5 Ways to Balance Your Work-Life Schedule

Kirsten 0:00

This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm curious to know if you southern teach an educator and mom who is passionate about all things, social studies, I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

Hey, there welcome back to another episode, I wanted to start by saying that I've had some pretty hard times as a teacher, as I'm sure you can relate, especially with everything going on in the last couple of years with COVID. It has not been the easiest time in a teacher's career, I'm just gonna be super upfront, it is not the easiest, I almost don't even remember what it's like, pre COVID. That's how bad it is. I think for me, it's more important than ever to really prioritize what I want to focus on in my work life. And in my actual home life and hobbies that I enjoy my online business. And so I wanted to share with you about my first few years of teaching. Before all of this happened. I would spend almost every day after school working until at least five or 5:30pm. I was very dedicated to being at school for long periods of time. I thought that by doing so I would be a better teacher. I felt like I just wanted to be the best teacher I could. I wanted to do all the things to make sure that I was being the most amazing teacher I could be. I would take home papers to grade and just do it all over again the next day. And it took me a while before I realized this was absolutely not going to be sustainable, or healthy. Mentally, physically, all of that. My turning point was when I had my first son, my priorities changed a ton. I realized I needed to do something about balancing my work and having a life and hobbies outside of work. I needed to take care of my family. And that was just really where that tipping point came of. I don't need to be as work as at much whatever I get done at school will get done at school. And I can just always come back. There's always going to be a to do list so Why do I need to stress out about not having everything done, it's always going to be other stuff popping up, right? So today, I want to share with you five ways to balance your work life schedule. If you're resonating with me, you feel like you spent way too much time at work. It's something that's overwhelming for you, you feel super burnt out by the end of the day, you feel like you should be doing more. And there's so much more to do, there's a never ending to do list. I think this episode is perfect for you. So I want to share with you five ways to balance that schedule, so that you do not feel those overwhelming feelings that you are dealing with right now.

So one way would be that it's okay to say no, as hard as it is you want to be the best teacher, you want to be a super, you know, you want to be a team player, you want to please your administrators, and they know that you're able to step up, they know that you're a teacher leader. But believe it or not, it is okay to say no, depending on what it is. So maybe they're asking you to you know, can you do mind going to this after school meeting? Do you mind doing this, this this, if it's not something that you're required to do, or it is, it's not something that's expected of you, then it's okay to say no, you don't have to volunteer to do all the things, you don't have to do it if you are not able to. So that's just one way you can explain yourself if you want. And, you know, you just want to say you know, I really would like to spend some time with my my son's or my kids or my pets or whatever. Or you don't even have to give an explanation. But just being okay, like, especially if it's something that people are volunteering for, to not volunteer.

The second way to balance your work life schedule is to prioritize your tasks. And this isn't just for at school, but it's also at home, prioritize at school, I like to do the top three things that I would love to accomplish. And I try to focus on things that are a priority that need to get done that have a deadline. So let's say progress reports are coming up. And we have to have our grades and by Tuesday, I'm going to prioritize when I come to work on Monday, that okay, I need a great I need to grade some papers so that I can get it in the gradebook before Tuesday. So just thinking about those main things, can it wait until later? Can it wait until next week? Or is it something that I really need to get done urgently? When it comes to prioritizing your tasks at home, thinking about what time you want to spend at home? So how much time do you want to spend working out? How much time do you want to spend with your family actually interacting with them playing games with them, doing stuff with them, you know, set out some tasks that are a high priority. So maybe checking your email late at night is not much of a priority as actually being present with your family. So just thinking about prioritizing what you do at home and at school, being aware of those.

The third way to balance your work life schedule would be to set an alarm to leave school and stick to it. This is a really big thing for me, and it's been a game changer is just setting an alarm that it's time to leave school, I give myself maybe about 15 to 20 minutes after our duty ends. So after my scheduled hours of being at work, I will set an alarm for about 15 minutes after that. And so once that alarm goes off, I am usually walking out the door or have already left. So some days just depending on what happens. Now I do have some specific days where I will stay a little extra late. I'm not saying that every single day. I'm out the door 15 minutes after, but I do have some days where I purposely stay behind a little bit and get some extra work done. And that's a really great tip is scheduling out a day of the week, maybe one or two days a week where you actually do stay late and then the other three days you leave right when you can leave.

The fourth thing is to keep work at work. I was one of those people who would take home papers to grade stuff to laminate and I'm not saying that I don't do that still. I've stopped taking papers home. Sometimes I will take some you know do some stuff like with lesson plans if I want to tweak something. I'll do a little bit of that but I've stopped taking home papers to grade and I feel free from that. I love not having to call papers back Come forth, because most of the time, what would happen is, I take the papers home to grade over the weekend, and it stays in my backpack, it does not get graded, nothing gets graded. So it's like I'm just carrying paper back and forth to school. So it wasn't even something that I was doing anyway. So I just left that school. But in general, just keeping work out work, you're just as much as you can, not even worrying about a problem just waiting until you get to the school, utilizing your breaks, utilizing your planning time. And very being very efficient with your time is just a way to keep work at work so that when you get home, you don't have to actually do work things you can worry, you can work on and focus on your own hobbies and things you like to do, and also more time with your family.

Number five in ways to balance your work life schedule would be to give yourself some boundaries. So this can go hand in hand with really all of these, these all go hand in hand. And there's no particular order to this. But giving yourself boundaries by not emailing parents back, if they're emailing you at 8pm. Matt about something ranting, it is not your job to respond to them. After hours, you can respond to them within 24 to 48 hours, depending on what your policy is, I do not give my phone numbers out to parents, I do not do any of that stuff. Because I don't have time for that. I really don't. But I always if they're in email me I don't, I usually don't have my work email on my phone. And I don't check it after school hours. But if I were to see it after school hours, I will sometimes either if I just want to get it off and just get it scheduled, I will schedule an email to send the next morning, or I will respond to it in the next business day. So and that kind of sets a precedent because they know the more they see that you email them after hours, the more they're going to email you after hours. But if they kind of they'll get the hint. Like if you they're wanting something urgent, but you don't respond to them until the next day, during school hours. Eventually, they're going to get the hint, give yourself those boundaries, not just at school, but also at home. So thinking about just not working too much on work stuff at home, kind of keeping it as separate as possible. Of course, that's never going to be perfect, there's always going to be some days. But what the main idea is that you don't want to get into this habit of not giving yourself boundaries, and just doing work stuff everywhere home school and in the car on the go. And just making sure you're not getting to that point where you're doing it every day. Because trust me, it gets very exhausting. And it's all you think about and it's something that that for me was not sustainable. I could not see myself doing that for years on end. So overall, balancing your work life schedule can increase your productivity and your happiness.

Take it from me, someone who started off being super workaholic ish, I feel much better about myself as a teacher because I am the best I can be. I'm not constantly thinking about teaching. So I feel like that is something that has helped me a lot. And it also decreases your chance of burnout, fatigue and stress. So it can be very stressful to be constantly working all the time or your mind is constantly on a motor motor. And so this can, you know, having that good balance is a really great way to decrease those negative side effects. Now, Am I perfect in balancing my work life schedule, I am not. I am not 100% Perfect. Some days I might stay later than anticipated. But I have committed myself to not focus too much on work, and instead balance it with other things that I'm passionate about such as my TPT business. Now that in itself can come up with a whole bunch of new problems. Since running an online business can also take a lot of time. So it's just all about finding a healthy balance as much as possible.

So here's my creative action tip for you today. I want you to give yourself a mini audit of how long you're spending on your time. And be honest with yourself and think about how many hours in a typical week. You are a working on job related things. Be time you spend working on Hobbies, see time you spend with your family, and D time you are spending on your online business. Decide on how you You can decrease the work hours and increase the hours in the hobbies time with family or if you're a TPT seller in your online business.

All right, well, that's all I have for today. Please be kind to yourself. Give yourself that balance. It's all about moderation and balance as in with many things in life. So give yourself grace. And I hope I will see you again next week. Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.