Daily Rhythms that Reduce Stress for Teachers
Most of us already have daily and weekly rhythms in our personal and professional lives, even if you don’t recognize it. Do you have a certain time of day when you always make your bed, check your email, brush your teeth, etc? Most likely. Do you have a day when you always grocery shop? Those are your rhythms.
Now, here’s the benefit of being aware of your rhythms. When you run into a problem area in your life, that thing you can never quite get done before the week is over, creating a rhythm for it can completely eliminate the problem.
When you don’t have a rhythm.
When my husband and I first got married, I didn’t have any sort of rhythm established for cleaning my stuff up. I was content with going to sleep with my laptop on the couch, or wherever I last worked with it. I wasn’t bothered with dishes being left in the sink, or with the remote being tossed haphazardly somewhere.
My husband had this super rhythmic routine of loading and starting the dishwasher, putting things back where they ‘go’, and wiping down counters before going to sleep. To him, starting his day with clutter and mess was a bad morning.
My lack of rhythm in this area led to lots of arguments between us. I accused him of being “psycho” and “ocd” about neatness. He accused me of wasting precious time by never having clean dishes that we needed, or having to always hunt for the remote. One day he said to me, “we never have to have this fight again, if we can just create a routine we both can stick to.”
The idea of making a decision that would eliminate a problem forever was kind of mind-blowing to me. But he was right. A routine for who would do certain tasks, and when they would be done change everything. We created a rhythm for cleaning up at the end of each day, and we literally have never had that fight again. AND he was right. A lot less time was wasted on things like hunting for the remote, rushing to load the dishwasher before work, getting my laptop packed up for school, etc.
This is the power of rhythms. What tasks create stress for you? How can you eliminate that stress from your life by simply designating time and space in your week to ensure that it’s done efficiently?
What do you want to stop stressing about?
Ask yourself this question right now. When you think through your school week, or your day-to-day life, what is something that always seems to give you a little anxiety, or that you always feel resentful of having to rush to do? Here are some things that I didn’t have rhythms created for when I was a new teacher:
grading
parent communication
getting lessons planned and submitted in a timely manner
prepping copies for the next week
preparing homework
filing
straightening up the library/cubbies/desks/supply areas/etc.
When you don’t have a rhythm for something that needs to be done regularly, your life becomes a series of reactions. You’re reacting to the mess by all of a sudden barking at your students about how they don’t keep things neat, and cancelling part of your lesson to clean desks out. You react to the pile of ungraded or unfiled papers by huffing about staying late to get it done. You react to the lack of prep you did for the next week by coming in early on Monday and rushing around to make copies. You react to a parent’s emotional email by overthinking and re-writing it dozens of times, when simply being the first one to reach out about an issue would have kept the parent from getting emotional at all.
I challenge you to make your life a little more proactive instead of reactive. What’s an area that you would like to never stress about again?
Steps for Planning a Daily Rhythm
Identify the area you want to resolve.
Decide on a day of the week/time of day when you can consistently get this done.
Think about the things you normally do during this time, and decide if it all can get done in the same block, or if you need to move other things around.
Put it in your planner and execute!
Example:
Grading is causing me a lot of stress. It piles up, and I end up throwing things away that I meant to grade, and scrambling to have enough grades by the end of the quarter.
I can implement student-grading routines for things like homework and centers. I can take participation grades on the things they grade themselves. That only leaves me assessments and writing assignments/projects that I will need to grade and enter. I can come in one hour early on Wednesdays and chip away at grading those things until it is done for the month.
I don’t have any set things I do on Wednesday mornings. I usually just prep the room for the day and check emails. I can save email for planning time. Every 6 weeks, we have data meetings during planning on Wednesdays, so on those weeks, I may need to come to school 90 minutes early to leave time for grading and email catch up. Or I may need to plan to stay 30 minutes late to wrap up grading.
Every Wednesday on my daily plans now says GRADE BEFORE SCHOOL, and is highlighted.
What rhythms do you already have established in your classroom? Do you want to plan some new ones now?
