting your life, you NEED to take a long holiday right now.
I mean it!
In saying this, the need to reduce the feeling of overwhelm has got to start with YOU.
Only YOU can make a change.
The change starts with you!
But where to start?
The solution for the overwhelm has to start with making yourself a priority and looking after yourself.
This happens with self-love. You love your students that much, so why not start putting yourself first, for a change?
Because without genuine self-care, there will be no productivity and without productivity, the overwhelm will continue.
I know what the problem is though.
You feel so drained and depleted already, that you’re probably close to burnout, you just don’t know it yet.
I’ve been there too!
Read my personal story of burnout with the signs and symptoms.
So if you can’t take a long holiday right now, you’ll need time to sit and reflect on your situation and decide if you’re worth it.
What a silly question. Of course, you’re worth it!
So why aren’t you doing something about it?
What’s causing all the overwhelm?
Your life is busy, I know.
It’s hard to pinpoint where the overwhelm comes from. It seems to be all-encompassing.
- it’s the workload
- it can be student behaviours and managing difficult classes
- maybe it’s because your passion and joy in teaching has gone
- sometimes it’s because you feel pulled in so many directions, with a list of ‘to-do’s’ as long as your arm, and not enough hours in the day to finish them all
- Maybe you feel like you don’t have systems in place to help you to work smarter with your productivity
- and it’s ALL THE MEETINGS, plus the neverending emails to respond to.
- maybe your energy is gone and you just feel depleted.
It’s just everything! Am I right?
Moving away from overwhelm, to order
So, where to from here?
Now’s a very good time to reassess where you’re at as a teacher. Think about why you became a teacher and what you love about teaching (If you’re not up to it at the moment make sure you make time for this important task on your holidays).
It’s also going to be really important for you to know what your goals are – what you want to achieve this year or over the next maybe 5 years?
You might be ready to leave teaching at this point, but that’s a discussion for another time.
Ultimately, if you’ve got a plan and you know it’s teaching, for now, you’ve got to focus on what’s important for you.
I can’t expect to know what’s happening in your life and understand what you are going through personally, but I do understand teaching.
That’s why I want to help you with some suggestions I think will stop your feelings of overwhelm.
Tips for overwhelmed teachers
To do this, you’ll need to focus on your Productivity, your Classroom Management and your Self-care.
To begin with, it’s got to be your productivity.
Because I think, if you can get things running well at school, it can help release your stress-valve, which will free up the mental energy you’ll need to then focus on you and give yourself some ‘me’ time.
To make this all happen, you’re going to need to be strong and you’ll need to be open to new possibilities. To do this you’ll have to take on a positive growth mindset.
Are you ready to get started?
To make it easier, many of the tips I’m giving you will link to posts that delve deeper into the information you’re interested in. These will help explain in more detail areas for growth in your life.
Productivity tips for overwhelmed teachers:
One of the key factors of working smarter as a teacher and to help cut the overwhelm is being very proficient in time management.
As a capable professional, in the ever-demanding and changing industry of education, you WILL need to be a very good manager of your time.
Following are some practical tips to help improve your productivity.
You’ll probably know many of them, but I’m hoping you will use them to add to your tool-belt of strategies to help you work smarter this year.
- Implement a structured email policy – make sure you know what times in the day you will check emails (let your parents know when this is, for example, 8:00 am and 3:00 pm) Then stick to this as a rule. Also, decide to never read emails on your phone – It’s counterproductive and you can’t get work-life balance if you keep doing this.
- Have defined office hours – these are times you meet with parents or you have times for other meetings. Advertise your office hours in your back-to-school ‘meet the teacher’ correspondence or weekly email.
- Set defined working hours that are non-negotiable – 8 hours per day is a good guide. (Something like – 8:00 – 5:00 pm or 7:30 – 4:30). By doing this helps set limits and gain better work-life balance.
- Use your planning time wisely. Make sure you have a list of what you’ll need to complete at these times and stick to it (don’t use planning for a social time to chat with other teachers or waste it doing trivial things.) Make it count!
- Manage your time wisely while you are at work – this should go without saying
- Get to school early ready for work – this will get you much more organised and stop you feeling less overwhelmed than if you arrive later or you waste time chatting.
- Work collaboratively with a team. If you share your jobs and delegate activities to teachers in your team, this will save each of you a great deal of time and help reduce your workload
- Work at school until you are finished or until you reach your deadline. This is a great work-life balance tip.
- Use a to-do list and learn to prioritise your tasks – simple, but effective.
- Batch jobs together – this is a clever way to be more productive with your time
- Don’t be too proud to ask for help if you need it – we all need help at times
- Track your working hours to make the invisible visible – this will help you know how many hours you work each day or each week & if necessary you can see where time is being spent. It can be very enlightening and also a clever way to reduce time wastage
- Have a good routine in place – know what your week looks like following a predictable pattern. This will streamline your time and cut back on some unnecessary thinking
- Set some goals – both professional and personal – this will help keep you motivated and focus your energy on what is important
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Classroom Management Tips for overwhelmed teachers
Classroom Management is another key factor in working productively as a teacher.
If you can have your classroom running smoothly with predictable classroom routines, this will lessen the overwhelm you might experience, and you won’t be reinventing the wheel each year.
As the years go on, it will then become easier and easier to implement.
- Have a documented Classroom Management plan that you teach your students and review often. Very important!
- Teach and model your classroom rules so that your expectations are clear to your students and when you review them often with your students it will become a habit for them
- Implement a student jobs policy in your classroom. If you can effectively use your student helpers in your room, it will cut back on your workload with minor things, developing a system that is duplicatable and self-running – saving you a great deal of your valuable time.
- Become proficient in the necessary skills for behaviour management
Self-care tips for overwhelmed teachers
I believe self-care is the final key component in working productively, to ultimately make you work much smarter as a teacher.
If you are not maintaining your best physical and mental health, you’ll find it very difficult to manage your life as a teacher. It’s so important!
Use these following self-care suggestions to improve your wellbeing and health. Follow the attached links for greater detail and a wealth of information:
- Learn to make yourself a priority and practise a regular self-care routine – must-reads to find time for self-care
- Manage your stress levels and practise relaxation strategies – the key to cut overwhelm
- Take care of your teaching voice – It’s your most important resource. (Check out the post and get the free printable information sheet)
- Practice Mindfulness – a great way to relieve stress in your teaching day
- Unplug from technology regularly – if you switch off from technology regularly, this will help give your brain a rest
- Have some regular downtime to recharge. Consider taking a self-care/mental health-care day
- Take your lunch breaks and sit down to eat without distractions as often as you can. This is a must for taking care of yourself.
- Find a caring teaching confidant and debrief with them regularly – regular talks can help you download what’s on your mind, necessary to stop overwhelm as a teacher
- Make sure you are sleeping well for at least 8 hours per night. Prioritise sleep on the holidays – A must for resting and helping to reduce overwhelm
- Learn to set limits and boundaries for yourself. You don’t need to say ‘yes’ all the time.
- Develop work-life balance – this is an art for teachers. (visit the Work-life category here to find some other helpful suggestions)
- Practice daily gratitude journaling to support your wellbeing. It’s a great way to focus on the positives of your life and lift your mood
- Fit some walking into your day – exercise is a key strategy to reduce stress and overwhelm from your teaching day
- Prioritize something you truly love in your week and do it. It might be bushwalking or painting. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it’s YOUR passion.
- Let go of teacher guilt because you are already an awesome teacher. Just let it go! Can you hear the music of Frozen in the air? Haha! 🙂
Please don’t let this list overwhelm you!! Just choose one new thing you can add to your day to start making some new habits.
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Now, I know this is just a big, long list of things. And you probably already feel like you don’t have the time or energy for this.
But finally, this IS something you can have control over.
You could skim over them all and say, that you know this already…. but do you really?
If change is truly going to happen and you honestly want to stop the overwhelm, why don’t you take the time and identify some areas you could work on.
You don’t have to do everything. Just pick a few things you could work on to make some positive changes in your life.
Or you could you do even better – promise yourself that you WILL set clear limits and boundaries for yourself this year!
Remember, YOU are the professional and YOU are the one that needs to have agency in your life.
Other helpful advice for overwhelmed teachers
If all else fails, maybe you need to speak to someone in authority at your school and tell them how overwhelmed you’re feeling. You know the saying. “A problem shared is a problem halved.“
Alternatively, take some time away to rest, like I needed to do. Use your long service leave… That’s what it’s there for!
You might be on the road to burnout, my friend.
Related Article:
Otherwise, try working part-time.
This is a great option to discuss with your principal or supportive leader, as you never know, they might be open to this as a possibility for you. It’s worth a try!
I hope these tips for overwhelmed teachers have helped direct your thinking and identify some goals you might need to cut your overwhelm.
Good luck with it!
PIN THIS FOR LATER!
Remember you’re worth it!
Michelle x
