Every year when the first of August rolls around, so many of us collectively grit our teeth and brace for impact. Back-to-school season is upon us, and it can be pretty overwhelming. All of the sudden, my inbox is full of messages from the school (and I had really forgotten how often those people like to email me), and I halfheartedly try to skim through the paragraphs that they’ve sent, but every message seems to contain important, urgent notices that require my immediate attention. My calendar quickly fills up with meetings and events and sports tryouts and club gatherings. My grocery cart is full of school supplies, and it seems that my back-to-school haul gets more and more expensive each year. This year my kids are both in need of new backpacks, new school shoes, and new uniform polos, in addition to the usual paper, binders, markers, and glue. Add in the fact that I am also a teacher, and my summer vacation is ending as well, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for the most dreaded month of the year.
Every year I try to mentally prepare myself for the stress that August will bring, and every year it knocks me off of my feet anyway. While my immediate instinct is to perpetually hit the snooze button on my alarm clock and burrow under my bedspread, I can’t avoid August completely.
Here are a few things that I’ve been doing to try to mitigate the back-to-school stress:
- Just focus on the next thing. I tend to get overwhelmed by the ever-increasing tasks on my to-do list, and it often has a paralyzing effect on me. I don’t know what to do first, and I know there are too many things to even accomplish in a day, so instead I end up scrolling on my phone and avoiding completing any tasks at all. Or I try to start one task, and my ADHD brain kicks in and I skip to another task when the first one is only halfway finished, and then I skip to another task, and then go back to the first…and before I know it, I’ve got an entire list of tasks that are each only partially finished. To combat this, my mantra has become to just focus on the next thing. I’m going to complete the most time-sensitive tasks first, and I try not to even think about the other items on the list, and just accept the fact that I probably won’t get as much done in a single day as I think I can.
- Lose the extraneous responsibilities. It’s great that your friend is completing a mile-a-day fitness challenge and posting about it on social media, but let’s be honest, this is probably not the month to take on any extra challenges yourself. This isn’t the month to start a new diet plan. This isn’t the month to join a new book club. There’s no rule that says you have to commit to the PTSO or serve on the library board. Take a look at your (very full) calendar and see if there are any extraneous responsibilities that you can erase. Keep your Saturday mornings lazy if you can. Remember that it’s going to take some time to readjust to being on a school schedule, and give yourself some grace when it comes to planning. Practice telling people things like, “Sorry, but I just don’t have the bandwidth for that right now.”
- Get some extra sleep. This is the one that I struggle with the most. I am a night owl through and through, and it’s hard for me to shut off my brain before midnight. Those hours at the end of the night when my children are asleep in bed feel so precious to me that I hate to cut them short by putting myself to bed. But I find that when I don’t get enough sleep, my stress becomes overwhelming. If I don’t want to end up crying in the carline over something inconsequential, I need to make sure that I have enough rest.
