As a teacher, it's easy to focus too much on the kids. It's easy to devote all of our time to lesson planning, to grading, contacting parents, and trying to do the latest task our administrators assigned us to. It's easy to take on too much because you feel like you have to, to want everything to go perfectly because you think as a teacher, you're supposed to be the model of perfection for your students.

It can easily feel like we have to devote our entire lives to our jobs.

As an inner-city special educator in Baltimore City, I have failed much more than I ever have in my life. Lesson plans have failed terribly when my kids weren't engaged and misbehaved as a result. I have not graded for a week at a time because I was too overwhelmed by the mounting tasks I have to deal with. I have signed up for too much, from supervising a field trip to volunteering to organize for the union, all while trying to keep up my present workload and find a summer job.

Recently, I have done better at having a life while being a teacher. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but here are things I've been doing to have a better work-life balance, and things any teacher can do better to take care of themselves and have a life outside of the classroom.

Learn How To Say No

As a teacher, you're going to have a lot of people ask you to do a lot of things. Your administration is going to be asking more and more of you as the school year goes on. You're going to be called into a lot of meetings, from IEP (Individualized Educational Program) meetings to parent-teacher conferences for your students. You're going to have to document far more than you ever expected you'd have to write down, and you're always going to be adjusting your lesson plans to account for your kids' accommodations and things that went wrong in a lesson. You're going to be called into emergency staff meetings that bite into your personal time after school, or cut into your afterschool club.

But learn to say no to people if you want to have a life. Your time is valuable. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Of course, be in compliance, but you don't have to go to every meeting. You don't have to contact every parent about everything. You don't have to give up your planning period to watch your co-worker's class that called out.

Saying no is the best form of self-care, sometimes. I know that all of us, as teachers, are pretty bad at saying no to people. We came into the profession as helpers who want to do right for our kids and for our schools, but sometimes, saying no is the best thing we can do for ourselves and others.

Don't Take Work Home

This was the biggest piece of advice I've been given by veteran teachers. Teaching is a thankless job. No one is going to thank you for the extra time you spend at home trying to make lessons perfect or trying to write the perfect documentation or IEP for your kids. You're not going to get all your grading done or grade every single assignment your kids have put in. Within the timeframe of the school day, you can and you should get all your work done.

That means your lessons should be planned during the school day, while you're in the building. Find what works for you. I like to show up early to work to get things done, and leave right when the day ends. I know that a lot of my colleagues will do the opposite and stay later. We have meetings and last-minute tasks that come up, but we have to do our work at work regardless.

No one is going to thank you for all the extra work you're doing at home. When you're home, attend to home. Spend time with your friends and family. Teaching is a job where we are assigned to work 40 hours a week. For most teachers, and especially newer teachers like myself, the workweek quickly turns into 60 or 70 hours very easily.

Get your work done at work. You won't be rewarded for taking your work home.

Accept You're Not Going To Be Perfect

Every day as a teacher, something isn't going to go as planned. Your lesson might not engage your students as much as you planned for it to be. Your administrators won't always be happy with you and everything you do, whether it's your philosophy on teaching or managing a classroom. You will have a lot of lessons interrupted by standardized testing. Your students are going to have bad days and there's nothing you can do to turn their home lives around.

All of this is to say that teachers are humans, not machines. It can be too easy to feel like a failure every single day. It can be too easy to be a perfectionist. But as teachers, we need to compartmentalize and realize that even when we feel like failures, just being there, caring for the kids, and trying means that we're making an impact.

Teaching is more of an art than a science. It is not a technical profession and formula that allows you to be a good teacher. It's constantly striving to improve and having an unwavering devotion to your kids. It is humans who create art. Not machines, and as a teacher, give yourself permission to be human and not perfect.

Let It Go

Teachers have a bad habit of focusing on the small stuff. But even if you don't fulfill that extra task or responsibility, life will go on and the world will move on. "The earth won't fall off its axis if you don't write that email or add that extra lesson on commas to the curriculum tonight," writes Nancy Barile of Western Governors University. There are a lot of things in the classroom or within the field in general that are not in our control. In fact, I would even argue that the majority of things are not in our control, but that only time, perseverance, and luck will improve our craft and outcomes within the classroom.

As a teacher, the biggest thing you can do for your kids, sometimes, is to survive. It means not giving up. Surviving means having a life outside the classroom, and a life outside of work. Allow yourself that. You deserve it.