Tag: wellbeing

Work/Life Balance

I recently went on holiday abroad, taking my phone complete with school email with me.   This is one of the reasons I havent posted anything new over the last few weeks. While away I checked my email occasionally plus replied to several emails.   This got me thinking, was what I was doing wrong from a health and wellbeing point of view?

I have previously read various people writing about the need to establish a work/life balance with email often making an appearance among the discussion.    The discussion often including tales of notifications being received late into the night, or emails requiring urgent action before Monday morning being received on weekends.    Some have suggested schools should block or prevent the sending of emails in the evenings or at weekends or have suggested that teachers shouldn’t add their school email account to personal phones, adding it only on work issued phones.   

I did have a school phone for a period of time, carrying two phones, one for personal use and one for school use.   A number of years ago I handed back my school phone as having two phones added complexity and inconvenience. E.g., Having to decide which phone to use or which phone to answer? Deciding which apps were on which phone, etc. I also didn’t see the point of the school paying for a service and device while I was carrying a personal device which could happily meet all of my work requirements.    This was a personal decision and I note that I considered the data protection implications in making the decision.  For me it is also acknowledgement that I am not two people, a personal and a professional me, but am instead a single person with two linked aspects to my life, my personal and my professional life.  

The distinction between personal and professional lives is often made, for example on social media in having separate personal and professional accounts.    I have difficulty with this.   If I post something inappropriate or at least contentious on my personal account, it is all too easy to link that with my professional account and therefore my school, so what is the point in having the added difficulty of managing two separate accounts?    In the real world my professionalism can be held to account for my actions during my down, or personal time, and I cant then say “but that was my personal account” so why should social media be different?    Now there are some data protection implications here however that’s a whole other post.   Let’s for now leave that issue with the fact, if I had a separate professional account, it would identify as being me in my role as opposed to belonging to the role, an organisational unit within the school or the school itself.   As such the account would still be, to an extent, personal to me, which only adds to view that maintaining separate personal and professional accounts adds no value.

But why did I answer my emails and basically do some work when I was on holiday?    I think part of the answer lies with the fact I am quite poor at resting.   I feel at my best with a to-do list and ticking things off.    I also feel invested, enjoyment and empowerment in my role.   It is a key and important part of my life so to dip into emails for a few minutes and pick off a few tasks felt more appropriate than leaving them for a week until I returned to work.    It was a personal decision.    And in making the decision I was happy to spend a few minutes on email however I was equally happy to leave a number of emails alone, to await my return to work.    If work/life balance is what I need to achieve, answering those couple of emails didn’t feel out of balance.

That said, I do always try to balance things out so I have set up appropriate Do Not Disturb timings on my phone plus adjusted the notifications settings to ensure I am not constantly drawn to check my phone outside of my normal working hours.   I will acknowledge I suspect I look at my phone more often than I should mainly due to my social media usage and the habits I have built up, however I am currently looking at ways to help me address this including stopping using my phone as an alarm clock meaning it no longer has to be in the bedroom in the evening and morning.

And I think this is where the answer to this situation lies.    It partly lies with the school to avoid and manage emails, and other tasks, such that it doesn’t encourage the sending of excessive volumes of email, or the sending of emails at inappropriate times.   This relates to the espoused expectations of the school in relation to email and communications, plus to the wider culture and climate within the school.   But responsibility also lies with the individual to ensure they do not contribute to the issue in their sending of emails to others, plus they consider the practices that work best for them, including if this involves answers a couple of emails while sat by the pool or looking out towards the sea on holiday.

And as a final conclusion, I did enjoy my holiday which is what matters!

Wellbeing thoughts

The other week I have a discussion on wellbeing in schools with Mark Anderson as part of a recording for Tip Top Tips Edu; you can watch the recording here.  The particular focus was on support staff such as Directors of IT, Network Managers and other IT support based roles.   I therefore thought it would be useful to share some further thoughts from my discussion with Mark and also some thoughts that arose post discussion.

Wellbeing:  What does your school do?

I think one of the first things to note is that wellbeing isn’t about events, such as an end of term staff event or offering yoga classes.   These can help improve peoples wellbeing but wellbeing is more complex than a catalogue of events on offer.  

Stress and Challenge

When we talk about stress we often jump to a negative conclusion, that stress isnt good.   The reality is that stress, at least in my interpretation, can be a good thing as well as a bad thing.     If it relates to an activity which is worthwhile, has some level of difficulty and includes some autonomy of decision making then this will likely cause stress, however it will be positive stress;  it will represent a challenge.    If, however it is not viewed as worthwhile, is busy work, includes monotony rather than autonomy and is too difficult to be achievable given available resources, then this will likely result in negative stress.

So, the question for leaders here is, do we ensure that there is meaning in what we ask our teams to do, do we provide the relevant autonomy, but also support and are we realistic and clear in our expectations of others?

Looking after yourself / Personal wellbeing

We also need to acknowledge that wellbeing for each of us is also a personal responsibility.   Yes, our school has to provide an environment that supports and encourages our wellbeing, however equally we as individuals need to also support our own wellbeing.    For each of us the methods of doing this is likely to be different.   For me it is about reading, particularly reading non-fiction, and about physical exercise in the form of jogging (or maybe lumbering would be more appropriate in my case) and also about contributing back to the Edu world through blogs, etc.  Some people may like gardening or cooking, two things I am pretty hopeless at.   For others it might be long family walks.   We each need to seek to find what works for us as individuals, as families, as friends, etc.

Balance

I often find myself coming back to the importance of balance.   Too much of anything is bad for you and equally too little is often just as bad.   Whether it is exercise, comfort foods, relaxation time, challenge and positive stress, family time, personal reflection time, or a multitude of other things, too little can have a negative impact as can too much.  Its about finding the balance that works for you.

We also need to wrestle with the challenges of time;   Often have I heard and even said that “I don’t have enough time.”   Sadly this is a pointless cry as we will never have any more time than that which we have now (unless we master time travel of course 😉 ).    There are 24hrs in the day and 7 days in the week.   This isnt going to change.   As such we need to accept that more time for a given task comes at the expense of less time for something else.   And with this in mind we need to remain balanced;   we cant simply keep providing more time to our work tasks as this will mean less time for our own personal growth and reflection, for family time, etc.   And it is worth noting that in work, we often, as we seek to improve and develop, tend towards adding things, adding tasks, adding processes, adding checks and balances, and adding complexity, all which therefore require more time.   Seldom do we seek to take things away;    Adding, having more, doing more seems logically positive however in reality this can only be guaranteed where resources are limitless.   In the real world where time is limited, everything we add which takes additional time and effort, takes away time and effort from something else.

Conclusion

On reflection, and a key thought, is that wellbeing isnt a thing or an endpoint.   Wellbeing is a road or a process.    It is ongoing and at times things your wellbeing will be challenged when all isnt going well and at other times your wellbeing will be good and all will be progressing as it should.    The key is to find what works for you, to be concious of your wellbeing and to be concious of your actions and plans in relation to wellbeing.   

So for a leader its about yourself as an individual but also about your team as a group;   How can you support wellbeing for yourself but also for those you lead.    As a team member its about yourself as an individual and also about your colleagues and how you can support one another.    Overlayed on this, for those with families, there is the wellbeing of you spouse, your kids and your other family members.  

Wellbeing isnt simple and I don’t think anyone has the answer.    For me it links to organisational culture and climate, which are equally complex and slow to change. If anything, what matters most is that we are at least speaking about and it considering it more than we did in the past, and that’s a good start.

A day in the life – Wellbeing

I wrote a day in the life blog piece some month back, focussed very much on my work day as a Director of IT, however given the ongoing discussions of wellbeing I thought I would share another day in the life, but this time focussed on the wellbeing side of my daily routine.

6am and the day begins;   Am currently trying to achieve 100km of running in June, having completed the same distance in May.   This will be the first time I have managed it in 2 consecutive months.    Running gets the blood flowing and sets me up for the day, while also allowing me to clear the often busy thoughts in my head, instead simply focussing on putting one foot in front of the other, keeping a reasonable pace and managing my breathing.    This morning though I am cutting my run short to around 5.75km to allow me to head into work a little earlier due to concerns I have in relation to traffic.   It is the first day of Glastonbury so I am worried that traffic around Somerset might be a total nightmare.

By 8am I am in work as the traffic was a little heavier than normal but otherwise not too bad.     I have my usual morning routine to work through including looking at my online ToDo list where tasks are split between low and high priority items.   I also have listed personal items to consider at lunch or failing that at the end of the day;  The ToDo list is a holistic list rather than a work only list.    For me the ToDo list is very important as ticking items off gives a sense of achievement, and the morning review of the items gives me a sense of how much flexibility I have in being able to address any unexpected tasks or requirements which might arise during the day.    I do sometimes wonder if I have become a little too focussed on my ToDo list leading me to chase the completion of X tasks each day rather than focussing on doing the things that really matter.

Around halfway through the morning and its time to stop briefly and munch down a packet of crips and drink the all important Irn-Bru.   There are plenty of healthier snacks I could have but I enjoy a packet of crisps and a Bru, so in the interest of balance and having engaged in physical exercise in the morning, I don’t think there’s any harm in a packet of crisps.    Now at this point in the day I have already ticked off 4 of the 6 items I target myself with completing each day.     This target helps me assess how I am doing versus what I consider to be a minimum expectation.    I note that I include some thinking time and prep time on my ToDo list as these equally take time and it is important to allocate space and time as otherwise, other often less important but more immediate issues will take over.

Before I know it lunch time arrives and a opportunity to go to lunch with some of my team and decompress a little with discussions of sport and also some IT discussions;  Is always the case that discussion may tend towards whatever you do for a living as this is an easy topic to discuss however key is that it isnt within the context of the school or teaching and learning, etc.    I also try to make some time to scribble down some blog thoughts over the lunch period and also do a little bit of news and current affairs reading via the web.

My afternoon passes reasonably quickly due to a number of meetings so before I know it 5pm has been and gone and the work day is done.   It is as I leave work that I notice what a nice day it is which is enhanced further by the drive home through Somerset.   As I take in the weather and the scenic drive which is my normal route home I note that I feel just that little bit happier and more relaxed, albeit also a bit tired.  It is amazing how nice weather, a look around the lovely somerset scenery and a drive home with the windows down can positively impact on your wellbeing.   Sometimes it is the little things which make all the difference.       Upon arriving home I stick some retro TV on in the background, a bit of Farscape and Space 1999, while I sort dinner and do a couple of other jobs around the house, with some of these jobs being listed on my ToDo list.

7pm and the dog is fed and wants attention so it’s a bit of time with the dog in the garden.   Now will admit I was not keen on getting a dog but note that, although she is in the process of methodically destroying the house and all furniture she can get to, she also makes me smile at times.  And maybe this highlights the impact that a smile can have on our wellbeing so maybe a part of wellbeing is on finding or creating as many opportunities to smile as possible in your day.

As the evening progresses there are a couple more things to do around the house before settling down to watch a bit of TV and I my case, rewatching Homeland.    It is at this point I decide that rounding the evening off with a couple of beers would be appropriate.    Again, not exactly the most healthy option however in everything, balance, so a couple of beers after a busy day seems perfectly acceptable.

My day was a busy one but I think it had some balance.   It had the less than healthy packet of crisps and Irn-Bru but balanced out against a run in the morning.   It had immediate tasks balanced against some time to plan and think ahead.    It had some quiet and relaxing in front of the TV but also a number of items ticked of a ToDo list both at work and at home.     Now every day cannot be a balanced as this one, with some days feeling like my hair is on fire and nothing can go right but again this is balanced out by other days when everything seems to simply fall into place.

Personal wellbeing, and in particular mental health isnt an easy thing but for me I think one of the critical factors is building routine and making time for the various aspects of life to be fulfilled whether that is the need for feelings of accomplishment, the need for challenge, the need for time to reflect or the need to relax and decompress.     I also think we need to always seek to achieve balance and with that comes the acceptance that some days wont go well, but that it will then be ok to seek to balance this out through whatever works for you being it a few beers, some exercise, a trip to the cinema, a good book, etc.

Am not sure how much use there is in me sharing the above, however I hope that maybe someone finds it helpful, or failing that I suspect it will simply help me in rebalancing when things go badly and I cant see the light at the end of the tunnel, on the next day when things just don’t seem to be able to go right for me.

A need for wellbeing and digital citizenship

If the news shapes our view of the world what has the last few years done for our students?

The last few years have been rather turbulent.  First there was Brexit, and the binary views which sprung up around that.  You were either pro the EU or against the EU, with little room for any balanced middle ground.    Then next the news was filled with the pandemic, with nightly figures of deaths and infections.   Again, there were binary views around government measures to reduce infection rates and to encourage vaccination.    And more recently we have moved on to the war in Ukraine, and massive numbers of refugees exiting Ukraine while fighting and bombing continues.

In each case our news was filled with interviews, videos and other content regarding the issues at the time, with the news on Brexit, Covid and Ukraine drowning out the other news.   Social media was equally awash with content on each topic as it arose.

And for students consuming content via social media, via Instagram, snapchat, TikTok and the like, the news was all the more enveloping of their lives.    Technology, which should be keeping us more informed, which seems like a good thing, might be overwhelming us, and influencing us, which is not such a good thing.

Then we have the issue of fake news, with this being reasonably easy to evidence with Ukraine where footage and images have been shared online reportedly showing events in the war, but where the actual source is previous conflicts and in one case, even footage taken from a video game.   With students consuming quick content, so short videos or images, rather than more detailed reporting, you have to wonder how often the source of the content is properly considered.    I will admit myself, when accessing the likes of TikTok, that I may not be as critical of the content as I might be had I consumed it through another media which didn’t present thinks as bite-sized content, where swiping through is encouraged.

We also have the issue of social media being purposefully used to manipulate the public, which is linked to fake news mentioned above.  This involves more targeted messaging and fake news designed specifically to manipulate the narrative with the Cambridge Analytica scandal coming immediately to mind.    There were many discussions of this kind of manipulation of the public via social media during Brexit, and also during the US presidential election which was around the same time.  

Looking at the above it suggests that, if the news does shape our view of the world, students views of the world might be that little bit bleaker than they once were.    They might also be that little bit more susceptible to manipulation and influence than previously.

So, what can we do?

Two thoughts jump to mind, with these being the need to increasingly consider wellbeing and also the need to consider digital citizenship.

Wellbeing for me isnt a bolt on, it is central to our lives.   Sometimes our wellbeing will be good, and sometimes, when things are hard, it will be not so good.    The key therefore is the ongoing process to manage our wellbeing, our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing, if I am to be a bit more exact.   And this requires a greater awareness of the status of our own wellbeing and of what we can do to influence it positively.    Now, I don’t think anyone ever taught or advised me of this, I think I picked it up through experience, plus a bit of reading around the subject, but I believe in this fast paced world we have responsibility to provide some support and teaching in this area for our students, which I know many schools already do; I just think we can never quite do enough in this area, so need to be constantly searching to improve and do more, with this more important than ever before.   

The 2nd area which comes to mind is Digital Citizenship and is something I have long been harping on about.   The world we live in is a technology driven world, so we need students to be more aware of the positives but also the drawbacks.    They need to see the balance which exists in using technology, plus see the extreme positives and extreme negatives through a pragmatic lens rather than the magnifying lens of social media.    Students need to understand the implications its use has on them and on the world, and how they can manage this, plus need to be alert as to how some others may use technology to their own gain.

Conclusion

It has been a difficult few years and there is no getting away from that.   These difficult times will have impacted on our view of the world, and on our wellbeing.    I think in general we are all that little bit more anxious than we were 2 or 3 years ago.    The key though, is how we manage the situation and move forward.   The key is resilience and agility to push through the difficulties and then drive forward to better things.

Couch to 2K, to couch then 5K?

The path to success is seldom a straight line.    My struggles with improving my personal fitness go to prove this.

For several years, I had set a target at the start of each year to try and get fitter or at least to engage in some sort of fitness activity.   Sadly, each year I have ended up prioritizing this target as low and therefore failed to make much progress against it.  I completed courses, read books, completed projects, but neglected the health and fitness aspect of my well-being.  I either couldn’t find the time, couldn’t find an appropriate fitness activity, couldn’t establish a habit or routine or one of a number of other excuses which all sounded plausible and valid to me at the time.

This year I made progress.   I started the couch to 5K programme and for 5 weeks made good progress.   It was becoming increasingly difficult each week as I had to run for longer periods of time however I had built a habit of getting up for my run each morning before work.   I was experiencing some mild aches in my legs but this wasn’t stopping me.  I simply put this down to the strain of the increasing distances.    I was motivated, and I could see the progress I was making.   Each week I was running further and further.   All was going well towards achieving a 5K run.

Then I had a family holiday and took two weeks out.    On my return I decided to jump in at week 4 of the programme, stepping back a week as I thought this would be sufficient to build up the habit again.   I found it difficult to restart my habit of morning runs but I managed it.   After only a couple of runs I started to have painful aches in the left leg in particular.    I gave myself a couple of extra rest days to see if this would help.    It didn’t.    I then tried to work through the aches and pains and this didn’t help either.

I eventually settled with a couple of weeks of rest and decided to go all the way back to week 1 of the programme, which brings us up to this week.    On Monday I wanted to start but made the excuse that it was a bank holiday.    Tuesday wasn’t any good; I cant quite remember what my excuse was, possibly that the first day back after a bank holiday deserved a lie in.    Finally on Wednesday after a significant internal struggle in getting out of bed, I did week 1 run 1 again.  Now, I just need to establish the habit.

As I reflect I can see decisions which impacted my progress, some right decisions and some where in retrospect I may have been wrong.    I can see that motivation has been key.   In the first 5 weeks I could see my increasing fitness level in the increasing times spent running.   This obvious progress kept my motivation up which helped in maintaining my habit.   When I stopped however and when I then had difficulties restarting the progress wasn’t there.  I was running distances less than I had previously managed but having pain in doing so.   It was demotivating and as a result made sustaining the habit difficult.   Trying to get going again was difficult and I must admit to being close this morning to not going for a run, to in effect give up on the whole endeavour.

I have now taken my first step to restarting.   The motivation and habit isn’t there so I will need to rely on my resilience and perseverance.   I suspect this will mean, each morning for the foreseeable future, I will need to fight to get myself out of bed and running rather than having an extra 30mins in bed.   Hopefully in five weeks time I will be back to the same stage I had previously achieved and that I can then go beyond to my eventual goal of 5K.

I wonder how my experiences might be mirrored in student learning?   How do we as teachers help to ensure they remain motivated and develop resilience?

 

 

 

 

 

My first 12 books of 2018; done!

I set out this year to continue my habit of trying to read at least one book per month throughout the year.   My aim being to read some light self-help books along with some significantly heavier texts.  I wanted to read across a couple of different topics.

And so, in August the 8th month of year, I finished my 12th book and met my target.   So far I have read:

  • The fourth education revolution, Anthony Seldon
  • Make it stick, Peter C Brown, Henry L Roediger and Mark A McDaniel
  • SUMO (Shut up and move on), Paul McGee
  • The upside of rationality, Dan Ariely
  • Open, David Price
  • The gift of failure, Jessica Lahey
  • Change, Richard Gerver
  • The Cyber Effect, Mary Aiken
  • The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau
  • The marshmallow effect, Walker Mischel
  • Mindfulness, Gill Hasson
  • The Art of balance, David J Bookbinder

Although I have hit my target for the year I still look forward to further reading in the remaining months of 2018.    I continue to try to ensure that my bookshelf is never empty of books yet to read.    I think it was in Naseem Talebs Black Swam where he mentioned the importance not of the books you have read, but of the books yet to read.   There is always room to learn more, to refine or change your views and to continue to evolve.   This is something I hope to continue to do.

I must also acknowledge that reading has also become a bit of a wellbeing activity for me.   It provides an opportunity to step away from the stresses and concerns of the working week and managing a household.   It provides me a space to relax.     And on my return to the normal week I often am able to take a fresh perspective on issues or to arrive at new ideas or solutions.

My bookshelf still has a number of books unread on it, including a couple of heavy but interesting titles.   I also intend to revisit a book I read some time ago in Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence.

So with that I will put my laptop down and get back to reading.

Stress: Taking a longer term view

The last week has seen me move house.   A stressful process filled with problems.   Lets just say it hasn’t gone at all smoothly.   At this point a week after the main part of the move the house is still filled with boxes yet to be unpacked however I suspect the coming weekend will be used to address most of that.   It is with this change of circumstance, a new house, that I have come to reflect.

My original plan having returned to the UK from the UAE had been to rent for a short period of time before then buying a house.    That short period of time turned out to be just over 2 years.   Looking back the two years disappeared in a flash.     Thinking a little harder I can identify some of the difficulties and issues which led to the elongated period of renting.   I can also remember the stress associated with some of these issues.   Sleepless nights have resulted along with arguments and heated discussions within the family and with individuals outside the family.    Taking a helicopter view and looking out over the 2 years, the issues got addressed and maybe therefore some of the stress was unwarranted.  It didn’t help and served only to impact on the health and well being of the family.

This week has also seen me reflecting with my team as part of the annual appraisal process.   On a number of occasions during discussions we have identified projects which we have felt have not progressed at the rate with which we had wanted.   These projects have caused stress and angst.    Looking at them though through a wider perspective we see that progress was made and that some of the factors which slowed or even stopped progress were out with our control.    It is only looking long term and taking all things into account that we see the limited progress as being reasonable given the constraints and other factors which existed.    In the short term, in the here and now, this isn’t appreciated and the progress is just seen as below expectation.   The stress and angst at the issues in the short term serve little purpose when viewed across the longer term, other than to impact on the health and well being of the individuals concerned.

As I reflect I have come to realise that in the short term there is lot we don’t know, don’t perceive or don’t appreciate, that we will come to more aware of when we look back across the longer term.   It is this that we need to be aware of.   That sometimes we over stress, over think and that this impacts on our well being.   We need to keep in mind that we will eventually view these issues over a longer time frame at which point it is likely that we will be able to appreciate things we can’t in the short term.    We should therefore be wary of our stress levels and of stressing out at issues for in the longer term all this is likely to achieve is damage to our health and well being.

For me as I continue the process of moving I will bear this in mind such that the next time I feel stressed I will take a step back and remind myself that in the long term, with the appropriate level of effort, things generally work out.

 

 

TV box sets and feelings of guilt

Over the last week or so I have taken some time off and not been as active on social media, my blog, and otherwise online as I had been previously throughout the year.    This is not due to spending time planning for the year ahead, to reading books or to anything else that might be considered productive.   In-fact I have spent at least a few days of the week or so off just engaged in watching TV box sets.   The problem with this is that at various points in this period of “vegging out” I have found myself feeling guilty as to my inactivity.

Over the last year to date I have read a variety books about how to be effective, productive or how to get the best from myself or from the teams which I work with.   This includes reading Andrew Cope’s Being Brilliant, Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way and Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit among others.   Each of the books talks about how we tackle obstacles, build positive habits and generally work smarter.   They are all about making the most of the limited resources in relation to time and also our limited cognitive resources.   None of these books talk about vegging out in front of Game of Thrones for two or three days.   It may be that this reading plays some part in my feelings of guilt.   Clearly I am not making the best of my cognitive abilities or the time I have available to me if all I am doing is watching John Snow mount his defence of Winterfell.  As a result I feel guilty for wasting my valuable resources.   Clearly I should be doing something with my time.

My current reading of Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death however has got me thinking that maybe I need to reconsider the factors which lead me to feelings of guilt.    Becker talks about a paradox of individuality versus our finite lifespan, and of thought versus body.    Clearly most of my activities focus on thought, in planning, in writing and sharing thoughts, in working out how to make most of my time and resources and of putting into practice the outcomes of my thinking.    I have built a habit of these efforts; how can I make best use of my time?   How can I prioritize tasks?   How can I ensure I get all tasks that need doing done?  This habit then leads to the feeling of guilt when I try and break with the habit and sit and watch TV for hours on end.   But what about what Becker refers to as body or what about a break from thought?

As I am not really a fitness focused person I think a break from thought as opposed to action focused on body or fitness aligns more with my priorities.    Considering thought or our cognitive ability as being of limited resource might it not be necessary to provide this resource some respite occasionally?    Might a person not feel re-energized following a period of rest from thought?  Could it be that a limited period of vegging out might have a positive outcome?

As I return to the online sphere after a short break my guilt is the issue which worries me as opposed to the time spent sat watching the TV.   The guilt indicates that internally I feel I shouldn’t be spending any significant time sat glued to the screen.    Yet I enjoyed some time catching up on some TV.   I felt relaxed.    I felt at rest.     Is a period of TV watching or similar vegging out just another luxury which in moderation has its place?      At this point I would suggest it is and therefore hopefully when I next decide to sit down for a period of serial TV watching I may be able to do so and enjoy it more, devoid of feelings of guilt.

Do you have any time set aside for vegging out during the summer holiday period?  Is it your guilty pleasure or just a big no no and a waste of time?

 

 

 

It’s the little things that make the difference!

I have been struggling in addressing my personal fitness for a significant part of the year.   Ideas with regarding taking up jogging have came and went.   I just cannot seem to get up in the morning early enough to go out before work and am too tired after work.    I have considered buying a running machine, however I remember my previous attempts when upon purchasing one out in the UAE the most exercise it ever saw was the two blokes who had the unfortunate job of carrying it up the stairs.    I just seem unable to make much in the way of progress.   The want, or mind, is there however the motivation, the heart, isn’t.

That was until the other morning, when I decided to park my car on the other side of the school campus due to attending an event in the evening at that side of the school and wanting to leave directly from there.   The walk across the school took around 10 minutes and according to my phone accounted for around 850 steps, most of which being uphill.    Then it hit me, here was an easy solution at least to make some progress towards improved fitness;  to park at the other side of school every morning and walk across the campus.    This would amount to regular exercise without have much of a significant impact on my working day.   Yes I would need to get up slightly earlier however it would also give me the opportunity to network with colleagues who I suspect would be around campus in the mornings, as well as allowing me to take in the lovely grounds of the school.    I would be getting exercise, appreciating the surroundings and also improving my overall visibility and presence on site.

So there we have it; a little thing in parking across school, which could make a big difference.    I suppose, if I am being honest, this is easy enough now however the challenge will be whether I can keep it up when the winter weather returns!

Time to recharge

The last week or so has seen me less engaged in the social side of education, including blogging and tweeting, than normal.  I have also been less engaged in reading and almost totally disengaged in anything akin to exercise.   I have found myself content to arrive home at the end of each day, do some prep work for the following day and then lapse a dazed state watching popular TV watching.

Looking at my twitter activity over the last few weeks I have returned to the point of re-tweeting some brilliant posts and ideas from others rather than contributing anything much new myself.  This is something I am a little critical of as in my early use of twitter this was the limited extent to which I was involved.   At that time, and on reflection, I vowed to make an effort to be a sharer but also a contributor and therefore a return to sharing alone represents a step backwards.

The question at hand is why this has happened and why I now find myself in this situation.    I think the answer to this question lies in looking at all the things that went on during February.   During February I took place in #29daysofwriting during which time I wrote 29 blog entries, 1 for each day of February.   I also took part in #teacher5adaysketch and made some attempts around getting a little bit fitter as part of #teacher5aday.

I have previously written on the benefits of treating life as a series of sprints as opposed to a marathon (you can read this posting here) however there is a down side to this approach.    The downside for me appears to have hit me during the last few weeks.

My sprint through February has left me a little depleted in terms of energy and motivation.    As such my TV watching has been an attempt to recharge my batteries and build up on my currently depleted reserves of energy.

Looking back at my posting on sprinting through activities I still stand by my comments however in hindsight I will add one additional point.  If you plan to sprint through an activity be aware of the impact it will have on your energy reserves and the fact that following the spring you will need to rebuild these reserves.  Also, the bigger the sprint, the bigger the required recharge period so after 29 blog posts in a month, plus a number of other activities I need a larger recharge period than if the sprint was focused on a lesser or single activity.    Looking back I now see the importance of including a period for recharging within my plan and making sure you stuck to it.

I now feel I am coming out of my recharge period, which is further helped by the bank holiday weekend.   With that in mind, onwards and upwards!!