Constantly thinking about work

[Silverbirch2]

I'm constantly thinking about work. Needing to check emails, do bits of work each evening, weekend mornings etc and I can't seem to stop. I wake in the night and think of what I need to do. I wake first thing in morning a d think what I have to do! I can't seem to break the cycle but I have a family and feel it's not fair on them. It's also exhausting for me. I'm in a job where I can never complete everything,theres always a list and I just have to prioritise constantly. Anyone else like this? Any advice? I'm driving myself mad. I'm a teacher so can't just finish at 5pm and do mo more.

I was like this before I went on maternity leave. Felt I had to check all emails etc on my workphone AFTER finishing. But partner started to get pissed off with it, he said you aren't getting paid for this so why are you bothering. As soon as its your time to leave, just forget about it. There's only so much you can do and its not worth stressing over, just pick it up on your next working day.

Op do you like the job?

I ask because I've been there and I hated mine.

I have very strong tendencies to be the way you are. A few things that help me -

• having a ‘meeting’ with myself on Friday afternoons to go through my to do list and next week’s diary, do a bit of planning and prioritising etc. That helps me to switch off, knowing there’s a bit of a plan for next week.
• reminding myself that work doesn’t pay me to occupy all this space in my head.
• reminding myself - as it sounds like you’re doing - that my family need me and deserve my time.

Thanks all. I'm a teacher so no set hours, it's expected that I work evenings and nights this is where I find it hard to balance. I think I need to get strict with myself and only work 3 evenings or something.

@EdieLedwell I have times I enjoy it but mostly I just find it stressful and overwhelming. I count down to the next half term/ holiday. But I'm not training to do anything else......

I'm fulltime and have asked for part time. Maybe I need to push that.

I have a similar situation with work but have mostly learnt to manage it.
I’m guessing there are some things (marking, lesson planning) you need to do outside of work hours, unless you have free periods/ time before or after school. Can you allocate a block of time each evening for these and stick to it?
Do not check emails at home. This is a never ending task as the more you reply the more you get. Set 20 minutes twice a day in school hours to do this (either before and after school, or at break) and stick to this routine.
keep a to do list. You can add to it out of work hours, but not do it! So anything that you find yourself thinking about in the middle of the night gets added to the list (keep a pad by your bed) so you don’t need to mentally keep hold of it.
Remember, your to do list will never be completed so you have nothing to gain by pushing yourself to do it and plenty to lose. You’ll do your job better if you get some work life balance.

Read Oliver Burkeman four thousand weeks, It's about coming to terms with the fact that there are always going to be things undone, although it does suggest some more typical productivity techniques, it's more about how you change your mindset.

@Howmanysleepsnow good advice thankyou. Definitely the email bit.
@SierraSapphire I'll have a look

I work within this field (not a teacher though) and I can completely understand how this has happened. The expectation is there to go above and beyond and if you are a very diligent person naturally then I can imagine it’s really easy to be trying to do better or learn more every day. You need to try and give yourself permission to relax.

Writing lists is a great idea. We teach the children to learn in small bites and I think you could also do the same. If you are preoccupied by something give yourself five or ten minutes to look it up and research but don’t spend the whole evening down the rabbit hole doing it.

Also a teacher, but no longer in mainstream. Actually, it took that move to get that work life balance you're looking for. I knew in my head that it was 'just a job' and that I would never be fully on top of everything because there's more coming at you all the time, but my evenings, weekends and often school holidays were taken up with planning, marking, the endless admin while catching up with domestic stuff. I didn't find part-time helped - just more that you miss and have to catch up with to be in the loop.

A cleaner helped on the domestic front, as did going away in the holidays or out out at the weekends. I'm secondary, so Oct-May was always worse that the summer months when I could actually get everything done in the week.

I'm not in education but social work, until recently managing busy child protection team, similar expectations/will never have it all done. I was working insane hours at one point but did a lot of work to regain a bit of balance and perspective. I realised if I want a career not a job I had to address it or I would burn out. It was also affecting my resilience, I would become upset in work at times basically because I was so knackered and was probably actually not doing as well in work. I have a be perfect driver often coupled with a hurry up driver and I actually spent some time with a counsellor working through what was driving this. Yes in part the job but some of it was me. I better understood some of my triggers and what was behind my driver's and learnt some strategies to address them. At one point I challenged myself one week to not do any work after work, it felt really scary but the world didn't tumble in. I became better at working out what had to be done out of hours, where I needed to work late and where it had just become habitual. I became a more comfortable in the space that not everything can happen/be perfect and I would never be on top of everything because that's the nature of the beast. I probably now only do 2-3 nights most weeks which feels much more balanced for me.

You poor thing, this is exactly what is happening to me and I have now developed severe palpitations and have been given beta blockers to manage them I really cannot cope with work anymore and the constant worrying about stuff I need to do stuff I haven’t done et cetera this combined with having to run a household as a single mum.

Are you taking regular leave? Because I haven’t been and I still have loads left also going to try the workplace counselling I think most employers do offer this now, I have been trying to say to myself if it hasn’t been completed then I will pick it up when I next start work and try not to think about it anymore leave the mental Work rucksack in A mental locker box in your mind and put it away until your shift starts again
I manage a team of people three of whom are very difficult to manage not coming into work not recording the work properly et cetera so I know what it feels like to be worried at work

The work which takes the longest to do - do that first and get it out of the way ask- for some time off from your employer to get through stuff that you haven’t completed maybe a couple of days or even a week to get through everything that you need to catch up on and then start afresh
delete emails that have been read or are unnecessary put your out of office assistant on and get through it
Start looking for another job to because this one sounds a stressful as mine

Oh yes..

For me I think it’s a way to manage anxiety (if I’m working all the time, less time to be anxious), and can also be a way of avoiding family life when I’m tired from working too much and it’s more appealing to do some work than deal with screaming kids.

Important to tackle it because workaholism is an addictive behaviour and it does get worse

I would

Do some reading around workaholism and techniques to stop it

If you think anxiety is part of it get some CBT

Make one change at a time, you can’t immediately become a different person.

Things I’ve found helpful..

locking phone and laptop away at end of the day

Setting goals for the year that cover all parts of my life

Reviewing them every month - using a pie chart is very useful because if work’s an 8 and family is a 2 you know you’ve got to do something

Having a set time on a Friday for planning the week ahead, and then a double check time on Sunday or Monday morning (I am tired on a Friday and will sometimes decide things are important that aren’t)

At the end of the day have clean up time - send last emails, adjust your to do list, absorb what you need to do for tomorrow.. and then close the day. It helps you feel more in control.

Have one weekend day where you officially turn off completely - it’s a Saturday for me.

I knew you would be a teacher OP when I read the title. I am the same - working well over my paid hours. I'm hoping that once routines settle down I can create a pattern of getting regular tasks done on specific days. I find that I am much more efficient in the morning so I get in early and then after school it's more of the practical not having to think tasks - but then after that I do switch off.

My job is similar in some ways to @Benjaminsniddlegrass (though not the same).
I find other people around me also work too long hours (especially my boss!) Rather than feel pressure to keep up I’ve started pushing other people to finish on time and stop emailing at 9pm! Helps avoid guilt!

Thanks everyone, it's great to hear others like me and also how to change. My dh and I are both ft and 2 primary aged dc so that's adding to my stress. I have a team of 4 to manage too. I'm expected to check emails on a Sunday night for the coming week so end up working on a Sunday night. I think I'll pick 2 other nights to work qbd then try to have some time free. I work better in morning too but do 2 days of my dc drop off and we have 2 8:15am meetings a week so time is tight those days.

I do recognise its anxiety and I think I'm perimenopause to ads to it all!

I am not a teacher.. lots and lots of people experience this. Small business owners (I’m not that either) often the worst.

I'm a teacher, OP, and I was like you for many years. I ended up sleeping only 2 hours per night during the week in an attempt to keep on top of things, and inevitably eventually broke down.

You know where this is headed. If you don't take care of yourself now you will end up with a huge amount of time off for work-related stress at best, and give yourself health issues at worst.

You need to set boundaries for yourself.

To help switch off in the evenings, set a time after which you will NOT work, but use the last 10mins of your work time to make a to-do list.

Never have your work email on your phone.

Don't answer emails requesting non-urgent information at all. Wait until they ask a second time. 50% of the time, you will not be asked again.

Plan your lessons well. Make sure your paperwork regarding the children is up to date. Everything else is secondary.

Log the time you spend on a task during your PPA and after school. When you get asked why xyz isn't done, present your work hours and ask where it would have fit in - I do this all the time now and 50% of the time I don't get asked anymore, while the other 50%, some time magically appears. Say no to any extras - those are for bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young ones without families or those who are relentlessly trying to climb the greasy pole.

Exercise within the last hour in the evening or the first hour in the morning. It relieves a lot of worry and tension.

Your family need you and if you don't look after them and yourself, there will be issues in the future. They come first. There is one day a fortnight I have family commitments, which come above everything else. I have made is explicitly, and repeatedly, clear that I will not compromise on that. I refuse to do after school shite that day com rain or shine, and I refuse to partake in meetings - email me the minutes instead. But I was very loud about it until my school accepted that no really means no.

Working all hours and thinking about work all the time is not sustainable. I've been there, believe me, and it was a long road back to feeling like a normal human being.

I really feel for you OP, I was the same and made myself very ill and eventually had a breakdown. I don't work in schools anymore, and only work a little part time job, we're now broke but I'm happier. Even now though with my little no stress job I still catch myself checking emails etc and I have to be very firm with myself and remind myself it's just a job!

When in school I used to go in mega early and then left at 4:30, every day- I found I got loads done then while it was quiet but I know you said you do some drop offs.

I'm a lawyer and used to be like this at the start of my career. I was expected to work overnight in the office if a deal was closing (they literally had beds downstairs so we could rest for a bit before carrying on with it!). Constantly checking my work phone, working weekends, taking calls on holidays. My boss closed a massive company acquisition on his honeymoon ffs! I was always worrying I'd missed something. I ended up close to a mental breakdown from the pressure.

I moved jobs. Not out of the legal profession but into a different type of role (in-house rather than for a law firm). Now I finish at 6 at the latest and bar the occasional fleeting thought about a deal I'm working on, that's it. I still have a constant list of tasks that need doing but the culture of my workplace now is such that you aren't expected to do it all NOW.

Are there no options to move jobs? Do all schools have this culture, or would tutoring or supply be an option? I don't know much about teaching but if all schools are the same then I'd get out. What you describe isn't sustainable.

My honest opinion is that it is always this way for teachers. I have friends who are teachers who say the same thing - they can't switch off - and it seems to be part and parcel of the profession. It's why I know that I simply couldn't be a teacher, and I really respect anyone who is.