Work-Life Balance

 

                                         

One of the areas the Hudson School District is focusing on this year is supporting a healthy work environment.  Spending time with extended family this weekend reminded me of the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance, in order to refresh and be ready for another week! Here are some tips to help you to find a manageable work-life balance.

Work smarter, not harder

Identify and eliminate those nonessential tasks. One way to do this is to apply the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule, to your workday. Vilfredo Pareto was an economist who theorized that we get 80% of the results from 20% of the work we do. Educator Dave Stewart Jr. breaks the 80/20 rule as, "80% of student achievement flow from 20% of the work we do with students."  Steward recommends consolidating the time spent responding to emails, doing minimal paperwork, and not worrying about creating elaborate bulletin boards, as ways to cut down on nonessential tasks.

Make friends

Close relationships at work increase your job satisfaction and engagement. Remember you're not the only one who feels stressed at work.  Talking with colleagues whom you can vent with, ask for help from, or share a laugh with can do wonders for your well-being. A Gallup study found close relationships at work boosts employee satisfaction by 50%.

Celebrate accomplishments

Take time to savor your success in a way that's meaningful to you.  Teachers who merely leap from task to task without recognizing the value of their achievements can become burnt out and find their work unrewarding. These rewards can be as simple as ice cream or a movie after work.

Draw a line between work and home

Set boundaries at home - both physical and mental.  If you do need to bring work home, make sure you have an office or designated working area that you can close the door on. Don't check your email after a certain hour to ensure that you have uninterrupted time with your family/friends.  And have one day a week where you are completely off-line in order to disconnect from stress.

Cultivate a life outside the classroom

Hobbies are a fun way to decompress from the day. Start or reconnect with a favorite hobby, like gardening, photography, knitting, hiking, or salsa dancing!  It doesn't matter what it is as long as it's an activity that lets you forget about the classroom and remember who you are as an individual.  

Schedule time to do nothing!

This is a tough one! Doing nothing when you have a lot to do may seem counterintuitive, but it works! This may be especially difficult when you feel overwhemled with planning lessons and grading papers. Most of us feel guilty when we aren't doing something, even on the weekends.  So we check our Facebook feed or our email, or jump on Pinterest for a few hours.  Researchers say distraction-inducing behavior, such as checking our phones, simulates dopomine production and it feels good.  The downside is that we lose connections with ourselves.  So if you absolutely have to do something, practice mindfulness meditation.

Get your ZZZZs

Lack of sleep is detrimental to your health, well-being, and productivity.  Make sure you get enough sleep each night.  Aside from the health benefits, getting sufficient sleep protects you from reaching job burnout.  Sleep helps you to better recover from stress, and improves your working memory, which affects your ability to problem-solve and make decisions.  The more stressed you are, the more sleep you need each night to adequately recover.  

taken from Resilient Educator, July 2020