The Overwhelm Buster: 3 Steps to Beat Back-to-School Stress [Episode 274]

Heidi 0:00
This is episode 274 of Teacher Approved.

Heidi 0:06
You’re listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I’m Heidi.

Emily 0:13
And I’m Emily. We’re the creators behind Second Story Window, where we give research-based and teacher-approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and more effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from each episode at secondstorywindow.net.

Heidi 0:28
We’re so glad you’re tuning in today. Let’s get to the show.

Emily 0:36
Hey there! Thanks for joining us today. Today we are talking about back to school stress and how to handle it in a way that doesn’t wreck your body or your budget. Plus, we’ve got a teacher-approved tip for prepping now for inside recess.

Heidi 0:51
But first, let’s start with a try it tomorrow, where we share a quick win that you can try right away. Emily, what do you have for us this week?

Emily 0:58
This week, how about pre-writing one email you know that you’re going to send several times. So pick a message that you type over and over, like your student is missing work, or here’s a great thing your student did today, emails that you know you’re going to send, and then save that as a template or a draft.

Heidi 1:16
You will be so happy to start off the year with some of these already handled for you. But as you go through the year, keep a running list of the types of emails you send often, and then you can add those to your template library for the future.

Emily 1:29
Yeah, that’s going to save you so much time and hassle going forward. If you like this idea or anything else we share here on the podcast, we would love it if you took a second to give us a rating and a kind review on your podcast player.

Heidi 1:41
Now hopefully, as you are listening, you still have lots of long summer days ahead of you. But according to the calendar, some of you are heading back in the next few days.

Emily 1:53
Oh, it’s so crazy! That feels way too early to be thinking about school. But somehow here we are, and no matter where your first day falls in the next six weeks, you probably feel that ticking clock.

Heidi 2:05
And for a lot of teachers, that ticking clock turns into a very specific kind of panic. You feel the deadline coming, and your stomach turns, and you can’t sleep at night. So you throw yourself into work because doing something feels like the only way to make the dread go away.

Emily 2:21
And honestly, action can be an effective antidote to anxiety. But this version is what we call panic prepping, which means all that effort might be getting you ready for the first day.

Heidi 2:32
Or it might not be, because undirected action, which is what happens when you’re just doing stuff to feel productive, can burn through your time and your energy and still leave you feeling behind.

Emily 2:45
Oh, and we happen to know this situation very well, don’t we, Heidi?

Heidi 2:51
Yeah. Well, I know I’ve told this story before, but settle in because we’re doing it again. So I got hired for my first year teaching internship a month before school started. At the time, I was still taking college classes, working as a part-time custodian in the middle of a breakup, and living with crazy roommates. One of whom, Jade, used to sneak her homeless boyfriend into our apartment when I was asleep. The school that hired me was 20 minutes away. I had no car, no money, and no time to prepare, so I was already stressed to the max. But let’s add to it.

Emily 3:27
But let’s also point out that since you and I both did an internship, an internship where we were in our district was you had your own class, you were a first year teacher all by yourself, but you got paid half a salary.

Heidi 3:39
Yes, I made $813 a month.

Emily 3:42
Oh my gosh, that’s crazy!

Heidi 3:44
So on top of all that, school was starting on a Wednesday, and the Friday night before, I finished up my last final exam, and I flew to San Diego to be a bridesmaid because I had agreed to do that before getting hired. I ended up having to share a room with seven complete strangers. That meant sleeping on the floor in my jeans because, in all the chaos, I forgot to pack pajamas. So it was either that or my bridesmaid’s dress. And by that point, I was just kind of clenching my jaw, like it was the only thing holding my life together. And then Sunday night, I opened my mouth and my whole jaw slid out of place. I still don’t understand how it happened. So the hotel gave us directions to the ER, but then the doctors couldn’t reset it because the muscles were so locked. It was not a good night. The only upside was that the people I was with felt bad for me, so I got to share a bed with someone that night instead of sleeping on the floor.

Heidi 4:42
I wish I could say that was my only back to school stress injury, but one year I triggered an ulcer attack the weekend before school started. I could barely get out of bed, and my room was not set up at all. And then another year, I broke out in a very visible rash. The doctor at Urgent Care showed me it was just stress, not contagious, so, I guess that’s something.

Emily 5:03
Yeah, honestly, stress is a lot more than a feeling. It showed up in your body, and then it showed up on medical bills, like you.

Heidi 5:13
And then, not to mention all of the back to school seasons where I was physically fine, thankfully, but mentally a wreck. Emily, you know, we did those together, working until well after midnight just to get one more thing crossed off my list. So when we are talking about managing back to school stress in healthy ways, we’re not talking about it because it sounds nice. We learned the hard way that the cost of not managing it is very real.

Emily 5:38
Yeah, we’re the cautionary tales here, and I wish we could say that we had the perfect solution to eliminate all of your back to school stress. If I had a magic wand, that’s what I would do. But I don’t think a real solution exists for no stress at all. But if we can’t eliminate it, our goal is to at least keep it from hijacking your whole life.

Heidi 5:59
So today we have got some techniques to help you manage an anxiety-filled minute, and then once you’re back in control of your nervous system, we’ve got a protocol to help you cut through all of the competing noise and figure out which next steps are essential.

Emily 6:12
The first thing to do when you find that the stress is rising, you know what I’m going to say here: it’s time to breathe.

Heidi 6:20
It’s such common advice that it seems cliche, but this really is the key step. Taking control of your breathing signals to your nervous system that you are safe. It automatically decreases the tension.

Emily 6:32
So when you notice that your shoulders are up to your ears and your jaws tight, Heidi looking at you, take a few slow breaths where the exhale is longer than the inhale. I find that it takes me a few tries before I can manage slowing my exhale, but it does work.

Heidi 6:49
That’s also the trick I use at night if I’m struggling to sleep. What I like about this is that it’s really something you can do anywhere. If you’re laying in bed, or if you’re labeling supplies and you feel the tightness creeping up, you just adjust your breathing, and you can keep going a little calmer than you were.

Emily 7:07
Besides breathing, another tool is naming what you’re feeling. You can just say, “I’m feeling anxious, or “I’m feeling sad that summer’s ending.”

Heidi 7:15
There’s something about naming a big feeling that takes a little of the power out of it. When it’s just like a swirl of dread, it runs the show. But when you can say, “Oh, I’m feeling nervous about a new grade level,” suddenly it’s something you can get your mind around instead of something that’s happening to you.

Emily 7:32
And using the words “I feel” instead of “I am” also helps tame it because feelings are temporary. If you say “I am dreading this” instead of “I feel dread about this,” your mind locks onto the permanence of that statement. Reminding yourself it’s a feeling, and feelings are temporary, keeps things manageable.

Heidi 7:51
Plus, naming what you’re feeling often points you straight to the solution. “I’m feeling dread about this,” might really be, “I don’t have my class list yet, and the not knowing is eating at me.” Now you got somewhere to go with all that energy.

Emily 8:02
Right. Breathing and naming are great techniques for helping you settle down, but unfortunately, they don’t get your desk set up. So once you’ve gotten control of your emotions, it’s time to get control of the situation.

Heidi 8:14
And that is where our overwhelm buster comes in. It’s three easy steps that move you from spinning to making progress. So let’s look at step one: get clear about your current headspace.

Emily 8:28
And this feels backwards to a lot of us because when you’re overwhelmed, the last thing you want to do is slow down and check in. We want to attack the list, but you can’t prioritize anything from inside a tornado. So you need to calm the storm first.

Heidi 8:41
To help you with this, we have got a set of reflection questions. If you can, try writing down your responses, because writing is a great anti-anxiety move. But even if you’re just thinking about the answers, you’re still moving toward clarity. So let’s start with your body. What are you physically feeling right now? Where do you feel that tension sitting?

Emily 9:02
And then consider what might be contributing to that feeling? Are your physical needs cranking up your emotions? Do you need to eat or sleep or move? Maybe what feels like a crisis at 4pm is just low blood sugar and a body that’s been sitting too long.

Heidi 9:17
I feel called out. It’s humbling how often “I can’t handle any of this” is actually “I skipped lunch,” so check the basics first. And then move to identifying how you want to feel and what you need to do in order to feel that way. If you want to feel relaxed, what would help you relax?

Emily 9:37
And then zoom all the way out. Is the pressure coming from outside of me, or am I the one putting it there? Am I holding myself to unrealistic expectations? This is one I struggle with because it’s easy to think that having high standards is a way to maintain control of a situation where you don’t get a lot of say, but all that does is add to your stress.

Heidi 9:58
The point of this first step in the Overwhelm Buster is that when you finish it, you can answer the question underneath all of the panic: What is most important right now? And that brings us to step two. Now it’s time to make your to-do list.

Emily 10:13
This is where a lot of time management advice starts and stops. Just write down what you need to do. But a raw list of everything can make you feel so much worse because now you’re responsible for moving a whole mountain. Look at all those things you got to do.

Heidi 10:26
And yet getting all of the tasks out of your head is still the right first move. When all of those tasks are just swirling around up there, your brain keeps pinging you about them like alerts. Did I forget something at the store? What about that email? I need to remember the laminating.

Emily 10:41
And it turns out your brain is terrible at list management, so it won’t let go of an open task, and it keeps looping in your brain. The moment you write it down, you’re telling your brain, “Hey, you don’t have to remember this. I wrote it down.”

Heidi 10:55
Then, with everything laid out on paper or in an app, if you’re a digital planner, the next step is identifying what’s essential from what’s nice to have and what can be dropped completely.

Emily 11:05
There just isn’t enough time to get it all done, so you need a filter for figuring out what matters most. In episode 270 we gave you a whole system for prioritizing your tasks around students’ needs. So go back and check that out if you want the full details. But if you want a shortcut, think about your readiness anchor.

Heidi 11:22
We have talked about readiness anchors before, but here’s a quick version. Picture yourself walking up to your classroom door on that first morning back.

Emily 11:31
And maybe you’ve been into the school a dozen times over the summer. That would be me, or maybe it’s your first time back. You put your key in the door and you step inside. How do you want to feel in that moment? Maybe you want to feel prepared or calm or excited. Whatever that feeling is, that’s your readiness anchor.

Heidi 11:50
The nice thing about a readiness anchor is that it acts like a filter. If you want to feel prepared, which tasks will build that feeling? If you want to walk in excited, what do you need to plan so that you feel excited?

Emily 12:03
So look at your list and flag the tasks that move you closer to that first morning feeling. Those are your priorities, and everything else is real, but it’s secondary.

Heidi 12:13
Now, ideally, in a perfect world, all of your back to school prep would be helping you create that feeling. But as you know, some tasks are just inevitable. You’ve got to arrange the desks. You’ve got to send the welcome newsletter. You just you can’t get away from that.

Emily 12:29
But since you can’t get out of those responsibilities, your best strategy is to find some way to get into them. Team up with a friend. Get yourself a little treat. Do whatever it takes to make the tedious feel at least a little bit enjoyable.

Heidi 12:42
So by now you know exactly what needs to get done, and you know which tasks need your attention first. This is such a huge help in managing back to school overwhelm, but it’s not quite enough to get you ready on your own. The thing is, you actually have to do those tasks.

Emily 12:57
That’s always such a bummer. I love making the list, but doing the stuff on the list is a whole different beast.

Heidi 13:04
Yeah, that’s definitely my downfall. But one way to make sure you get things done is to add where and when to each task. So it’s not just send the welcome email sitting on your list forever. It’s, send welcome email Thursday afternoon during nap time.

Emily 13:19
This is a strategy called implementation intentions. The idea is that instead of just holding a task in your head, you make a plan for when to do the work. Next time I sit down to watch Love Island, I’ll fill out the student birthday bags.

Heidi 13:32
The research on this shows that deciding the when and the where ahead of time makes you way more likely to actually follow through. Your brain doesn’t have to relitigate it every time because you’ve already decided.

Emily 13:45
So, organize my classroom library, stays vague forever. But Thursday morning at 10, right after swim lessons, I’m doing the library. That is the difference between a wish and a plan.

Heidi 13:56
Now don’t feel like you have to come up with the where and the when for your whole task list at once, it would probably make you crazy. But take a look at your top three to five essential tasks and add when and where you plan to work on each of those. And then, as you check things off your list, you can add more implementation intentions to the rest of your tasks.

Emily 14:16
Okay, step three: you’ve gotten clear, you’ve made your prioritized list, you’ve scheduled the big rocks. Step three is planning your next steps, and this is where you make the whole thing lighter.

Heidi 14:27
So, in this step, start by asking, “What’s my biggest obstacle right now? and then consider what’s available to help you lighten the load, or even better, what can you drop from your list completely?

Emily 14:39
This is why clarifying your priorities in step two is so valuable. Creating custom vinyl for your book bins is a fun idea, and it would probably look super cute. But when you’re in a time crunch, adhesive labels do the same thing in a fraction of the time.

Heidi 14:52
Now, if custom vinyl is not your particular roadblock, figure out what it is so you can navigate around it. In a stressful season, you will have to settle for good enough sometimes. That’s unavoidable.

Emily 15:04
And when you reach that point, it’s better if you decide for yourself what falls into the good enough category. That way, you make sure you’re skipping the low priority tasks like book bin labels rather than essential things like setting up for meet the teacher.

Heidi 15:17
That’s a trap I fell into so often, like every every dang year, I would get so caught up in the big idea of what I wanted to get done that I frequently pushed important things like first day plans to the bottom of my list. Honestly, for the first few years of teaching, I did not even start on my first day plans until the evening before school started, which, now that I think about it, maybe why I was so stressed all the time.

Emily 15:44
It’s funny how that works. So you just got to be smarter than we were and give your priority tasks your priority energy. You can also come back to book bin labels in a few weeks if they still matter, but at least you can be sure your essentials are all in place first.

Heidi 16:03
Another way to lighten the load is to break big tasks into smaller pieces, so it stops feeling like a wall. This idea comes from the classic productivity book, Getting Things Done by David Allen. He says that we run into trouble when we add a whole project to our to-do list because our brain tries to take all of that in at once.

Emily 16:21
Yeah, if you see set up classroom on your list, that’s definitely going to spike your blood pressure every time you see it. So instead, break it down into tiny steps.

Heidi 16:30
Maybe the first step is finding out when you’re allowed back into your room, and then finding out when family or friends are available to help you move furniture. Next, maybe you want to sketch out a new room layout and measure bulletin boards. Those are the kinds of tasks that should be on your to-do list, not the big projects.

Emily 16:48
And the bonus of approaching your task this way is that you get the satisfaction of crossing lots of little tiny things off your list more often, and that’s just a mood boost.

Heidi 16:57
So go through your list, break down big projects into their subtasks. Figure out what can be skipped, postponed, or delegated. Look for shortcuts like buying something you plan to make yourself. Try to get this list as lean as possible.

Emily 17:12
And then for your remaining tasks, what can you batch? This works well with your implementation intentions. If you’ve got five things that all involve the workroom, do them in one trip. If you’ve got a bunch of little computer tasks, knock them out in one sitting instead of scattered across the week.

Heidi 17:27
There’s good research about why batching helps. A researcher named Sophie Leroy studied what happens when we jump between different kinds of tasks, and she identified what she calls attention residue. When you switch from one task to a totally different one, a piece of your attention stays stuck on the first thing, so you’re not fully into the new task yet.

Emily 17:49
And then every time you bounce from emailing a parent to cutting the lamination to answering a text to setting up desks, you’re paying a little tax on each switch. Part of your brain is still back on the last thing.

Heidi 18:01
And that’s why a fragmented afternoon leaves you so wiped out, even when you can’t point to having accomplished very much. It wasn’t just the work; it was all the switching. So when you batch the similar tasks together, you’re not just saving steps, you’re letting your brain stay in one mode for a stretch, and that is way less draining.

Emily 18:21
So now you’ve trimmed down your to-do list to just the essentials. But before you jump in, let’s build some positive momentum. Take a look at what’s left on your list and find something small that you could do right now.

Heidi 18:32
This does not have to be a high priority task. The goal is just to get a little win right out of the gate, even if it’s small, to help motivate you to get more things done. Like we said at the beginning, action is a really great antidote to anxiety. But now you can be certain that the actions you’re taking are moving you closer to your goals.

Emily 18:51
But we do have one last question to consider before you finish planning. Take a minute to ask yourself, what’s the most loving thing I can do for myself and the people around me right now?

Heidi 19:01
Sometimes the answer to that is finish making welcome slides so tomorrow’s easier, or the answer might be close the laptop and go to bed. Either option may be helpful as long as it’s the right option for you and not something that you’re defaulting to.

Emily 19:15
Okay, so let’s pull all of this together. When that back to school panic starts rising, don’t just throw yourself at the nearest task. First, get clear. Check your body and your expectation. Think about what’s in your control and what actually matters.

Heidi 19:30
And then make your to-do list and sort it against your readiness anchor. Flag the tasks that move you toward how you want to feel, and decide when and where you will do each one.

Emily 19:42
And then plan your next steps. Let go of what you can. Batch, find a quick win, and ask what the kindest next move is. The goal is not to finish everything on your list. The goal is to walk through the door on the first day feeling the way you want to feel without any ER trips in the process.

Heidi 19:59
Too soon, Emily.

Emily 20:01
I think you’ve had like 25 years to recover from that, so I think you’re okay.

Heidi 20:05
Well, now I’m hurt that it’s been 25 years.

Emily 20:10
Sorry, the truth hurts. If getting ready for the school year in a calmer, more intentional way is exactly what you’re craving, that’s the whole heart behind our new book, Structure and Spark, comes out very soon, and it’s all about working with the natural rhythms of the school year instead of against them.

Heidi 20:27
You can pre-order it right now, and pre-orders tell bookstores that our book is worth recommending to other readers. So, if you’ve been thinking about it, grabbing it early makes a real difference to us. So, head to the show notes for the link.

Emily 20:40
And if you pre-order, we have some really fun bonuses coming your way. So go and fill out the form on secondstorywindow.net/book, and we will make sure you get your special pre-order bonuses when the book comes out.

Emily 20:55
Okay, now for our teacher-approved tip of the week, where we share an actionable tip to help you elevate what matters and simplify the rest. This week’s teacher-approved tip is plan now to make inside recess easier. Let’s hear it, Heidi.

Heidi 21:09
Well, this is one small addition to a list you’re already making. So when you’re putting together your supply list for parents, add a coloring book or an activity book to that list. That way, on those rainy gray, nobody’s going out to recess days, you will have something ready to go that isn’t more screen time.

Emily 21:26
And two things to think through so that it doesn’t become a headache. First, you need a way to label whose book is whose because if one kid picks out a Spider Man coloring book, he’s gonna expect to get that Spider Man book when it’s time to color.

Heidi 21:38
Now, of course, kids can always swap books if they choose, but you can prevent future arguments by labeling things as soon as they come in. And also consider where you’re going to store these between rainy days, so they’re not in the way, but they are handy to access when the clouds roll in.

Emily 21:52
And if you teach older kids who might be too cool for coloring books, you can adapt this by asking students to bring in any activity book. So parents might appreciate it if you provide a few examples of the type of thing you’re looking for, and you can check out what’s available at a local dollar store to provide some affordable options.

Heidi 22:10
All right, to wrap up the show, we’re sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily 22:16
Well, I’m giving extra credit to our new game of the summer, which is Piles. So this is a card game where there are sets of laundry on the cards. So you want four cards that are the exact same piece of laundry, like a certain, like an ankle sock, and they’re all different colors, but they’re the exact same item. And so then while you’re playing, you all start out with a certain number of piles of cards in front of you that are turned face down, and then there’s a few cards in the middle. And the thing I love about this game is that it checks all of my boxes of being super fast to play, and you don’t have to wait for your turn. So everybody’s playing at once. Love that so much.

Emily 22:57
So the way it works is you turn over one of your piles of cards, which has four cards in it, and you look at the cards that are available in the middle, and you start trying to make your matches. And so then you can turn that back over and pick up another pile. You can only have one of your piles in your hand at a time, but it goes faster than you would think. You start going through, seeing what you have, you trade things into the middle, and then trade it back to yourself when you get going. And the more people that are playing, the more chaotic it gets because we’re all scrambling for the stuff in the middle at the same time.

Emily 23:25
But it is so much fun and so easy to play, and everybody loves it. My teen took it to a party tonight. I mean, a going away party, not like a party party, but, so you know it’s a hit if all if all the ages love it so much. And I think one great thing about it, if you’ve got kids that are on the younger side, there’s no reading involved, and I think it would be really easy for even a young kid to pick up, a preschooler could probably play this game easily.

Heidi 23:53
Yeah, it really is fun to play. I got drafted for a couple rounds, and Emily’s 10-year-old blocked me because she figured out what I was trying to collect, and then purposely held on to that card until the very end.

Emily 24:04
I know she’s ruthless.

Heidi 24:06
It’s easy to pick up the strategy.

Emily 24:09
And I don’t let kids win in my house. Like, if they win on their own, fine. But I’m not going easy on them. They have to win it honestly.

Emily 24:18
Okay, what are you giving extra credit to Heidi?

Heidi 24:20
Well, my extra credit goes to the nonfiction book Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery. This was such a fascinating story, and I had never heard about this. And I’m going to guess probably most of our listeners haven’t either. So, in 1955, 67 year old Emma Gatewood told her family that she was going on a walk, but she neglected to say that she was getting on a plane to fly to Georgia, so she could start hiking the Appalachian Trail. She didn’t even have a sleeping bag. It’s the crazy thing. She just had like this tiny, she had a tarp and some changes of clothes and some money and some like canned food.

Emily 24:54
Oh my gosh!

Heidi 24:55
And along the way, people started noticing this grandma walking along this trail. And so she ended up gaining national interest everywhere she would stop. There would be reporters who wanted to talk to her, and it created this whole mystique around the Appalachian Trail. I think that at that point, not very many people in the country had heard of it, and she loved it so much. She returned several more times. She was the first person to hike the full trail two times, and then beat her on record and hiked it a third in her 70s.

Emily 25:24
Gosh, that’s crazy!

Heidi 25:25
It’s wild. So it was very interesting to me, and it made me feel that perhaps I’m not living up to my potential. So things to think about.

Emily 25:35
Or maybe you’re not totally unhinged, like this woman sounds like she, a little bit she might have been.

Heidi 25:40
I do not have any any part of my soul that thinks, “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

Emily 25:46
Oh my gosh, if if I went in the wilderness with just like a tarp, I would be dead in two days. I would not last.

Heidi 25:54
Especially in the 50s. It’s not like she could call for help.

Emily 25:57
No way.

Heidi 25:58
Yeah, bless her. It was quite the story.

Emily 26:00
But it sounds super interesting. I’m gonna have to check that.

Heidi 26:03
It was, and the book went really quick because you’re just like, oh wow, crazy, wild.

Emily 26:08
Love it.

Heidi 26:10
Well, that is it for today’s episode. When the back to school stress hits, remember to breathe, and then use the three steps to clarify your goals and how to reach them.

Heidi 26:20
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I’m Heidi.

Emily 26:24
And I’m Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an episode.

Heidi 26:31
You can connect with us and other teachers in the Teacher Approved Facebook group. We’ll see you here next week. Bye for now.

Emily 26:37
Bye.