CCP: Episode 39 // How to Deal with Overwhelm in Teaching
What happens to you when you get overwhelmed?
For me, my head goes into a tailspin as I think about everything that has to get done, both professionally and personally.
Teaching is hard but it's even harder if we don't give ourselves room to try out new things, make mistakes, and learn from them. We are learning that lesson so clearly now teaching in 2020 with the pandemic.
This week's episode is sure to leave you encouraged and feeling inspired to head into your week, unafraid of what lies ahead and confident to be your best teacher-self!
You’ll Learn
You are not the only teacher who is overwhelmed (0:32)
Things are consistently changing (1:37)
Three actionable strategies to help with overwhelm (2:29)
How to systematize your stress (2:56)
What is means to “brain dump” your tasks (3:28)
A handy tool to store tasks (3:46)
Organizing your tasks (4:37)
Placing tasks on your calendar (6:18)
How to simplify your teaching (7:10)
Why you shouldn’t compare yourself to other teachers (7:34)
Start simple and get fancy later (9:10)
How to squash your teaching fears (9:42)
Know why you are afraid (11:10)
Fears will never go away, so let’s learn how to deal with them the right w (11:52)
Overwhelm is temporary (12:53)
LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
Episode 28: 8 Tips for Having the Best First Day of School…EVER!
Episode 32: Planning an Amazing In-Person or Virtual Open House
Online Tool for Managing Your To-Do List: Trello
REVIEW & SUBSCRIBE TO THE CLASSROOM COMMUTE PODCAST
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Ep 39: How to Deal with Overwhelm in Teaching transcript powered by Sonix—easily convert your audio to text with Sonix.
Ep 39: How to Deal with Overwhelm in Teaching was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best audio automated transcription service in 2020. Our automated transcription algorithms works with many of the popular audio file formats.
Hey, teachers, if you have a classroom and a commute, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Rachael, and I want to ride along with you each week on your ride into school. This podcast is the place for busy teachers who want actionable tips, simple strategies, and just want to enjoy their job more. Let's go.
If I asked any teacher right now about how they are feeling about how school is going, I would almost bet $100 that every single person would tell me in some form that they were feeling overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed and I'm not even teaching in the classroom this year! I am overwhelmed by the things going on in classrooms around the country that it would come as no surprise to me that most teachers would say they were overwhelmed.
What happens to you when you get overwhelmed? For me, my head goes into a tailspin as I think about everything that has to get done before a specific day or before a specific project can get completed. And for teachers, you might get overwhelmed mostly at the beginning of the school year when you're thinking about setting up your classroom or preparing for that first day of school or open house. All of the things that we have talked about on this podcast and I will link to those episodes in the show notes. I think it is fair to say that the overwhelm that comes with back to school has carried on beyond back to school time and is still here with us today, even as we are well into the school year. Most teachers are dealing with new formats, new online platforms, and just 'new' all around, that it's easy to feel overwhelmed and feel like you are never going to get a grip and a handle on the things that you're being asked to do this school year. Even when you do feel like you finally figured one thing out, something new is going to come in and send you right back into those feelings of being overwhelmed. And chances are you're going to go through several cycles of overwhelm throughout the course of the year. It's just the nature of the job, right? And while I don't think there's ever a way to completely eliminate those feelings of overwhelm, even if you've taught for years, I do think that there are some strategies and actionable solutions that can help stop overwhelm in its tracks before it takes over your life and some strategies that will help you deal with it a little bit better so you don't feel out of control.
I want to share three strategies, three actionable strategies that you can put into place to hopefully help reduce and maybe even eliminate some of that overwhelm that you are currently feeling or have felt in the past. We can face our overwhelming head on, we can acknowledge it, and then we can move past it so that we don't sit in that overwhelm for too long. So let me share with you those three strategies today.
The first strategy to minimize and eliminate the overwhelm in your life is to systematize your stress. Like I mentioned, for me, I feel most overwhelmed when I think about all of the tasks that I have to complete, and those tasks, if I don't write them down or put them in a calendar, they seem, in my head, to be constantly piling up with no end in sight. So what can you do when your brain starts that inevitable tailspin of creating mental checklists that seemed endless? Do a brain dump. Write everything down in your head that's on your to-do checklist in your head, both teacher and personal related. Write down your son's soccer game that you have to go to, jot down copies that you need to make, or phone calls that need to be done. Write or type it all down.
I actually use an online tool called Trello, it's basically an online project manager. You're allowed to create these lists, checklists, tags, and all sorts of things inside of Trello. I actually have a tab called 'Brain Dump'. Anytime I'm out and about and I think of something that I don't want to forget, I go to my phone and I go to the Trello app. I go to my brain dump tab and I just put it in there, that way I know I won't forget it. Then each day before I begin my tasks for the day, I look at my brain dump and see if there's anything that I need to put on today's calendar. As I'm planning out my week, I go to my brain dump tab and I see what things I need to maybe schedule out for the week. When you get it all out of your head and onto paper or on your computer screen or wherever, you now clear the space in your head so that you can breathe a little bit.
Once you've got it all down, you can start circling and chunking tasks that go together. For example, you might circle together, star, or color code, however you want to organize all, things that are urgent, that need to be done first and put those on your calendar first. You can also group tasks that are related so that you can bang them all out together. It's been shown study after study that when we do like-tasks together, it reduces that shift that you do in your brain. When you are task switching and you're going from one type of task to another task, you lose a lot of mental energy when you go from unlike task to unlike task. If you group things that are similar that can be done together, you're going to save some power in your brain from having to shift that mental energy too much. By doing a brain dump, you might also find that you have several items on your list that truly can wait. And if that's the case, don't let them sneak in and make you feel even more overwhelmed.
Sometimes when we keep all those things in our heads, we think of all the things that we have to do, but a lot of those things really can wait. By getting them on the list, we can either create a separate list all together with the 'can do later items' and only focus on the ones that need to be done now. Finally, look on your list for things that you need to say "no" to. If you don't have to do it, if you don't have to join that committee or do that special school project, don't do it. Say "no" and you can eliminate something altogether and free up even more of your time. Especially now when we are overwhelmed with all the extra things that we've had to add to our list, things like create digital resources or set up a Google Classroom. Those things might have to be done, but something else may not, so cross those things off your list.
After you've categorized your brain dump, schedule out those tasks. For me, if it's not on my calendar, it does not get done. So physically, put things on your calendar. Even the simple things, think about when are you going to make copies that you need for your students? Do you plan to make those phone calls at the end of the week? Will you pick up your dry cleaning after school on your way home? Give a scheduled time to each task so you know when it's going to get all done and you don't have to worry about when it's going to get done because it's on your calendar and you're going to check it off once it is. If you develop a system for dealing with all those tasks and life events that typically send you down a path to overwhelm, I think you will find that the stress level will come way down. So my first tip is to systematize your stress by doing a brain dump, categorizing tasks that need to be done, and then scheduling those tasks on a calendar so that they do get done.
The second strategy with dealing with teacher overwhelm is to simplify, simplify, simplify your teaching. A lot of our overwhelm as teachers comes from thinking that we can do it all and try out every new technique in every classroom trend or teaching strategy that we see on social media in order to be successful with our students. After all, if other teachers are doing it, you can to right wrong. First off, people only highlight their classroom successes on social media. We don't see the ten failures that preceded it or the years of practice it took to just get it right. Never compare your backstage to somebody on stage. Especially now I'm seeing teachers creating these amazing Google Classroom sites or Bitmoji Classrooms. All of those can be great and wonderful if you enjoy doing it, if it comes easy to you, if it's something that you want to do for your students but certainly don't add that to your list if it's not something that you have time for, the energy for, or even the need for, those things are all extra. The reality is, is a lot of times we do those really cool things for other teachers to see and to impress others and we really need to just focus on our students and what's going to best serve them. They don't care if everything is color coded or coordinated, they don't care if you have a really cool background to a slide, they just need to learn and they need a teacher that can show up for them with full energy and full focus on them. Take a moment and breathe. Do you really need to try out all the things that you saw teachers posting about all summer? Or can you just pick one thing? Can you just pick the one thing that you think will give you the biggest bang for your buck or that you will be able to successfully manage right now with your current workload and life situation? Then do really well with that one thing instead of kind of well on all the things.
When you start something new that you've never done before, take away all the extras and focus on the necessities. First, build the foundation and go from there. I heard someone say once, "start simple and get fancy later". And I think that is the perfect motto to have when starting something new. You can start a Google Classroom website, but it doesn't need to be fancy. It just needs to be functional and something that's going to best support your students and then you can get fancy later. If you have the time, give yourself permission to ease into the process. And then as you and your students get more comfortable with the process, you can become more elaborate, add more things in and get fancier.
Finally, the last strategy that I want to share with you today to help minimize your overwhelm is to squash your teaching fears. If you're like me, a lot of your overwhelm comes out of fear and worry. It's easy to get overwhelmed when you are worried about everything. You fear that the technology is going to be too much for you and your students. You worry about that parent-teacher conference coming up. You're afraid that the curriculum that your district uses is going to change again, just after you got used to the new curriculum. You worry that your students won't do well on state tests and as a result, your reputation as a teacher will be at stake. Any of those sound familiar? Even teachers who have been in the classroom for years have fears, worry and doubt.
Let's talk about how you can squash and get rid of those fears. Number one, be clear about what you are afraid of, instead of clumping all of your teaching fears into one overwhelming category, give your fears a name. When we pick out exactly what's worrying us, we can be more active with coming up with a solution. Worried about that parent-teacher conference? Make sure you're extra prepared with positive things to say about the student, as well as some helpful tips for improvement. Gather lots of students samples that you can show evidence to back up your conversation. Give your fears a name, say them out loud, say them to another teacher, say them to your spouse, because letting our fears float around in our head will only keep them spinning and churning instead of dealing with them straight on.
Number two, squash your fears by knowing why you are afraid. Getting to the root of why you are afraid will help give a new perspective to your fear. Perhaps you'll realize that you're being too hard on yourself, all teachers are, of course, or you're just being too critical of your abilities as a teacher and you know, deep down that you're doing fine. Are you afraid because you think other teachers or administrators will judge you because everybody feels that way? If you're worried about that parent-teacher conference, maybe it's because the last time you met with the parents, it didn't go so well but this time is going to be different because you're more prepared. If you know why you are afraid, you can flip the script and remind yourself of the truth, instead of telling yourself a false narrative.
And finally, the third strategy to squash your fears is to get comfortable with your teaching fears because they're never going away. That's not comforting to hear, is it? But let's be honest. Teaching never gets "easy". Just when you think you've got a system and a flow, something changes. You get new students every year with different needs and different personalities. Teachers are constantly being asked to pivot in order to reach higher standards and tackle new education issues. And there's no end in sight. Instead of letting our teaching fears cripple us, let's get buddy buddy with those fears. Know them, claim them and instead of letting them take hold of us, work toward actionable solutions. Since these fears are not going anywhere anytime soon, let's learn how to deal with them better by giving ourselves more grace. Teaching is hard. It's even harder if we don't give ourselves room to try out new things, make mistakes, and learn from them. We are learning that lesson so clearly now in 2020 with the pandemic.
And finally, remember, this overwhelm is temporary. Each fear that you have as a teacher cycles through. Yes, a new one might come to replace it. But if you have strategies in place for dealing with overwhelm as it comes at you, you will be ready to take them head on.
As we bring this episode to a close, let's do what we usually do, and that is to review and round up all the things that we talked about today when dealing with teacher overwhelmed. I want to give you three actionable strategies that will help you tackle the overwhelm and deal with it head on. And the first strategy is to systematize your stress by getting all of those tasks and projects and ideas and things that you need to remember out of your head and onto paper so that you can see what tasks are stressing you out and come up with an action for completing them. The second strategy is to simplify your teaching and to give yourself permission to start simple and get fancy later. The third strategy is to squash your teaching fears by being clear with what you're afraid of, giving it a name, saying it out loud, figuring out why you're afraid of it, and to make sure that you're not just telling yourself a false narrative and putting more pressure on yourself then need to be. Finally, we learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and overwhelmed because teaching fears will cripple us. If we know that they're going to come, we can better be prepared for them and work towards an actual solution instead of letting it take over our lives.
So there's your little pep talk for the day. I hope that this leaves you encouraged and feeling inspired to head into your week, into your day. I will be back again next week with another episode of The Classroom Commute Podcast. Thanks so much for joining me today. Bye for now.
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