The demands of leading a school can be relentless. Long days are filled with presentations to prepare and deliver, conferences to attend, parent and staff meetings, conflict management, board and donor meetings, writing reports, project planning, strategic planning and new program development, managing school finances, conducting interviews, and attending school events Then there are the phone calls, never-ending emails, and text messages.
Long hours with too much to do is typical for leaders. The Harvard Business Review reports that CEOs work an average of 9.7 hours on weekdays and 79% average 3.9 hours on weekend days. They also work on 70% of their vacation days, averaging 2.4 hours daily. Working 9-12 hours on weekdays and more on weekends, holidays, and vacations can be physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually tiring and lead to exhaustion.
Being Tired vs Being Exhausted
It is essential to distinguish between being tired and being exhausted. Tiredness results from working hard, caring for our families and homes, and serving others. This is a good tired that comes from doing good work. Solomon tells us, "Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much" (Ecclesiastes 5:12). The sleep of a laborer is sweet because it is earned through hard work. A good day's labor leads to a good night’s sleep. Leonardo da Vinci is attributed to having said, "As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death." The gospels record several instances in which the disciples kept falling asleep after a long, tiring day of ministry, “He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy (Matthew 26:43).
Fatigue, conversely, is a state of constant mental or physical exhaustion that negatively impacts our work, relationships, and cognitive, physical, and spiritual health. It is a state of depletion. Exhaustion often manifests itself in depression, lack of motivation, frustration, and cynicism.
How to Avoid Exhaustion or Recover from It
The aphorism “Too much of a good thing can be bad” is often attributed to William Shakespeare, who wrote something similar in As You Like It. In Act 4, Scene 1, the character Rosalind says, “Can one desire too much of a good thing?” This rhetorical question suggests that even positive things can become detrimental when taken to excess. This includes work. John Ruskin says, “For people to be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it [emphasis added]."
Six ounces of prevention
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