We’ve learned the hard way that panic-prepping for back-to-school season isn’t the answer. It can leave teachers feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and still unprepared. In today’s episode, we introduce our simple three-step Overwhelm Buster to help you take back control! Join us as we talk through practical ways to calm your nervous system, prioritize the tasks that matter most, and create a realistic plan so you can start the school year feeling calmer, more confident, and ready for your students.

Prefer to read? Grab the episode transcript and resources in the show notes here: https://www.secondstorywindow.net/podcast/back-to-school-teacher-stress-2/

Resources:

• Grandma Gatewood’s Walk by Ben Montgomery
• Piles card game
• Preorder our book: Structure and Spark
• Join The Teacher Approved Club
• Connect with us on Instagram @2ndstorywindow
• Shop our teacher-approved resources
• Join our Teacher Approved Facebook group
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!
• Leave a comment or rating on Spotify

Related Episodes to Enjoy:

• Episode 143. The Easiest Back to School Tip
• Episode 270. The Smart Way to Tackle Your Back to School To-Do List
• Episode 194. Want a Smoother Back to School? Do These 5 Things Now
• Episode 154. 5 Steps for Classroom Procedure Success
• Episode 201. 20 Easy Back-To-School Teacher Tasks You Can Totally Do from the Couch

Mentioned in this episode:

Join the Teacher Approved Club, where members get seasonal morning work pages for grades K–5 this month to add fall and holiday fun without throwing off their routines: https://secondstorywindow.net/club

This is episode 274 of Teacher Approved.

You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping

educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm

Heidi.

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.

We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to

the show.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Oh, and we happen to know this situation very well, don't

we, Heidi?

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.

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.

Yes, I made $813 a month.

Oh my gosh, that's crazy!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

That's always such a bummer. I love making the list,

but doing the stuff on the list is a whole different beast.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Too soon, Emily.

I think you've had like 25 years to recover from that,

so I think you're okay.

Well, now I'm hurt that it's been 25 years.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

I know she's ruthless.

It's easy to pick up the strategy.

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.

Okay, what are you giving extra credit to Heidi?

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.

Oh my gosh!

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.

Gosh, that's crazy!

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.

Or maybe you're not totally unhinged, like this

woman sounds like she, a little bit she might have been.

I do not have any any part of my soul that thinks,

"Yeah, that's a good idea."

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.

Especially in the 50s. It's not like she could call for

help.

No way.

Yeah, bless her. It was quite the story.

But it sounds super interesting. I'm gonna have to

check that.

It was, and the book went really quick because you're just

like, oh wow, crazy, wild.

Love it.

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.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm Heidi.

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.

You can connect with us and other teachers in the

Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.

Bye for now.

Bye.