This series of articles provides tips and ideas that teachers and leaders can reflect on to improve their own work/life balance or to help support another member of their team who is struggling to keep their head above water.
In the first article, I discussed some of the key challenges staff face when striving for a sustainable work/life balance and encouraged you to reflect on your own situations. Now I’d like to offer some further practical strategies for dealing with overwhelm and managing your time more effectively.
Dealing with overwhelm
You can probably already spot the signs of overwhelm: thoughts and feelings can vary, from “I don’t have enough hours in the day” and “I simply can’t cope or deal with this”, to that paralysing feeling of not knowing where or how to get started, or conversely feeling the frustration of not being able to focus on the task in hand as you have 100 other things that are equally pressing.
When staff are in the thick of it and cannot see the wood for the trees, one of the most effective and simplest strategies is a “brain-dump”.
First, take a breath, get a cup of tea, and give yourself time to list everything that is on your mind: every challenge you are facing, every item on your to-do list.
You can do this in a conversation with a trusted friend or colleague, but I find writing everything down makes the situation feel more tangible and easier to deal with.
If you are supporting somebody else during this exercise, keep asking them “what else?” until they have completely exhausted every little detail that is bothering them. They will probably feel like a deflated balloon once they have finished, but you now have a starting point to gain some perspective and tackle some of the challenges.
Creating a sustainable work/life balance: A four-part SecEd series
- Part 1: Breaking bad habits: Published November 11, 2025.
- Part 2: Overwhelm and time-management. This article
- Part 3: How to set your workload priorities: Due November 25
- Part 4: Delegating effectively and confidently: Due December 2
Reflecting on the list
When you consider the list you have compiled, ask yourself (or your colleague if you are supporting them):
- Which issues are the most or least important?
- Does anything on the list surprise you?
- Which item will be the hardest to tackle?
- Which item will take the most time?
- Which item is causing you the most stress (and why)?
- Who else is impacted by these issues/tasks?
- Are there any quick fixes?
- Have you missed anything?
In my first article, I advised how you can think more helpfully about the challenges you face by reflecting on which elements you have control over, which you can influence, and which you can do nothing about – this might also be a useful exercise to complete at this stage.
For simplicity, I will focus here more generically on dealing with the “to-do” aspect of your list. As such we will look at when you can realistically deal with those tasks, reduce the overwhelm, and find a much more sustainable model of working, including planning our time.
But before we consider the contents of your to-do list, let’s regain control of your working week…
The weekly planner
One strategy many staff find useful is to design a detailed printable weekly planner grid on an A4 page. This could focus on the working week, or you may choose to include evenings and weekends if you want this flexibility. Chunk the day into identifiable hour slots or map the timings to fit with your school day.
- Make it sustainable: Block-out any work-free times that are non-negotiables, such as family or childcare commitments, prioritising rest, sleep, life admin, hobbies, health, fitness, and/or social commitments.
- Map-out your timetable: Add in your teaching timetable. Map-out all your lessons and PPA. Add in any other regular responsibilities you have, such as form time, duties, briefings, faculty and pastoral meetings, mentoring, coaching, or any lunch or after-school clubs you run.
- Take a break: Don’t forget to blank out your own daily break and lunch times. I am a strong advocate of self-care and lunch breaks should be reserved for lunch and connecting with colleagues. You will be more productive if you look after yourself.
- Add in any leadership duties: If you have a leadership role, add in any other responsibilities you may have such as regular learning walks, lesson observations and feedback, quality assurance tasks, on-call duties, line management, or senior leadership team meetings for example.
- Consider any other work: Consider all the daily and weekly jobs that you need to get done – e.g. checking emails, setting/marking homework, reading weekly notices, submitting any planning sheets for practical subjects, etc. Where in your working day can you allocate a chunk of time to get each of these regular tasks done? Some staff like to get in school early while it is quiet to get stuff done, others chunk one or two blocks of time after school.
- Plan for the unexpected: Whenever I have done this exercise with a member of staff in a coaching session, they always respond: “But something always comes up that you’re not expecting.” The way to approach this is to reflect on how much time these “known-unknown” tasks usually take you and account for it. I know many leaders will allocate 30 minutes a day for “responsive leadership”. This helps to prevent you being caught off guard and left feeling resentful.
Prioritise the to-do list
The weekly planner should give you a realistic overview of the remaining time you have available. Now let’s return to the “to-do” list. Cross-out any jobs that have now been accounted for on your weekly planner.
To help with managing your time and prevent you ruminating over when you will get the chance to complete each task, write each job that remains on one of your blank slots on your timetable.
Remember, leave yourself some “responsive” time each day and if something comes up then simply move the task to this slot.
If you can’t fit all your tasks on to your weekly schedule, then now is the time for a review – which jobs are an absolute priority, and which can wait? Do what needs to be done then “trim the fat”.
If you are struggling, ask yourself what the impact of non-completion would be and decide from there.
Get support
Is your workload dictated by your desire to be perfect (something unachievable) or does it stem from unrealistic school expectations?
Speak to your line manager if your workload seems genuinely unachievable or if you are struggling to prioritise. Your detailed timetable and priority list are a great visual way for them to appreciate your situation and trouble-shoot with you.
It is worth remembering that leadership teams can only be responsive to workload concerns if you share your issues and concerns with them. What lines of communication do you have – line management, faculty meetings, wellbeing drop-ins, coaching, mentoring?
The 80:20 rule
Be realistic – this mapping exercise is to help you get into some good habits and think more purposefully about how you are working.
Anyone in teaching knows that there are natural ebbs and flows in the year. I suggest applying the 80:20 rule: if you can maintain your desired working hours the majority (80%) of the time, it then becomes easier to accept when you do need to stay late for the occasional parents’ evening or when mock exams need marking.
What’s the bigger picture?
What is all this work for? People with a strong sense of purpose or clear career aspirations tend to have a better sense of why they are doing what they are doing at work – and tend to enjoy work more too.
So reflect on what got you into teaching in the first place. What still drives you in teaching? What positive difference do you want to make? If you were loving what you did every day at work, what would you be doing, who are you working with and where? If you imagine yourself at the end of your career, what would you like your legacy to be?
Having thought about this, if you want to make changes to your working practice, it may help to consider the following:
- What specifically do you want to change?
- Ideally, what would your working day/week look like?
- What about your wider commitments? Your family, friends and passions – the date night, socialising, going to the gym, etc.
- Would this new work/life balance be sustainable for you in the long term?
- How do you want to feel? How would you feel living this life?
Next time
The third article in this series, due to publish next week (return here for the link), will offer practical tips on prioritisation – ideas to help you reflect on and rank your own life priorities to contextualise your decision-making.
We will consider a way of organising work priorities by importance and urgency and a strategy to rank priorities according to their potential impact, confidence that they will work, and ease of implementation.
- Helen Webb is an accredited executive coach based in Leicester. She supports and develops school leaders so they can avoid burn-out, drive school improvement and get the best out of their team and themselves. Helen has more than 20 years’ experience in education as a science teacher, lead practitioner, PGCE and ECT mentor, ECF Lead and ECT induction tutor. She is a regular contributor to SecEd – find her previous articles via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/helen-webb. You can follow her @helenfwebb or find out more about her coaching services at
