Teacher's Ed with Edward DeShazer
In today's world, being a teacher and educator can be empowering, inspiring, and rewarding. Educating the next generation can also be exhausting, frustrating, and disheartening. Teacher's Ed was created to motivate, encourage, and uplift teachers and educators to inspire you for the week ahead.
Teachers Ed is where the best and brightest in education come to be inspired, to learn, to connect, and to grow.
Teacher's Ed with Edward DeShazer
Reducing Overwhelm for Educators
Feeling buried under an avalanche of emails and endless lesson plans? You're not alone, and there's a way out. This episode of the Teachers Ed podcast promises to equip you with effective wellness strategies and practical classroom tips to conquer the chaos and reclaim your balance. Join me, Edward DeShazer, as we tackle the universal educator's challenge of feeling overwhelmed. With a new structure placing a stronger focus on wellness, you’ll learn how to transform a mile-long to-do list into manageable tasks that won't leave you stressed and frazzled.
Discover my personal techniques for maintaining sanity amidst the frenzy, such as the magic of post-it notes, the efficiency of digital lists, and the productive pressure of an Amazon cube timer. These simple yet powerful tools can shift your mindset from panic to problem-solving, helping you prioritize and chunk tasks effectively. By the end of this episode, you'll have a toolkit full of strategies to create a more manageable and enjoyable school environment for yourself and your students. Embrace these insights and transform how you handle your everyday educational duties.
www.EdwardDeShazer.org
Welcome back to the Teachers Ed podcast, the place where the best and brightest in education come to be inspired, to connect, to learn and to grow. I'm your host, edward DeShazer, and today we are diving into something that I know every teacher, every school leader experiences at some point, and that is being overwhelmed. There is that feeling when emails keep piling up, when lesson plans aren't done, the meetings keep coming, and you start to feel overwhelmed and that can feel suffocating. But it does not have to take over Today. Today I'm going to give you some wellness strategies to help you reduce that overwhelming feeling and find a little more balance. And in between that, I'm going to give you some teaching tips that can really help you make your classroom environment more manageable Maybe it's your school environment more manageable for you and your students and for your staff.
Speaker 1:So this is a little different than how it used to go. It used to be teaching tip, wellness tip, teaching tip, but the overwhelming feedback from people is that they want more wellness tips. So, going forward, I'm going to flip the sandwich. It's going to be wellness, teaching, wellness. So let's jump right in and when we get into education, we think about education, we think of that to do list that we have every single day. That just feels like it's a mile long. Start thinking, you know, like how will I get all of this done? You know, leaders, we walk in with all these plans of how our day is going to go and by 9 am, day is completely flipped upside down and by the end of the day, nothing that you plan on doing gets done. And then there's that overwhelm that begins talking to you, and one of the simplest ways for us to tackle this is to break our bigger tasks down into smaller and more actionable steps. The reason why this works is when you take a big task and divide it into smaller pieces, your brain shifts from panic to problem solving. You can go from I can't do this to I can do this one small thing. So here's a couple ways to make it work. Number one writing it all down, starting your day.
Speaker 1:I am the king of post-it notes. If someone were to look at my desk, they would think I was trying to solve a crime, because there are post-it notes everywhere. So get it all out of your head. Get it on paper so it's not swirling in your mind. Another thing that I do when I think of my tasks. I use my to-do list in my phone that way, as things come to mind, whether I'm getting ready in the morning, whether it's at night, whether it's in the bathroom, wherever it may be, I put those things in there. So come the time when I'm at my desk, I'm not like, oh man, what was that thing I was thinking about yesterday? I already have it in my phone looking and waiting for me.
Speaker 1:Number two is to prioritize. You can look at your list and decide what needs your attention first. This could be the most urgent task, or it could be the one that's just causing you the most stress. Sometimes we think the ones that are urgent for everyone else they don't cause us the most stress. But there's one that's causing you the most stress. I would encourage you to tackle the one that's causing you the most stress.
Speaker 1:And three is the chunk it. By breaking each task into small, manageable steps, it allows you to first you know you're choosing the main objective. It allows you to first you know you're choosing the main objective you get to identify whatever resources and materials that you need to get that task done and you can write it out in a rough schedule and then fine tune the details. So that's an example of how to chunk. You know if you're doing your lesson plans, you know.
Speaker 1:So, figuring it out that way, one of the things that's been super, super helpful for me, for your real life example is is on Amazon they have these little cubes. I think it was like $10, but on each side of the cube is a different time five minutes, 10 minutes, 25 minutes and 50 minutes, I believe, are the times I don't have it in front of me because while I'm recording this I keep that in my office so I don't forget it. But what that does some of us, most people work I can't say most people. A lot of people work better under pressure. So this cube allows me to kind of put some pressure on myself, where I will set the timer 10 minutes and say all right, I need to do X, y and Z, I need to accomplish all my emails, and I have 10 minutes to do it. Until that timer goes off or until I'm done, I'm not picking up my phone, I'm not checking Facebook, I'm not doing anything other than accomplishing that task. So that's a very easy tool. I think it's like 10 to 15 bucks If you search on Amazon like time cube. I'm sure some will pop up. There's probably a million of them, but I would encourage you all to get one of those.
Speaker 1:The actionable step that I want us to think about this today is I want us to think about one task that's overwhelming you, and I want you to break it into three small steps and just tackle one of them today. By the end of the day, you will feel more in control of that task, so that's what I need you to do Now. Before I move into the teaching tip, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Be Well Teacher Academy. If you've been feeling overwhelmed, this is the community that is designed to help educators like you recharge and find balance. We're going to have monthly workshops, guided meditations, reflective practices, but, most importantly, it's a supportive community of educators who truly understand the journey that you're on. And the best part, the first 250 members are going to receive lifetime free access to these resources. Visit wwwbewellteachercom to join today, and I want you to remember that managing overwhelm starts by investing in yourself.
Speaker 1:Your teaching tip for the day, the teaching tip that I want to discuss, is using flexible deadlines in the classroom. This is something that is not used often, but it really helps shift the gears of not just you feeling overwhelmed, but also your students feeling overwhelmed. Why flexible deadlines work for students. Number one it reduces anxiety and gives them room to prioritize whatever they have going on, especially those high school students that are juggling multiple classes. Some may be working, some are being adults for their siblings while trying to navigate being a student at the first time. Why flexible deadlines are important for educators and why they work for educators is it gives you breathing room to manage your grading schedule without feeling rushed. By allowing them a flexible deadline to turn things in. It allows you a flexible deadline to get things back to them. Some of the ways you can implement this is first, set a range Instead of your homework is due Tuesday. Give them a window you can let them know hey, this project is going to be due anytime between Monday and Wednesday. This really allows a grace period where then they can submit their homework without penalty. Oftentimes we're looking to penalize them for not meeting the deadlines, where, right now, we're trying to teach these kids and our students skills that allow them to be successful when they get out of the classroom.
Speaker 1:And then number three for how to implement. This is teaching students to advocate for themselves by letting you know when they need an extension. What this does is this encourages communication, this builds responsibility and this builds trust. This is such an easy way to teach students how the real world is going to be. I know there's someone listening like, but the real world says that my lesson plans are due on Monday, but how many times has Monday came and your lesson plans weren't in? How many times has your school office called when your attendance is due at 9 am and you have not gotten it done? Like life is about grace periods, life is about extensions. So this is encouraging our students how to properly communicate when they need those extensions. So the reflection that I would give you for this is I want you to think of one assignment that's coming up I know the holidays are coming, but think of one assignment where you could introduce just a little more flexibility in your classroom and I want then for you to think about how can this benefit both you and your students.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, as we pivot into our second and final wellness tip, sometimes it's not about the workload, it's about how we let it stack up without giving ourselves a break. Workload, it's about how we let it stack up without giving ourselves a break, and the tip that I'm going to give you today is building a five-minute reset into your day. A five-minute reset really can be the difference between feeling like things are spiraling into stress or regaining your focus. There's a simple reset routine that you can try. Number one is just stepping away, physically, getting up and moving away from your desk, your classroom, your computer, whatever task you may be working on. I try to do this a lot. I try to just get up and walk away from my computer because I just my eyes need a break, my mind needs a break, and I'll take that time just to walk around the building. Teachers, if you have time for stuff like that when you're focusing, this could be in the classroom, this could be at home just physically getting up and moving away from whatever it is that you're working on.
Speaker 1:Number two focusing on our breathing by taking slow, deep breaths inhaling for four counts, holding for four counts, exhaling for four, repeat this for one or two minutes. You can do this while your kids are in the classroom working on something. You can do this while your kids are at lunch and you're just like I just need to breathe, but really being able to manage and take control and focus on our breathing. And the third step is to visualize calm. Close your eyes and picture a place and listen. Don't close your eyes right now, while you're driving or while you're listening to this, unless you're at home or somewhere quiet. Then close your eyes and what I would encourage you to do is picture a place or moment that makes you feel peaceful. Maybe it's a beach, maybe it's on the couch snuggled up with your family, maybe it's your quiet morning with your coffee, or maybe it's just a favorite memory.
Speaker 1:A quick reset and visualizing calm. It helps calm your nervous system, it helps clear your mind and it gives you a moment to recharge before diving back in to whatever task you are working on. When you are overwhelmed, five minutes can really just make a difference. Step away, take a deep breath and give yourself permission to reset. You don't have to do it all at once. Whatever it is in life, you do not have to do it all at once. An actionable step that I want to give you because, as I always say, I'm trying to give you actionable things that you can take and do not just like, hey, listen to this guy talk. But what actions can you take? I want you to schedule one five-minute reset into your day this week, whether it's between class, during your lunch, after school. I want you to actually put this right now, if you're not driving, put this into your phone as a time where it is scheduled out, where you add that five minutes to reset and give yourself permission to pause. Reset and give yourself permission to pause.
Speaker 1:I want to really thank you, as I always, it's an honor for people, whether it's two people listening or 200 or 2,000 people listening. I just always want to thank you for really spending. You're spending time with me. Although it's virtual, we are still spending time together. So thank you, thank you, thank you for tuning in, for spending this time with me. If you have not, I always ask please like, please subscribe, please tell a friend. If there's something here that helped you, please share it with someone else. And I want you to remember that when you take care of yourself and you take care of those around you, you are building a stronger and more connected school community. I want to encourage you to keep believing in your students, keep believing in your colleagues and, most importantly, keep believing in yourself. Until next time, stay inspired, stay connected and keep growing.