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5 Tips To Putting The Pieces of Your Life Back Together

1211480_happy_puzzleI recently took my band to the UIL Concert & Sight Reading competition. We worked hard on the music. We worked hard in after school sectionals. We worked hard on passing classes to retain eligibility. The end result was that the band got first division in the Concert portion of the contest, and first division in the Sight Reading portion. That combination is called Sweepstakes.

Putting together a performance like this takes its toll on everyone involved. As a result, I have fallen behind on a number of things in my personal life. The most notable is my housekeeping.Since I conduct the second band, it is made up of mostly 7th graders. This was their first year to go to the UIL. The small number of 8th graders I have got 2s and 3s last year. This was my very first sweepstakes also. Needless to say, the students and director were excited.

Putting together a performance like this takes its toll on everyone involved. As a result, I have fallen behind on a number of things in my personal life. The most notable is my housekeeping.

Now that the competition is over, things will begin to return to normal in my personal life. I won’t have sectionals or full band rehearsals after school like I have been having for the last two months. Things like eating healthy, going through mail regularly, staying on top of washing dishes and laundry, and playing with my dogs have suffered.

So what to do now?
The first thing I’m going to do will be to go back and reread my 25 Tips For Less Stress series.

This week, I will begin by:

  1. Drinking water
    Even though I am not a big fan of tap water, I will drink nothing but water. I have allowed myself to slip into the habit once again of drinking juices and flavored drinks (still nothing carbonated). Nothing but water again.
  2. Eliminate junk food
    I have also begun eating desserts and just all around bad foods. It all started over Thanksgiving break. I got back on track, and then my coworker had a stroke. Bad foods are comforting, especially when I didn’t feel like cooking when I got home! No fried foods, no desserts,
  3. Increase healthy foods
    When I eliminate junk foods, I will replace them with the healthy foods. Fruits and vegetables will be in my home again. I will eat a salad at least once a day.
  4. Declutter my house
    I am tired of having too much stuff around my house! It’s time to take control once again.
  5. Reduce possessions
    I have a severe case of what Dave Ramsey calls “stuffitis.” I like stuff. I am going to spend the next few weeks going through my house and finding things that I haven’t used in over a year and chunking them. Giving away, throwing away, or selling — one way or the other, I’ll get rid of stuff!
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Those are the first five things I’m planning on doing. I’m sure as I see the progress with them, I will be inspired to do more and just really start to get my life back under control!

What about you? What are some things that you have found that work to get you refocused again after a busy time?

Joel Wagner (@sywtt) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. So You Want To Teach? is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.

Joel Wagner
Joel Wagner (<strong><a href="http://www.twitter.com/sywtt">@sywtt</a></strong>) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. <strong><a href="http://www.soyouwanttoteach.com/">So You Want To Teach?</a></strong> is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.
http://www.SoYouWantToTeach.com

4 thoughts on “5 Tips To Putting The Pieces of Your Life Back Together

  1. congratulations on the wins! that’s so huge and you should be resting on your laurels.

    after a busy time, for me, i like to take a day in the following weekend and do nothing but watch tv dvds and decompress. sometime during that long day of absolute nothingness, i’ll get bored and want to do something interesting or creative after acting like a shlump, and the cycle fires itself up again.

    the other thing, as you noted, is housekeeping. once i start tidying up the place, i feel “wow, i’m being awesomely productive” and then i get inspired to continue the trend.

    congrats again! huzzah!

  2. Congratulations! What a great accomplishment.

    After a very busy time one of the first things I should keep doing but always falls off the schedule for me is going to the gym. Hitting the gym for me really signals that I’m back on track and am taking care of myself once again. But it sounds like your plan for a return to healthy eating will give you just that. I feel good when I take a litle extra time and prepare something new or just a favorite dish (a favorite salad?).

    Best of luck!
    Oralea

  3. Congratulations! Hard work does pay off. It paid off for you and your class. I think I should use some of those less stress test since I tend to stress out since finals are coming up and teachers want to decide to give out papers. However, getting back on topic, I think you are doing an awesome job.

  4. Thank you to all of you! For some reason, I decided to do a harder program for our spring concert than we did for UIL. I am working my tail off during class to get this music sounding good. I only thought I might be able to relax as the year winds down!

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