Teachers are popping pills to keep up with their excessive workload, a recent UK teachers’ conference was told. The 24/7 culture is driving teachers out of education. School leaders were called out as the biggest culprit, messaging teachers throughout the evening.
One delegate described the support he was offered to cope with his exhaustion: finger-painting, ‘knit and natter’ and mindfulness sessions. He described how he lay on a cold floor in a mindfulness session, thinking about his emails.
The solution to burnout is not finger-painting or knitting or mindfulness.
Teacher: I feel totally exhausted
Why?
Teacher: I never switch off
Why?
Teacher: Because people message me all evening
What people?
Teacher: Mostly my bosses
How do they message you?
Teacher: On Teams
What do you need Teams for?
Teacher: To stay in touch
Why?
Teacher: To text things they’d forgotten to tell me during the day or chat as they watch TV.
Obvious, isn’t it?
We are in a sick cycle of endless work and constant interruptions
Instant messaging and bottomless email conversations add little value. They make us stop what we are doing, requiring extra brainpower to regain focus after the interruption. Work takes longer, eating into our personal time. We feel more anxious and we lose the delicious satisfaction of focusing on something important because we are constantly distracted.
This has a knock-on effect of causing unnecessary drama for everyone else when we miss deadlines and projects overrun. Everything becomes urgent instead of planned and scheduled.
This cycle of crazy busyness is damaging our mental and physical health. Anxiety is rocketing, productivity is declining.
Over 50 hours work a week is a waste of time
In a study by Stamford University productivity per hour was shown to reduce sharply when a person worked more than 50 hours a week. After 55 hours, productivity dropped so much that putting in any more hours was pointless. Those who worked up to 70 hours a week were only getting the same amount of work done as those who put in 55 hours. Those extra hours at ‘work’, messaging and emailing, create more work for everyone else.
What are you going to do about it?
Successful people achieve more by doing less. They cull low-value activities like emails, messaging, and pointless meetings. They create space to do things properly. What’s that quote? “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.”
Most of us don’t need to spend our days in constant touch. Have more frequent calls to share information properly and stop texting sloppy streams of consciousness. Quit some WhatsApp groups. Discuss better ways to communicate, separating business from fun. When you are back in the office, can you go for lunch and talk properly, rather than messaging each other across the desk?
I hope this article is helpful, please share it widely: if we talk about this we can change it.