I know exactly how to fail at work life balance. I burned out – TWICE!!!! It happened at my first teaching job about 6-7 years in. I was determined not to let it happen again. It happened at my 2nd teaching job about 11–12 years in. I was determined not to let it happen again. I think I was successful that time. Remember that balance does not mean that EVERY SINGLE DAY will be balanced. That puts too much stress on you. However, overall there will be a balance. Concert week you may not get as much time to exercise or spend with your family, but then maybe the following week you have extra time with your family built in.
Here are some tips that helped me…
Don’t put school email on your phone!
This might actually be the most important of the tips. There was a time I had school email on my phone, and sometimes I would check it right before bed “to see if there were any issues I had coming up.” Sometimes there were – and then I would lay awake most of the night not being able to do a thing about the issue. Don’t do it. Parents and students do not need 24 hour access to you. Unless someone has died or is severely injured, there is almost nothing urgent enough that can’t wait until the next morning. Don’t do it!
Schedule a time to leave work
Schedule a specific time you are leaving. Set a timer on your phone if necessary. Stick to this faithfully. There is always going to be more work.
For a while, I taught at a high school about 22 miles – 35 minutes – away from my house. One of my sons came to that high school with me. He signed up for wrestling. It didn’t make sense to make two trips daily, so I would just wait for his three hour practice to be over. I thought to myself, “I’m going to get SO much done every day with no distractions and three hours of time.” What I found is that after about an hour, my brain turned to mush. I learned to work for an hour, then I would take time to run, walk, and sometimes just watch something on my computer.
I started at that school when my two youngest were still in elementary. My wife took them to school, then headed to work. I wanted to be home for them, so I left as soon as my school ended and was able to be home for them when they finished elementary. My wife had Fridays off, so that was the day I stayed to get caught up. That worked for us during that time in our lives.
Keep a Planner
I have an actual printed out calendar. My brain needs to see events a month at a time. I could never get the digital ones to work for me, but if you can, that’s great. I had a friend who was 100% digital. He once sent me a text and said, “My phone is telling me we have something Tuesday at 7 together, but I don’t remember what it was.” We had a rehearsal but he didn’t put enough details in. Another reason I prefer paper over digital – if I’m glancing at my paper calendar during a meeting and thinking/planning in my head, nobody complains but if I had a digital one out someone might wonder why I wasn’t paying attention to the meeting.
I plan a year ahead. This past February – when I received the school calendar for next school year – I went ahead and wrote in all the birthdays, my anniversary, any trips I had planned, etc. It makes it easier to live a balanced life.
If an opportunity for a performance or event comes up during the weekend I have blocked off for my anniversary, it gives me a chance to pause and decide if I really want to take that opportunity. I might raise my price for a gig request, then let my wife know we changed our plans but will have more money to spend. I schedule a few long weekends of rest in. For example, when I taught marching band, we always got requests to perform in labor day parades. I never accepted those. That weekend was blocked off for me AND for my students, who were working hard and needed that 3 day weekend in the middle of our season.
When you keep a calendar, it reduces the tendency to say “yes” to something out of guilt. Here are real conversations I’ve had…
Before keeping a calendar:
Friend: What are you doing Saturday?
Me: Nothing
Friend: Great! You can help me move.
Me: *crickets
After keeping a calendar:
Friend: What are you doing Saturday?
Me: We’ve got some plans. Why, what did you have in mind?
Friend: I’m moving and looking for some people to help.
Me: I wish you would have let me know sooner.
I’m not saying to never help people with things. I’m just saying that if you don’t have any plans, if you don’t schedule time with your spouse, if you don’t schedule times of relaxation and rest, other people will dictate your schedule.
My wife and I – with 4 kids – once went over a year without spending time alone, just the two of us. It wasn’t intentional. It was a very busy time. It put a huge strain on our marriage. At that point we started a weekly date night every Friday and have not strayed from it. When I taught marching band, I often had football games on Friday nights. We would go out Saturday instead. Now we go out to dinner, but we didn’t always have the money for something fancy. Here’s a link to my book 40 Cheap Dates and Why You Should Take Them.
Assign jobs to students
There are so many things that students or parents can do for you. I read some advice from a band director who stated, “You shouldn’t do anything that doesn’t require a music education degree.” Is there more work initially to delegate some tasks? You bet. But if you train students, if you create job descriptions, if you interview them for the positions, you will find kids and parents who will champion that task for you, saving you time and energy.
I have had a librarian or two for many years. They collect and sort music for me. In my marching band, I had section leaders take attendance and give it to the drum majors, the drum majors took attendance of the section leaders, then the drum majors made the phone calls when someone wasn’t there who was supposed to be. We found following up quickly – with grace – virtually eliminated absences for our volunteer marching band.
Students can even create concert programs! Will they look as professional as the template you use and reuse every time? Probably not, but who cares! How did you learn how to create one? Often through trial and error, right? So why deny a student that same opportunity.
It’s OK to say NO!
Remember Nancy Reagan’s theme from the 1980s to Just Say No to drugs? She was made fun of, but it is an effective strategy. You may not struggle with drugs, but I bet you do struggle with saying no!
At one school I taught at, every year I was asked to have the band play at the basketball games. My fellow directors were amazed that I didn’t have to do them. When I was asked – it was usually too late to get it going for that year, so I’d tell the athletic director, “Let’s look at it for next year – it’s too late.” Next year there would be a NEW athletic director who also wouldn’t think about it until the following year! I managed to avoid basketball games for about 8 years.
We did eventually end up doing one game for the boys team and one game for the girls team. I purposely set that limit with the athletic directors. When they pushed back, I reminded them we had other things we were working towards – like festival – and the students and I had a limit on our endurance. We could all handle a couple of games and we found them to be enjoyable. I have had colleagues who had to do 20-25 games every winter. They were worn out! They were exhausted! And then musical season follows that.
Many people miss out on the great things in life because they are doing so many good things. They are not in tune with what the Creator has made them to do. I have been guilty of this many times. Sometimes it’s a matter of learning how to say “No” to all those good things. Believe me, it’s not easy…
My mom was a cruise director for guilt trips
People want to put you on a guilt trip when you say no. My own mom has a master’s degree in the guilt trip. She’s a cruise director! My sister and I toured the world several times, and it didn’t cost us a thing (except for damage to our psyche, but that’s such a small price to pay for travel).
I also avoided musicals. The choir teacher would sometimes put a guilt trip on me about not helping. I told her I would be happy to help – if she also helped with marching band in the fall. Her response; “That’s stupid.” In other words, I hit a nerve.
Don’t let others put you on these kinds of trips! Decide in advance what’s important to you and stick to that. Will life circumstances and what’s important change over time? Of course it will.
Practice with me for a moment… “No.”
Try it again… “No.”
Several times now, louder each time… “no…No…NO!”
It feels good, doesn’t it! This is not a rebellious “No” like a toddler might say. Remember, this is a no so you can say yes. Repeat daily. Say NO so you can say YES
– Say NO to overtime so you can say YES to your family
– Say NO to overeating so you can say YES to a better quality life
– Say NO to going out to eat so you can say YES to your retirement account
Here are some real NOs I have said…
– I said NO to helping in the school musical so I could say YES to conducting a community orchestra.
– I said NO to playing at coffee houses so I could say YES to spending time at home.
– I say NO everyday to the candy bars so I can say YES to size 32 pants.
– I said NO to teaching lessons so I can say YES to writing and practicing music.
– I said NO to the snooze button so I could say YES to reading my Bible.
– I said NO to Starbucks so I could say YES to a cruise with my honey.
Say NO today so you can say YES!
James Divine is a retired music teacher. He still teaches half time at a charter school, spending the other half leading Professional Development and creating curriculum like Jazz From The Start to teach jazz and improv to young students. Get an early edition of his book Almost Everything I’ve Learned About Teaching Band.