The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 095: When You Realize Your Students Are Your Work and Other Moments of Realizations in Mental Overload with Christine and Tammy
Tammy and Christine talk about if you have ever caught yourself wishing the students would stay out a bit longer so you can “get real work done”? We unpack that exact moment of misalignment and the quieter signals that follow like missing meetings, mixing up times, and staring down a chaotic classroom you don’t even know you’ll keep. Our goal is simple: trade overwhelm for intent, and turn a crowded day into one you can meet with clarity and care.
We dig into the power of separating chunk time from confetti time, protecting deep work for planning and differentiation while pushing quick, low-value tasks into short windows. We talk about the surprising advantage of starting the year with less, then co-creating the environment with students so the space fits real needs rather than a perfect vision. Along the way, we surface seasonal patterns of fatigue, the emotional weight of aesthetics, and how role changes reveal new kinds of overload at the leadership and coaching level.
When forgetting becomes a pattern, it’s not a failure, it’s a signal. We share how to pause early, renegotiate timelines, apologize with sincerity, and fix root causes by pruning commitments and tightening calendar boundaries. Practical resets matter too: short nature breaks, strong sleep habits, and brief audio or hypnosis tracks that help the mind downshift. We close with simple, repeatable practices that keep your attention where it belongs on students, relationships, and meaningful work you can actually finish.
If this conversation helps you rethink your workload, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review to help more educators find minimalist strategies that create space for what matters.
This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services.
Find our book The Minimalist Teacher and Your School Leadership Edit: A Minimalist Approach to Rethinking Your School's Ecosystem at the links!
Follow on Instagram @PlanZEducation and @minimalist_ed_podcast.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast is a Plan Z Education Services adventure.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Musiowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your school leadership edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem, each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.
SPEAKER_03:Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. I am here with Tammy today. How are you, Tammy?
SPEAKER_01:Plain yet.
SPEAKER_03:Yet could come later today. We could come later today. So today you and I are having a chat about the topic. The moment I realized I was doing too much. So yeah, so we we love a good lesson from a story. So we're gonna share a couple of stories today from our own practices, our own careers, around significant moments where it was like, yeah, this we've gone too far here. And what can we learn from those moments?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I'm I was just thinking too, you and I have both shifted roles over time, like many educators. And so maybe we can determine like something from our teaching roles, and then maybe the roles we're in now. Because I was actually just thinking, ooh, there was has there was a moment not so long ago, like less than a month probably, where I was like, I need to figure this out. So okay, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So from from different points of our careers. I like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay. All right. So do you want to start with your teaching story? Like when was that moment for you?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know if I can remember. I think it was, I think it was back when I was in Australia. So we're talking a long time ago now. Okay. And my kiddos were out at a specialist class. It might have been gym or music. I can't quite remember now. But when they came charging back into the classroom, I had this overwhelming feeling of, oh, I wish the kids could just go so I could get my work done. And immediately realizing they are my work, what am I talking about? And it really it really was a smack in the face moment of like, oh my goodness, like how am I prioritizing all the other tasks over the kids that are in front of me? Because surely they should be the center of what I'm doing and not a secondary part of my work. Surely that's got to be what it is.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, I mean, I I get that sentiment. And I definitely have had that feeling when I was teaching too, because sometimes you're just like in a flow of things, right? And you're like, oh man, I have to go get them or they're coming back already. And so we know that it when we get in a flow, like you sometimes don't want it disrupted. So, you know, there's definitely those moments for me. I don't know if that was you in that moment, but but also like, you know, a lot of times our the prep minutes are very precious. And so when you get interrupted, when you're get finally getting some things done that you know that you need to do because there's just it's never ending. And you know, it could have been anybody coming into your room to disturb you too, right? Or it's like that's true.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. That's very gracious of you to say no, it was my students, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Oh dear. No, it definitely reminds me of you know what we've we've talked about and written about with the you know, have almost having two to-do lists of of your your chunk time and your confetti time. Because if you if you do have a limited amount of time during the school day in a prep period, that's really well, I'm speaking for myself, but that was never a good time for me to do the deep work. It was never a good time for me to really put my thinking cap on and try and do something very conceptual or really deep or anything like that, because it is so short, and you quite possibly will get interrupted, and that needed to be at a different time of the day. And so I I suspect that is definitely what happened to me there is I had gotten into the flow, as you say, and I was trying to do something more challenging in the middle of the day, and I just didn't have enough of a chunk of time to really tackle it. So I think, you know, knowing when to do those big tasks and when to just sort of tackle some of the smaller ones on the to-do, I think is is a key takeaway for me from that, yeah, from that moment.
SPEAKER_02:So then if you were gonna, I mean, you currently are in the classroom just for a day a week, which you know is great that you still get to be with the kids. But if you're gonna be back in the classroom full time, would you is that a strategy you would use as the chunk the or the time blocking or not time blocking, the chunking versus the confetti? Would you do you think you would do that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, I absolutely 100% do. Like I physically have two different lists. So on my day in the classroom, I write, yeah, if if I have time, it's things like photocopying, printing, respond to that email, do attendance, those little bitty things that you can get off the to-do list. But it's yeah, it's definitely not the time to be planning a new unit or try to think about how best to, you know, differentiate for that group over there. You know, that's not the time, and that needs to happen at a separate occasion. That's good. Good.
SPEAKER_02:It's good to hear that the things that we talk about are in practice. Yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I try. Sometimes I forget about them and then I, you know, catch see something again that we've talked about, and I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. I should I should bring that back in again. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So what was your moment for you? What was your realization moment?
SPEAKER_02:I think there was one in particular that happened while teaching, and then kind of a series over time. But there was this moment where it was the start of a school year and I was setting up a classroom. And I didn't know though, if it if I was going to be in that classroom or another one, because the admin was still deciding if they were like the new teacher that was coming in, would they be there or in the other room? And so it was, you know, the few days, it was end of August, just a few days before the kids are coming back. And I was setting up the room and there was just stuff everywhere. And I just sat there and cried because I literally did not know where to start. And it, yeah, it was just so overwhelming. And so having experienced that, if I was in that moment again, you know, like not knowing, am I staying here? Am I whatever? I definitely wouldn't have had all the stuff out because that in itself, like we tended to have a lot of supplies. We had very developed classroom libraries. So it was like, do I organize the library? Do I set up their notebooks? Do I set up all of the binders that we used to have for assessments? Like there was all those things. And so I would definitely not make the to-do list because that was a living thing. The to-do list was really long, but I would probably just choose the top one or two priorities, honestly. The things that I would really need to do to make the classroom functional for the kids on the first few days. And then everything else would just develop over time. But I was really in that mindset of like, I have to have it all done now. Right. Because otherwise I'm not ready. And that's like a really terrible mindset to have, especially when you know, the physical space was just overloaded. And then there's the uncertainty of like, am I going to be in, is this going to be my room or is this going to be my room? So, like, how much time do I spend on things? So I literally just froze. It was just like, you know, and so thinking back to that, like circumstances were out of my control, but also, you know, I ended up moving into that other classroom. I had a co-teacher. And then like things ended up being great because we had a really great working relationship. We had a really high-functioning system, like systems that we had set up. And I learned a lot from being in that space with her. So it ended up being a good experience. But in that moment, like I couldn't see past just the stuff in front of me.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That yeah, no, I can definitely empathize with that moment. Yeah. There's so much to do. And it's just where do I start? Yeah. It's it's massive. It's huge.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And it did let the lead me to kind of think like, can I actually operate in this? Can I stay in this? What do you call that? In the middle? Limbo. Right. Yes. Yeah, where you're just kind of in limbo, and I'm and I could and I didn't really think at the time too, like this is temporary, just like everything is, right? It's not like I'm gonna be living in this limbo for the next month or two months. It's literally a few days, like I'll know. But when you're so overwhelmed by things, like you can't see that either.
SPEAKER_03:Do you think do you think now with all of the work that you've done around prioritizing and knowing what to prioritize, that you would have been able to handle that in a different way?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think so. Because I often think about like, well, if I went back into teaching full-time, how would I handle even just the classroom setup? Because often that can, you know, it can take longer than you want it to because you have a vision or whatever. But I just know that uh, and I kind of learned this from moving into the classroom in Singapore where there was really not much in there. Like starting with almost nothing is just really great. And so you can just you can just build as you go. And then it's it's your environment with the students. It's not, you know, it's a we place and not just a me place. And it doesn't get overloaded with things that you don't need.
SPEAKER_03:I love that you you always mention that about what a bonus it was to have nothing or almost nothing. It wasn't completely nothing, but it was close to because I feel like that would be so counterintuitive to so many people. Like I feel like most teachers would enter an almost empty space and be like, pardon me, like how am I supposed to do this? So I love that you always share that story.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I mean the essentials were in there, right? So like I wasn't worried about not meeting the kids' needs. And and once you figure out your kids and where things are when you need them, then it's it's okay. It's a feel like you have nothing. Yeah, I mean, we've definitely experienced different kinds of classrooms where you've got all the stuff and then not too much stuff. And I feel like it can be weird to like I know there's some teachers who really like to spend the time in there and just like make it feel homey and cozy, which is great, but also like that can add to your mental load too, because you're it's something else you're thinking about, it's something else that you want to be just right, right? But you know, you gotta make sure it's just right for your learners. Yeah, so if you don't if you don't know them yet, it's it's a little bit hard to envision what should be there. But yeah, that's definitely something I would if I was gonna set up a new classroom, I would definitely just kind of like, okay, what do I really need for my students? Well, furniture, how do I want them to sit? You know, how are we gonna set up our collaborative spaces? And what kind of you know, first few day materials do we need? Yeah, for sure. There's there's another it's not a series of time, but I'd say a period of time that I would have each school year two that I found made me question if I should continue teaching. And I don't know if it was just like coincided with like springtime and just like the seasonal change, but it was often like I've often found it really hard to just get to school some mornings in the spring till the end of the year. Like just oh, that was a tough period for you. Okay, yeah, yeah, and so and that was something I noticed every year, like similar time. And I don't know if it was just because I was getting tired and I just like needed a longer period of like just not having that very rigid routine that we have, right?
SPEAKER_03:Because you know, school's a rigid routine, so you know, sometimes it doesn't feel like that, but I'm very curious thinking about that for you because you have worked in lots of different climates, right? Where it's warm all year round, cold a lot, that sort of thing. Did it change at all, or was it always something about that time period?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I definitely think that during the winter months when I was in winter, that was really hard because I just didn't want to go outside because it was cold and like you gotta put all the clothes on, and then when you get there, you gotta take them all off. And like, you know, there's just so much stuff you have to bring with you in winter. And then the seasonal change was helpful, but I I really do feel like, and maybe it was allergy season too, or something. Like, I don't know, but there is definitely some kind of like mental body chemistry, something that just I found from like March to the end of the year. Because we would all in New York, we would go till the end of June too. So it was like long. And it just felt it almost felt like the opposite of spring fever, where the kids were like getting excited because it's like getting warmer out and more light and da-da-da. And I definitely react to more light versus dark, like winter's challenging, right? With all the dark. And so that would sometimes, you know, be okay. But yeah, I just found that stretch long and hard to do. And then usually when I was at school, I would be okay. Like I'd be, I would just, you know, I'd be there, I'd be around people, and then just get on with the day. But it was that initial, like, I just don't want to go there today. I don't want to do this today.
SPEAKER_01:And it wasn't even about like teaching really. I think it was just like, I just want to stay home today.
SPEAKER_03:I just want to do my own thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:100%.
SPEAKER_02:I don't want to follow a schedule today. I don't want to, you know, do recess duty or whatever, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. No, I think we've all been there. I think we've all been there.
SPEAKER_02:I know it's kind of funny too, like working in this role now where it's my own schedule, but then when I'm in schools, it's their schedule too. So I'm like, I envision myself maybe going back to the classroom one day. I don't know. But then I'm like, could I do that? I don't know. Like, remember, remember those days when you didn't want to go to school?
SPEAKER_04:I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:It'd be tough. You've got to try it now just to say. I know. I know, right?
SPEAKER_02:We'll see. We'll see where where the journey takes takes me. So, in this role that you're in now, where you are in a coordinator role and you're overseeing some like curriculum work and you work with teachers and that kind of thing, have you gotten to a point where you're like, okay, I need to pause here and I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean, that's yep, a hundred percent. That's an understatement, if anything.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's a different kind of load.
SPEAKER_03:It is, it is. And I think, like, if we're talking about like a moment of realization, yeah, you know, yeah, I think I have had a couple of moments where, so you know me, I'm usually pretty on top of things. I like to be organized, I like a calendar, I like a to-do list, I like an action plan, spreadsheets are my jam, you know. So I like to be on top of things, but I have had a few moments along the way where I have like legitimately straight up just forgotten things. And in those moments where I'm like, I've completely dropped the ball, I've missed a deadline, or I told someone I was gonna do something and I've forgotten, that's always a moment for me where I'm like, you're doing too much, girl. Like you need to, you need to take a few things off that plate because it's just not like me to completely forget about things. I might not always get to things. Like if I have a giant to-do list with lots of tasks to do, I might not be able to get everything done all the time. That's not what I'm saying, is that I'm like some superhuman person that gets, you know, all their work done. That definitely not. But when I completely forget something, that's that's a signal. You know, usually it's like in the back of my head, and I'm like, yeah, I've got it on my list, I'll get there. But if I've completely dropped the ball with something, that's that's a huge signal to me of like, oh, I've clearly got too much going on in my head at the moment.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's funny you say that because in December, there was the week, it was like the middle week of December. And so schools were, you know, getting ready for a winter break and stuff. So I wasn't in schools at all. But I had some scheduled Zooms and meetings with people, and I totally got times wrong. Like there was one meeting where I thought was on a Tuesday, but it was actually on a Monday. And at least that was like an easy one to just jump on to, and that was fine. There was another one with my team. We were talking about a workshop that I was gonna be doing. I thought it was at like 1 p.m. or something, and it was actually at 10 a.m. And so I happened to just look at my my email app and it sent the reminder. And I was like, oh my God, I have to be on this call in five minutes. So I had like just gotten back from the gym. So I'm like, well, they're gonna get me how I am, whatever. Yeah, but I'll be there. And so, and there was one other two where I just got the time wrong, and I was like, okay, this is an indication that. In December, when schools are starting to close down and I'm not doing those in-person visits, I too just need to shut the calendar off during that week because I can't schedule things correctly. Like I just not time zone. I need to not figure out what time zone I'll be in or what they're in and make sure it's in the calendar correctly because I messed it all up that week. And so that was a moment too for me where like I was just screwing things up. And at least it didn't affect anything. But you know, I was like, okay, that's not like me. So canceling a few meetings over the next couple of days, and we'll just catch up in January because no, not doing it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So what is the what's the takeaway from from this, Tammy? What can we learn from this?
SPEAKER_02:Don't talk to people in December.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Done. For me anyway.
SPEAKER_03:That's fine. I can I can definitely take that on board. I would love to not talk to anyone in December.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah, no, I think that just sometimes for me, just to look at my calendar and be realistic about if I should have a conversation at that time with someone, right? Like a lot of times things aren't necessarily urgent. So it's fine if we wait a day or two or talk about something the next week. So I just have to keep that in mind. Like just be realistic with the calendar. And then I won't get messed up because now January's starting, and I'm like, okay, things are my my mind feels better having a break. And we're in January right now recording. This will be in February when people listen. But literally that break of time where I just didn't look at my laptop, I didn't schedule anything for like a week, just helped me reset. Like I didn't realize how I really needed to just not look at a screen for a while and think about time zoning and scheduling things. And that really helped. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm I'm not I'm not too sure if I know what my takeaway is from the forgetting things. Because it's very, it's very hard to sort of do anything to preempt that. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. But to to know when you're gonna get to that point where you're gonna forget things. Do you know what I mean? But I'm wondering whether I need to take it more seriously, like when I when I have the first one of like, whoa, that that completely completely fell off my radar and I forgot about it. Whether I need to take that more seriously and just sort of try and say, okay, I need to stop and you know, carve some time out to get my head back around everything that's going on. What can I get rid of? What can I shift and prioritize a little bit more rather than just trying to, you know, brute force it and keep going through it, actually recognize it as a bit of a warning sign, maybe.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Something too that might, I don't know if this is realistic, maybe, but you know, just kind of to think of your compartments. So the thing that you like the person you forgot to follow up with, do you go back, maybe not in their your email chain or whatever, but just think back to your conversations and then like okay, and then close that. Okay, I think I'm good there. Okay, what was the other thing that I forgot? Oh, yeah, I forgot about this, whatever it was, and just like kind of take yourself back to those moments of or up to the that moment of forgetting.
SPEAKER_03:If you does that make sense, it does make sense, but the particular examples I'm thinking about most recently, it was like the entire thing had been erased from my brain, so I wouldn't have been able to go back to anything. There was no like, what was that thing that I was forgetting? No, it was like gone, so until someone said, Hey, weren't we going to? And I was like, Whoa, okay. Which you know me, Tommy. Is that like me? It's not like me.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no, it's not. No, you have a nice little diary and calendar and all the things, and very organized. So yeah, that's that's a good warning sign though, for sure. Yeah. So did you get to so what happened with that then? The thing you forgot.
SPEAKER_03:Well, it yeah, it happened a few times sort of back to back. And luckily, I okay with admitting my faults. I'm not, yeah, you know, I don't worry or get embarrassed about, you know, just saying I completely stuffed up here. And people generally, if you acknowledge what you've done and apologize, people generally give you another chance, I find. So yeah, as soon as I've realized what's going on, just trying my best to do a face-to-face, you know, authentic apology. And then, you know, getting onto it. ASAP is usually how I handle it. But I think I think I need to take it a little bit more seriously. So I'm not like, you know, apologizing to everyone. Might not seem as authentic if you're just apologizing all the time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oops, I forgot again. Yeah, exactly.
unknown:Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:Oh dear.
SPEAKER_02:No, good lessons though, right? To just tune into the whether it's like the blank memory or the this this is so hard, I don't want to do it. Forgetting things. Yeah. Just it's a good it's a good thing for us to focus on and say, yeah, our brains are overloaded then. Something's happening there. So to take a step back and just give ourselves a few moments to at least, you know, close our eyes and take a little mental break after we realize the things that we've forgotten, and then just yeah, take the breaks when we can because we know that a a good break will help us reset.
SPEAKER_03:That's it. And I think it's interesting too, there, between those those stories that we shared is that when in those moments of realizing there's too much going on or you're trying to do too much, there can be like internal things that happen that show up. But in your story from your teaching career, it could be external things as well. Like your body can tell you that you're doing too much as well. So we need to take those those signs really seriously as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you have a pair of down pointer for our listeners and viewers?
SPEAKER_03:Hmm. I might have to think about that a bit.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. My maybe we've probably talked about this a zillion times, but I think it's just so important to just like if something, if you are in that kind of like mental whirlwind that can feel like you know, all the things to do, and you're just like torn in all the directions, just the importance of the pause, just to like literally stop and like reflect on in the moment or at the end of the day or something, because it's so easy to just keep going and going and going and burn yourself out. And then it's like then you really have things going wrong with you, like you know, sickness and stuff like that, and you just then you're held up. But I think that end of day or even the beginning of the day where you're like setting some kind of intention, not an maybe an intention or just like a vision of your day and how you want to feel in your day. Because I don't think any of us get up in the morning and say, I want to have a frantic day. No, I I don't, not right. I want to forget stuff today. So, right, like that's not usually on our radar. So just kind of getting up in the morning with the thought, like, okay, I'm just I know I have all these things to do today, but I'm gonna make sure that if I feel, you know, like I'm getting too busy or I'm feeling overwhelmed, just stop for a minute and collect myself and then move on.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that yeah, I think I would piggyback on your pause peer down pointer there. And I think if you can do that pausing in nature, I think that is super, super helpful if you can, you know, start thinking about what's going on while there's some trees around you, that can be super helpful. And then the other one I would say is have a sleep because so much of that like chaos that can be going on can you can wake up and feel so much clearer. So it's the amount of times that you can yeah, sleep on something and get some clarity is it's really it's an amazing thing to do for your brain. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I just thinking of that, I started using this hypnosis app to just help me with some like mental stuff, like just calming down. And so I'll play it at the end of the day, like when I'm about to go to sleep. And I'm just asleep before I'd even start hypnosis. So, which apparently it's fine for just have it play like while you're sleeping. But something like that, too, to just sometimes those are just 15 or 20 minutes. But just uh it's those are good short mental resets too. So something at that like that at the end of the day or while you're sitting outside, just feeling the breeze or birds chirping or whatever, those are helpful too. Yeah. Yeah. We've we've got a few pair-down pointers for today.
SPEAKER_04:Nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And just, you know, don't do too much, basically.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, great.
SPEAKER_03:Simple, easy, simple. Thanks, Christine. All right, thanks, everybody. This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services, supporting educators with forward-thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Driven by a vision to teach less, impact more, they help educators find purpose, prioritize what matters, and simplify their practice. Learn more at planzeducation.com.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit planzedation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.
