Find ways to balance work and life demands

The ability to successfully combine work, family commitments and personal life is important for not only your personal wellbeing, but also the well-being of all members in the household. It can be particularly challenging, however, when your workplace is also your home and you are effectively managing a small business, as family day educators do. Work can easily ‘bleed’ into home life. There are always emails to check and respond to, phone calls to make and return, record keeping and accounts to be done and preparation for the next day to deal with.

Here are some ideas for managing work-life demands that have worked for other educators:

• Have a ritual or routine that marks the end of the official working day for you and the move from your ‘work self’ to your ‘home self’. This can be as simple as changing your clothes, taking off your uniform or a lanyard (if you wear one), sitting down for 5 or 10 minutes on your own for a quiet cuppa at the end of the work day; putting on some of your favourite music or going for a walk.
• Allocate a specific amount of time each day to fully focus on the business related tasks you need to do at a time that works best for you and your home routine. Be strict about the boundaries you set and prioritise what is most important.
• Set realistic goals about what is achievable in any one day.
• Avoid doing the business side of work close to bed-time as it can interfere with quality of sleep.

Be You - Educator Wellbeing resources

Explore the Be You educator wellbeing guide, plus fact sheets, planning tools, event recordings and videos designed to help individuals and learning communities build and maintain educator wellbeing.

Click here to access.