DISCONNECTING
“In the era of technology, you're always within reach. So if you set every notification to go off every time you have a school email, you would spend your life responding to emails. So I scan them. When I'm home, if it's something urgent, like a must-do-right-now, the buildings on fire, whatever, fine (….)—otherwise, if it's like, ‘Here's the agenda for the staff meeting on Friday,’ that's nice, I'll read it when I get to school tomorrow. If it's not something that has to be done out of my workday, it can wait until my workday.”
QUIET TIME
“This is where my husband and I are very different—On my commute home, it's silent. I don't turn on music. I don't call anybody. He likes to listen to books on tape, which is fine—do what you want to do—and that helps him decompress. But my ride home is quiet and I think it's just my time to have silence. There's kids in my room all day and there's [people in] my house all night, and I think just making that divide—whether it's your commute home or, if it's a short commute, somehow blocking that time off. I just need to close this chapter before I can move to the next chapter. I think if I lived two minutes from my job, that would be really hard for me personally, to just instantly transition. And so that time going home lets me (…) kind of process, refresh. And I'm ready to then be mom and get my daughter off the bus. Sort of same thing in the morning. Sometimes my second grader pushes my buttons in the morning. ‘What’s wrong with that outfit? We already went through it last night. You had your clothes picked out. Why is it an issue right now? Because I have to get out the door.’ So then I leave and I'm irritated. But having that commute—I get to school, I'm like, ‘Okay, I'm ready to be a teacher.’ Being able to compartmentalize, I think, is key.”
“I'm also a runner. So if I'm out for a three-mile, eight-mile run—I don't run with music either and most people have earbuds in. I'm not because I'm either in my surroundings because it's quiet and it's peaceful, or I'm in my own head. And I'm thinking, I'm planning.”
“Minimizing extras like that—we're always just so overstimulated. It's quiet in my car. It's quiet on a run. And that lets me close and separate and compartmentalize without being so overstimulated by everything that I can do nothing about.”