The world today is fast, and everyone is hustling. Work takes up most of our time. There is little time for relaxation or for relationships.
As a teacher, I have faced the struggle, and some days I have even wanted to cry. As they say, the struggle is real. The good news is, I was able to sort myself out. I rose above the teaching challenges and started to handle the matters related to my personal life, like a pro!
Teaching is a profession that demands your heart and soul, so you need to keep them in check. Brace yourselves, as I quickly get on with tips to maintain work-life balance for teachers.
What is Work-Life Balance? Secret to a Healthy Lifestyle
Work-life balance means the ability of a person to manage their personal lives while handling the burden of their job responsibilities.
Imagine a juggler, in the middle of his act, throwing balls into the air as he expertly catches the previous one and picks up yet another one.
Now imagine yourself in your teaching act, trying to juggle similar balls, except they are the roles in life that you play. There’s a ball each for parenthood, for house duties, for grocery trips, for preparing lesson plans for online tutoring, your brother’s upcoming wedding prep, and whatnot!
If a juggler were to miss a ball, his act would be ruined. Similarly, if you missed any one of these things, you would feel defeated. The bright side to this situation is that you are not juggling balls, and you can work out a solution that suits you best.
THIS is what a work-life balance in teaching is. Where you don’t just survive but flourish in all the roles that you play. And you compartmentalize your work and personal life. When one ends, the other begins.
Why is Work-Life Balance in Teaching Important?
The common misconception is that a teacher’s day ends with home time dismissal. Whereas that is not the case. A teacher is at work and at home. Late into the night, teachers are found preparing lessons, marking papers, or preparing for the following day’s lesson.
Teaching is a job that requires you to be present, ALL THE TIME. You will spot the unease of a child who has a headache, and you will scaffold the ones who are unable to draft answers on their own, all while conducting the lesson.
This is how life is as teacher; you must come to grips with that. I’ll tell you the reasons why work-life balance during teaching is important:
- Be stress-free and maintain good physical health
- Spend quality time with family and friends
- Look after your mental health
- Do justice to your profession
- Relax your nerves
- Look and feel healthy
- Work on your professional development
10 Best Strategies to Maintain Work-Life Balance in 2025
A healthy work-life balance provides ease not only in your personal life but in your professional life too.
Without any delay, I’ll share my top 10 tips to maintain a healthy work-life balance while teaching.
A perfect and healthy work-life balance maintenance demands that you set priorities. In the example of the juggler, you don’t see him holding all the balls together at a time. He tosses them around and catches the one he knows could fall.
The same is true with teaching. You are your own best decision maker. You could perhaps maintain a log to list down your priorities according to their importance and urgency. Let’s take the example of the Eisenhower Matrix that has been the holy grail for me.
- Do First: Things with consequences and deadlines. (Urgent)
- Schedule: Things with unclear deadlines and long-term success. (No Urgent)
- Delegate: Must do things, but don’t require your specific skills. (Go Easy)
- Eliminate: Unnecessary tasks and distractions. (Delete)
If you want to focus on your life and your work while teaching, you need to set boundaries. As you know, saying no is not easy, but you need to learn to say it, even if someone in authority expects add to your tasks.
Instead of stressing over approaching deadlines with multiple tasks at hand, you should say a polite “no” to all additional tasks. Let the schools and coordinators know explicitly if you can’t work overtime or work on a project while you’re already leading a school event.
There are multiple digital tools that can minimize the effort that goes into all the tasks related to teaching. The purpose of AI is not only to get answers for you. AI is now able to plan lessons, design worksheets, suggest teaching strategies, and even write and create songs for your class.
Smart work over hard work has always helped teachers to maintain a work-life balance. And with the beginning of AI, it is so much easier. Certain AI tools are specific to teaching and can design personalized lessons and activities according to the classroom requirements.
My Smart Move
I’ve become overly tech-savvy over time, as it is the only way I can free up time for myself.
Your work-life should not spill over into your personal life. According to a study by Heetae Choa, Do Young Pyunc, and Chee Keng John Wang, on Teachers’ work-life balance, teachers experience severe burnout when there is a work-leisure conflict.
Once you leave work, your only focus should be on your personal life. If there is anything that’s pending, you need to put it off until the next workday, instead of fitting it into your personal time.
📌 Pro Move
Amongst all the priorities you have, your topmost priority is yourself. Work is a priority while you are at work, and it’s secondary when your personal time begins.
Go easy on yourself!
All the dear teachers, all the time that you were planning lessons and studying timetables to fit in other work-related things, did you create a similar routine for yourself?
Work-life balance while teaching can be achieved when you know what your day should look like. You need to set time aside for all the tasks and activities your day comprises.
Your mealtimes, a walk in the nearby park, your books-reading time, all of it needs to be scheduled mindfully.
Speak up if you feel tied up or stuck with your many tasks. There isn’t any harm in requesting help and guidance from your school heads and coordinators. When grading set after set of tests or preparing students for a school assembly, reach out to your admin and request them to assist you.
It isn’t a failure to request help. Teaching can get overwhelming, and maybe you just need a little guidance to manage your work efficiently. You need to seek help to bring work-life balance in life.
When you have clarity about your priorities and your routine, you will know how to manage your time efficiently. Work-life balance while teaching means that you look for an open window during your workday to do the pending tasks.
Your timetable is a time management tool as it gives you a clear picture of your school day. Make sure to put the staff meetings or peer teaching slots in the timetable for further clarity about the free slots.
Everyone knows their limits and physical capabilities, which is why they should set achievable and realistic goals. I cannot plan 25 hours in my day when there are only 24 hours.
So why should a teacher burden herself with goals that are difficult to achieve? Moreover, if the teacher is unable to achieve the goals, they are left feeling like a failure. Realistic goal setting is possible when your priorities are right.
An example is a lesson plan that is due in the current week, while the exam paper is due in the following week. Realistically, you should plan your lesson in the running week and set your goal for the test paper submission for the following week.
Everyone has their own way of completing tasks on time while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. It’s always a great idea to observe fellow teachers for their best practices.
I remember that I had observed a fellow teacher timing herself consciously during the lesson. She would often glance at the time to keep up with the pace of the lesson. And within 50 minutes, she would manage the whole lesson, along with the plenary and the activity that she had planned.
Your fellow teachers might not be doing something unusual. But observing them will reveal the small things they do that make a difference in their work-life balance.
I can’t stress enough the importance of continuous professional development in a teacher’s life. Training and workshops help with everything from identifying where the lapse in your routine is to teaching efficient time blocking methods.
With the way that AI is taking over, these trainings are also essential to learn the optimum use of technology. They will also guide you on marking the students’ work smartly and save class time and energy with different teaching pedagogies and strategies.
Read, Before You Leave
Modern teaching requirements call for modern solutions. It is especially complex in the current times to efficiently develop a work-life balance while teaching. The process starts with teachers understanding what work-life balance means and how important it is in a teacher’s life.
As challenging as it sounds, it’s easily attainable if you work towards it. As a teacher, you need to give yourself a pat on the back as often as you can to acknowledge your efforts. You have already been managing well, but you can always do better to protect yourself from burnout.
And always remember my golden words, YOU ROCK, TEACHER!
What People Also Ask About Work-Life Balance?
You need to set boundaries by clearly communicating your off time, like in the following examples:
1. Inform students that they can text you their query, but you will respond to it in school.
2. Mute your notifications at a certain time every day.
You can approach your school head, colleagues, and coordinators to request assistance. If you feel that it’s a pressing matter, then you should write to the school board and request teacher-friendly policies.
Teaching is not restricted to teaching only. There are also certain admin tasks that teachers find themselves doing.
Yes! When teachers have work-life balance, they are more focused and excited about teaching. When they know they have taken care of both aspects of their life, they naturally display increased interest in the well-being of their learners.
