Well, hello there, top teachers. We are your host, Bridget Spackman and Michelle Emerson,

and we are here to make your life easier by helping you master your time, organization,

and productivity as a teacher. Today's episode is going to be about one of our favorite topics,

balance. The summer is often a time when teachers want to relax and do all of the fun things,

but they also want to be able to get things done for the school year ahead. Teachers often feel

torn on how to balance this, so we're going to share all of our best tips in today's episode.

But first, let's hear a time-sucking hurdle from Daniel. Daniel says, my TSAH is not working on

stuff during summer and feeling guilty. Sound familiar. I feel like I need to be working on school stuff.

Daniel, I totally get you, but we have to remember that we need to take care of ourselves first before we can give to

others. It's that whole being on an airplane, giving yourself oxygen before you put the oxygen on

the person next to you. And I like to really set times for just me. And this is usually the month of

June. So like I will say from this date to this date, I'm not going to focus on any schoolwork.

And I'm going to just focus on re-energizing myself and giving back to me. Yeah, I think this

sentiment is so common among teachers. And it honestly makes me a little bit sad because I wish

teachers didn't feel that pressure to constantly be working. Now, let me clarify

if it makes you happy, then go for it. There have been so many summers where I wanted to be working

and I wanted to be prepping for the next year because that was bringing me joy. But don't ever feel

guilty for not working. If you want to spend your summer doing other things,

you deserve to have that free time after working hard all year. Absolutely, Michelle. I think that's a

really good point to make is that we want to make sure that we're doing things that light us up,

that lift us up, and that encourage us and to help us kind of move that needle

for order in any way that fits best for us, right? So if moving the needle forward for you is going

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