If you’re a teacher, I don’t have to tell you how busy and overwhelming the back-to-school season gets. It ranks right up there with the hectic holiday season. Let’s focus on what we can do to help ease the anxiety and feel optimistic about the new year ahead!
Four steps to calm the overwhelm:
1 – get a notebook or planner to jot down your ideas and thoughts because they’re going to come at you like a tsunami. Having one place to write everything down will ease your overwhelm.
You can take this a step further and label some pages with topics.
Here are some examples. Use the ones that work for you.
*room set-up
*room decor
*organizing tasks
*curriculum things to do
*meetings & important dates
*routines/procedures to teach (watch for my next post about these!)
*first week activities
*first day activities
*organization needs
*classroom supplies
*stuff to make
*stuff to buy
*stuff to copy
If you’re like me, when you’re busy working on one thing, you’ll think of an idea or something you need to for another category. Instead of interrupting yourself and getting off track, you can note the idea on the appropriate list and keep on going, knowing that your ideas are written down for when you can get to them.
2 – when you find yourself running around like a chicken with its head cut off, just STOP. Sit down. Take a deep breath. Or maybe several deep breaths. (My favorite is 4-7-8 breathing. Inhale for a count of four. Hold your breath for a count of seven. Then exhale for a count of eight.) Imagining yourself in a relaxing place helps too.
3 – when you feel calm again, ask yourself three important questions about your current tasks:
*Is this a must-do task (in other words: does this HAVE to be done before students enter the building on day one?)? If so, put a star beside it.
*Is this a would-be-nice-to-do task? (That bulletin board would be really cute, but for right now I could just put paper and border on the board and add the other cute stuff later.)
*Is this something I could delegate or drop altogether, or save it for later when I have time? (Tasks like cleaning out file cabinets or organizing a closet. They might be great things to do, but do they really have to be done before students enter the building?)
4 – organize your to-do list before you set foot in the building.
Here’s how to do that:
*Take those must-do tasks and plan when you will do them. Be realistic, knowing that you’ll also want to visit with school friends (but try to keep those visits brief) and that you’ll be sitting in meeting after meeting.
*Add those would-be-nice-to-do tasks to the list, but in a separate area (so you don’t get them confused with your must-do tasks).
*Before you walk in the door every day, have your list made for that day’s work. Put a star beside your top three tasks for the day. When/if you finish those tasks, then choose another task. Continue for the amount of time that you are in the building.
*Speaking of time, set time limits for yourself. You know as well as I do that school tasks expand to fill the time available. If you set a deadline (and a timer!) for yourself, you are more likely to work like a beaver during the time you’ve set.
*Make your to-do list public. Write it on the board! This way, when folks come into your classroom, they’ll see you working and they’ll also see your list on the board. It’s a subtle reminder that we all have a lot to do so visits need to be brief!
If you want more help with back-to-school planning (and reducing the overwhelm), check out my Back to School Planning in Upper Elementary Grades – The Complete Guide!