Tips required to chill out and switch off.

[mrsmilesmatheson]

I teach part time and find it really hard to switch off.

I have a good job in a nice school with supportive (but demanding) slt.

The head who was bullying me has left. I should be enjoying work now

However, not being able to switch off and enjoy my days off is destroying my enjoyment of my job, let alone what it is doing to my mental health and family.

Does anyone have any tops for switching off and chilling out on days off?

I have just gone back full time after having one day off a week and hard as it is to be full time, part time is really stressful. I used to berate myself for not doing school work and so having to 'catch up' at school. I used to berate myself if I 'just' did housework as I wasn't working or relaxing and if I tried to relax, I felt guilty for not doing housework or school work.

Aarrrggghhhh!!!

Weirdly now I am full time, I do all the work I need to do either at school (stay late) or at home in the week, in the evenings. That way at weekends I do bugger all school work and I don't feel guilty about it. I short change my children enough in the week, I am not prepared to do it at the weekends as well.

Also mindfulness helps, it focuses me if it's all getting a bit stressful. Which is does, every day. Teaching is also losing it's sheen for me currently so my advice might not be the best!!!

Thanks for the reply.

I think this is the thing, the job is taking over my life however many days a week I am there and it's certainly losing it's sheen .

I get emails on my days off and what every week I promise I won't look at them until Sunday evening, I end up looking at and dealing with them ever day. Somehow the thought if opening them up on a Sunday evening and possibly finding out about lots of problems or extra work is really stressful too.

My job sharer frankly has no problem switching off and is not pulling her weight. This doesn't help as I know it looks bad on me if she hasn't done something.

I am a full timer with no dc so not the same but I have had problems switch off. Here are something I have tried but they not work for your work pattern.

1. only work at school
2. have a limit on the number of hours you will work a week and for each day. If you work more on Monday then you must reduce the amount of work you do after school.
3. only work at school and don't bring anything home with you so can't do any at home.
4. don't access work email at home. Either don't have the details or only have it on PC and use iPad for browsing internet/shopping.
5. Ask yourself will this be important in five years time? School work probably not but your health will be.
6. sit down once a week with your diary and do planning your days off. Not for work but walks, trip to the shops, cinema screen whatever it is you enjoy. 7 ) write a list of hobbies for enjoyable activities you can do when you feel the need to do work. If you are like me you won't remember how to relax and do funny stuff.

I am not always the best at these but any progress it good. Pick one day a week to have a check in with yourself and review your work life balance. It is not difficult and normally review mine in the shower. For it to work I need to be very organised and only focus on the essentials.

Apologies for spag as I have only just woken up.

I'm also in a nerve wracking job share and I totally identify with what you are saying. Haven't found a solution yet though. Strong drink?

I'm the same. Part time, lovely school, great, amazing colleagues. Brilliant job. I really love it.

But it takes up much more of my physical and emotional time than my own little DC get! They're 2 and 5. I just cannot switch off. I never have been able to, and at least it's a happy job I'm always thinking about.

I do stuff for myself (well, only running, but a lot of it), and it helps a bit but not for long!

This has been on my mind recently as I have this year gone part-time in a new school for my return from maternity leave. I’m fortunate that I am in a school where there is a culture of supporting part-time staff, and one part-timer on SLT.

You need to start managing expectations, because no-one else will do it for you. No work email on personal devices like phone or iPad. As suggested by a previous poster, PC only and make it a little bit more of an effort to log in - don’t have your password saved, for example, so you can’t do it mindlessly. Make sure that your line manager knows that if they need to contact you urgently on your day off they’ll have to text or phone you because as far as they're concerned, you are not available via email - we’re talking once in a blue moon events like notice of an Ofsted, emergency closure of school due to gas leak, etc. Make plans with your DC on your days off so that you are out and about and not tempted to check email during a quiet moment at home while they nap!

You need to train the people emailing you that you are part time. If you absolutely have to reply, send a polite line: ‘Thanks for this, Bob. I’ll look into it when I’m back in on Thursday.’

If it’s more stressful to ignore the emails, then allocate a specific time to deal with them, do the necessary work, compose the email response, and DO NOT PRESS SEND. Save it in your drafts and spend sixty seconds in the morning when you’re back in pressing send on the emails that you’ve stacked up. It will take a while but gradually you will train your colleagues to think twice before emailing you on your days off and they will learn that you need reasonable notice for tasks.

If your job share isn’t pulling her weight then you need to start compiling a log. After any conversation where you agree on divisions of tasks etc, send a quick email to follow up: ‘Thanks for your time, Jane. As discussed, I’ll do abc and you’ll do xyz.’ You need a paper trail of your agreed division of work, but if this doesn’t help then start to copy in your line manager.

Finally, I find that it’s harder to switch off if I’m trying to hold a lot of things in my head. Get yourself a notepad or a task-management app and do a 'brain dump' periodically (before bed, when inspiration strikes in the supermarket) so that you don't fret about forgetting anything.

Good luck

You've had some really good advice already, but I'll add my thoughts too...

When I worked 0.6, 3 full days, I had to be really strict, as I ended up feeling like I was working all the time. I did mon tues weds. My dc were at school, so Thursday and Friday were child-free (and I'm not sure if that's the case for you).

I marked like a fiend on my working days, lunchtime and after school so that my share was done by the end of weds. Thursday I set aside for working from home, and I did need to work all day, but anything that wasn't done then had to wait. I prioritised my own planning and resourcing for the following week first, then SEN stuff, data etc and finally subject co-ordinating bits.

I put aside an hour on Sunday to go through plans, print bits, get my head in gear etc, but other than that I did no work on Fri Sat and Sun. I occasionally had run-ins with SLT as something came up at the end of the week that they wanted for Monday, that I hadn't done, but you have to get good at standing up for yourself and explaining that the deadline was no good for you as it came through on days you don't work. It's really hard. I do feel for you. HTH

These are some really good tips thank you. I need to be better organised at organising my time I think! I like the idea of setting aside specific times to work and the idea about not sending replies to emails until Monday is good too.

Slt are aware of job sharers lack of teamwork and we do have things in place. Head is really good and supportive so I do think it's up to me to make it work better for me.

Have had a nice day with my class and watching tv with dh now I day down, 2 to go.