An Educator's Guide to achieving a Healthy Work-Life Balance with Online Schooling

Even before the global pandemic, trying to achieve a work-life balance as a teacher was a challenge. Since schools transitioned from physical classrooms to online platforms it has become increasingly challenging to cultivate a healthy work-life balance.

The challenge of work-life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.-Stephen Covey

Here are some tips that can possibly help you achieve that.

Setting Healthy Boundaries for Yourself and Others

I've had conversations with colleagues who experience difficulty finding a healthy work-life balance simply because they always say 'yes' to everyone and everything. Just as I would've told them,

I'm here to tell you, learn to say 'no'. I'm not telling you to say no every time someone asks you for a favour, but you have to say it every once in a while.

You need to learn the art of setting healthy boundaries for yourself and others. Don't want to answer your phone after working hours? You don't have to, return the call the next day when you sign in for work. Feeling a bit unwell? Call in sick. Just because you're working from home doesn't mean you aren't entitled to take your days.

Perhaps your principal is asking you to take on another responsibility when you're already running clubs in addition to teaching your class. If this new project will be too much for you to handle, respectfully say no and maybe recommend another teacher. Knowing your limits can help prevent burnout.

Create a Weekly Agenda

Every Sunday I head over to my Notion app workspace and plan out my weekly agenda for the upcoming week. I include all tasks I'll need to get done for that week like doing laundry, creating lessons plans, cleaning the apartment and even reaching out to friends. Developing the routine of planning your weekly tasks and breaking it down into smaller daily tasks helps to create balance.

Be realistic with your planning. In the past, I've been a culprit of adding too many things to my to-do lists. I'd review at the end of the day, see all the things I didn't accomplish and feel extremely overwhelmed immediately afterwards. Don't be like the old me.

Organize your daily tasks in order of priority. On Notion, you have the option of adding colour coding or adding tags (high, medium, or low priority) to different tasks. This helps you to have more structure when tackling tasks.

Time Management

This goes hand-in-hand with creating weekly agendas. Ask yourself this, am I making time for myself and my basic needs? Your basic needs like getting enough sleep, eating healthy meals, and exercising are often neglected when balancing work and personal life as an educator that teaches online.

Ignoring these basic necessities can have a serious impact on your physical and psychological health and well-being. Therefore you should work on cultivating strategies that help you use your time more efficiently. A suggestion is to specifically block out time slots in your day to focus on taking care of yourself and catering to those basic needs.

So, if you're someone that has been struggling with creating a healthy work-life balance, I'm hopeful that, after having read this blog post, you're a bit more equipped to get started on achieving your goal of complete balance.

We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own todo lists.- Michelle Obama