And here I thought that juggling work and study was hard enough! Teaching can be incredibly draining and by the end of the day, you don’t want to be staring at a computer screen do to University work (well, I certainly didn’t!)
Time management is always a tough thing for me. I want to put my 100% into everything and I’m not willing to do less. Having to juggle teaching, where my students deserve 100%, and my study, where I need to give 100% otherwise, I may not pass the subject/s made it a rough year. Imagine this, an early career teacher having to teach 4 subjects and still maintaining a full-time study load. Essentially having to keep my grips on six subjects. Six. That was rough.
I am now at the end of term 3, I have submitted two assignments late because I chose to put my students first, do I regret it? Nope. Not one bit. My students needed to come first, they needed the stability of knowing that they were number 1 for me (in a professional sense). If I had a free lesson, I would prioritise doing some university study so I didn’t fall too behind. This sort of worked as it gave me a break from consistently doing work but also gave me a greater opportunity to become distracted by everything else.
I also needed to realise that burning myself out, gets me nowhere. It does not help anyone or anything. So developing some coping mechanisms for when it got too much really helped too. I would spend weekends with family and friends. I would prioritise the people in my life over the work I had to do. I would go out for date nights with my partner. These things kept me sane.
So, having rambled on for a while, do I have any pearls of wisdom for someone who wishes to do what I have done (or similar)? Nope, everyone is different. Everyone has different study patterns, motivation levels and the ability to multitask much better than I. When juggling many balls, remember that some are plastic and can be picked up later. Prioritise the glass ones and make sure that you are one of the glass ones. Remember your self-care and your own sanity.