The Balance of Summer

What's on your yellow sticky note?
(Photo: darkmoon1968 via Pixabay)

This summer, for the first time, I am teaching a class. I've taught little mini classes -- classes that last a week or less -- in the past with elementary students but, this summer, I'm teaching a semester's worth of college material in a five week summer session. Monday through Thursday, I teach for two hours a day. Before class, I finalize my lesson and in the afternoons and evenings, I make time to grade papers, create exams and prepare for the next day's class.

It's not a tough gig -- I've taught the material before, and it's a small class of students who can be nudged fairly easily into discussion -- but it's a challenge because it's new and because, once again, my routine has shifted.

Last week, I wrote about my simultaneous need for and dislike of routines. When I worked as a school counselor, one of my favorite things about my job was that no two days were the same. There was a predictability from one day to the next, in that my days began and ended at about the same time and, for the most part, took place in the same building. Other than that, they could be filled with all sorts of different things -- meetings, classes, chats with kids and staff on a wide variety of topics -- and that kept things interesting.

It's only as I write this now that I realize that I once again have a similar sort of routine (finally), but find it frustrating. Only one of my jobs (teaching) begins and ends at roughly the same time each day, but the tasks necessary for its completion exceed the boundaries of that time frame. Between its insistence on seeping into time outside of the classroom (a necessary occupational hazard) and the fact that my other job (writing) needs to be completed within the those same out-of-class time frames,  I often feel that no matter what I'm doing, I should be doing something else.

While I find a certain amount of routine comforting, too much routine leaves me feeling trapped and too much to do leaves me feeling stressed. Without a routine, however, all of my unscheduled time looks like time off, but feels like time I should be devoting to one task or another. That simultaneous push/pull leads to a feeling that I'm never doing what I "should" be doing and can pull me dangerously close to workaholism.

Over the past few semesters, I've finally gotten into a routine where my start time is the same each day -- something I needed, but didn't know I needed until it became my norm. Now, the next step is finding a balance between work and play in the time that remains.

And that begins with giving myself permission to play as well as work -- before I hit the point where play is the only option because I'm too mentally or physically tired or unmotivated to work any more. Last weekend, I spent some time at the beach recalibrating. It's a start.

How about you? Do you thrive on routine? Have you struck a successful balance between work and play, or have you forgotten what play is? If the latter is true, perhaps there's no better time than summer to make sure play time -- and maybe even nap time -- is a part of your schedule.

Even if you have to put it on your to-do list.