Too Many Projects, Not Enough Brain: A Teacher’s Survival Guide

Because colour-coding your planner isn’t the same as having a life. 👍

We’ve all heard the old ‘school is a circus’ joke, right? Joke - metaphor - name it what what you will; the fact stands that teachers often juggle ten plates in the arena (school), and it feels like we absolutely cannot drop any of them. There are lessons to plan, reports to write, papers to make, projects to finish, correspondence to attend to, admin tasks to see to, and so on, and no matter how quickly we move, it feels like something is about to slip from our fingers and crash.

Many of us live like this for months at a time. We get used to the adrenaline, late nights, half-finished meals (sandwiches), and the constant sense that we’re behind -- we need to finish the thing we’re doing at any one moment because there are five other urgent things to attend to. We live like this, but we don’t want to. We don’t want to briefly feel relieved a task is done before we tackle the next one.

We want to feel calm, grounded, in control, and proud of our work.

This post is for those of us who want to live differently. Read on if you’re ready to work with more focus and joy, and if you’re ready to start treating your own wellbeing as a priority, not an optional extra.

1. Let good enough be good enough

One of the biggest reasons we run out of time is that we don’t know when to stop. Or rather, we don’t trust ourselves enough to stop.

Our goal in teaching, writing, or planning isn’t perfection. That doesn’t exist. If you chase it, you’ll stay stuck on one task forever and still feel dissatisfied when you finally have to stop to teach the lesson, send the report, publish the post, or share the materials.

So instead of aiming for “perfect,” ask yourself: what’s the goal, and when is it achieved? If your aim is to present a new grammar structure and give students time to practise it, what’s the minimum you need to do for that to happen? What’s “good enough”?

Trust that good enough is good enough, and you’ll get through your projects with more calm, energy, and peace of mind (and yes, you’ll be more productive too).

Rule to remember: Good enough is better than perfect — for you and for your students.

2. Set intentions and clear goals

Before you start anything, decide what you’re actually doing and why. For teachers, that’s harder than it sounds because projects overlap, lessons multiply, admin piles up. Having a clear goal or intention cuts through that noise.

It doesn’t have to be fancy. Write a to-do list you can tick off. Break big projects into small, doable steps — ideally ones you can fit into 25-minute chunks. That’s how you build progress across several projects without losing your mind.

Try keeping a list of simple, low-energy tasks for the in-between moments. For example, if you’re waiting at the dentist, you could look up lesson texts, draft a social media caption, or just consciously decide to rest your brain. As long as it’s on your list, it counts.

Rule to remember: Clear goals reduce decision fatigue.

3. Time blocking (and rest blocking)

Think of your day as a set of containers. You fill each one with a specific type of task, and just as importantly, you leave some containers empty for rest.

Here’s how mine looks: mornings start around 6 or 6:30. Ten minutes for coffee. Forty-five for journaling. Then the bathroom, Duolingo, gym, shower — and by around 9:30, I have about two focused hours for work. That’s my golden time.

I break those two hours into Pomodoro blocks: four or five 25-minute sprints with small pauses in between. Later, when I go for a walk, I let my mind wander. Ideas usually come then, and I write them down right away.

Afternoons look different as I’m teaching classes, meetings, training, but the principle stays the same: protect your blocks. Work in them, rest in them, don’t blur them.

Rule to remember: Boundaries prevent everything from blending into one endless workday.

4. Batch similar tasks

When you’re juggling too many things, switching between them constantly is what drains you the most. The solution it to batch! Group work by type (e.g., teaching admin, creative projects, finances, life tasks) and do them in one go.

When you’re in “teaching admin mode,” you already think in that way; when you’re in “creative mode,” your brain is ready for that kind of thinking. Don’t make it switch gears every 15 minutes.

You can even batch personal and professional tasks: lesson prep and marking one morning; writing, newsletter, or content creation the next; errands and housework together on weekends.

Rule to remember: The fewer times you switch modes, the more energy you save.

5. Use a capture system

A capture system is where your brain goes to rest. It’s a single place, digital or paper, to collect everything: ideas, reminders, shopping lists, feedback notes, teaching thoughts.

I move between my bullet journal and Google Keep, depending on what life’s like that week. The system isn’t what matters, having one is. Experiment, adjust, and don’t feel guilty about changing it up when it stops working.

You can even use this idea in class: write students’ recurring language errors on Post-its as you hear them. Give each learner one or two when they leave — their own “micro feedback.” But record the errors immediately, and let the students work on them on their own.

Rule to remember: Your brain isn’t a storage unit. Write it down and rest.

6. The 1–3 Rule

This one saves my sanity daily. I keep two lists: 1) a long “running” to-do list and 2) a short MIT (Most Important Tasks) list. Each day, I pick 1 big thing, 3 medium things, and up to 5 small things to focus on.

The magic isn’t in completing them all. For me, the sanity saving principle is knowing what not to do today. Some days, writing the Art of ELT newsletter is my “big one.” Other times, it’s feedback on a trainee’s lesson or updating my tax spreadsheet. It changes, but the rule holds: limit your focus.

Rule to remember: You can do anything, but not everything — at least not all today.

7. Energy-based planning

Forget “morning person” or “night owl.” Just notice your rhythms. For me, mornings are creative and focused; after lunch, I crash. Between 4 and 5 pm, I have what I call a “sleep attack.” I’ve stopped fighting it, lol. Instead, I lie down, even for 15 minutes, and get up recharged.

Your pattern will differ, and it’ll change over time. The point is to notice, adapt, and plan accordingly. Protect your high-energy hours for demanding or creative work. Leave admin, cleaning, or light marking for low-energy times.

Rule to remember: Plan your day around your energy, not your guilt.

8. Micro-rituals

When my Pomodoro alarm goes off, I always want to keep going. “Just ten more minutes,” I think. But those ten minutes easily turn into one hour and then another and sometimes another more. So I’ve made a ritual: when the timer rings, I lift my hands off the keyboard, look away, stand up. Stretch. Get tea. Walk. Look at the dessert display at my café.

These tiny pauses help me reset. They create mental punctuation marks between tasks and keep my body from fusing to the chair. They allow me to leave the ‘old’ task behind, so I can focus fully on the next one.

Rule to remember: Step away before your brain melts — rituals are the glue between projects.

9. Weekly review & reset

This is the backbone of keeping many projects alive and under control. Once a week, I check what I’ve done, what’s next, and what can wait. I look over lessons, finances, and life admin. I ask: what worked, what didn’t, what do I need to adjust?

Then I take a moment to notice what went well. Honestly, most of what we do as teachers goes unseen by anyone but ourselves. Taking time to appreciate it is not self-indulgent; it’s fuel and makes the work we do meaningful.

Rule to remember: Reflection is what turns chaos into direction.

10. Say no (or not now)

Boundaries are hard. We fear disappointing people, for a million different reasons, all valid in one way or another. But every “yes” steals time from something you already care about.

I’d like to suggest you start small. When a student asks you to check an extra piece of writing, think: does this help their learning, or just make them feel better? Saying “not this time” isn’t ‘being mean’ or ‘a bad teacher’; it’s sustainability for you and your work.

The same goes for bigger things: a new course, an Erasmus project, a collaboration. You don’t owe every opportunity your energy.

Rule to remember: Saying no is how you protect your best yes.

11. Protect your human needs

You are not a teaching machine. You are a body and a mind that need food, rest, sunlight, laughter, and connection.

If you don’t intentionally make space/time for those things, the world’s productivity-obsessed Geist will consume it for you.

Use all these tools — batching, planning, lists — to carve out time for the things that make you feel alive, be it a walk, a proper lunch, or a chat with a friend. The good stuff, you know?

Rule to remember: Wellbeing isn’t what you do after work — it’s what lets you work well.

Conclusion

Realistically, it’s wise to accept that juggling won’t ever stop for us teachers. There will always be lessons to plan while we’re answering urgent emails from students, parents, and school admin (or the tax office, sigh), toying with a new idea, figuring out when to do the marking on a set of papers, cook lunch, get to the dentist’s, the gym, and the wine date with your friends. The trick is to learn how to move between them all, or how to hold all of them, if you will. That is what changes everything.

Instead of a brand new personality that is magically capable of doing what you’ve never before shown to be capable of doing, I suggest you set a few solid systems in place. Follow these with patience and kindness towards yourself, and a healthy dose of courage to call “good enough” really, truly good.

Pick one thing off the list above. Try it out for a week. See what changes in your attitude, your schedule, your work, and in how you feel about work.

If this resonates, I write regularly about how teachers can build calmer, more joyful working lives with less burnout and more breathing space.

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One small step at a time really is enough. <3