6 Simple, Free Ways to Go from Ragged and Rundown to Rested and Renewed

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. (1)

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?” (2) 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]."(3)

Six Ounces of Prevention

Benjamin Franklin famously said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." (4) With that sage advice in mind, here are six ounces of prevention for mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion.

1. Practice the “Strategic No”

We can be besieged by invitations to attend worthwhile charitable and other non-school events. While there can be value in attending some of these events, before accepting an invitation, stop and prayerfully ask yourself, “Is this the best use of my time? Will attending this event contribute to my school leadership or take time from more important things?” If you conclude this is not the best use of your time, politely decline the invitation. You don’t need to give a detailed explanation and should not lie about the reason. In turning down the invitation, you may wish to consider language like this: “Thank you for thinking of me and for the kind invitation to     .  After reviewing my commitments, it is best that I decline the invitation.” Those commitments are not necessarily an event; they could be the need to focus on a project, schedule a meeting with someone else, devote time to one’s family, or rest. Be faithful in saying yes to essential things but willing to say no to the less important.

2. Get Control of Your Schedule

We live busy lives. Much of our busyness is unavoidable. We have jobs, children to care for, and perhaps older parents to care for. We have church and school responsibilities and more. We have things to do, people to see, places to go.

Being responsible adults does not mean that we should cram every minute of the week days, and weekend with events. Step back and reconsider your commitments. Are there good commitments that should be dropped to create margins in your life? Do your kids need to have their entire weekends consumed with planned activities? When on vacation, is it necessary to do and see as much as possible while traveling a long distance? Would you be more rested and rejuvenated if you spent more time resting, reading, and doing so closer to home? My point is that although we must be faithful and responsible, we should not be constantly “on go.” Even Jesus, who came to save the world, told his disciples to pull away from the busyness: “And he said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat” (Mark 6:31).

3. Stop Filling Your Mind with Doom and Gloom

The phrase “Garbage in, garbage out” (GIGO) originated in the early days of computer science, around the 1950s and 1960s. It was coined to emphasize that computers will process whatever data they are given, regardless of whether it is accurate or meaningful. If the input data (garbage in) is flawed or nonsensical, the output (garbage out) will also be flawed or nonsensical.

Similarly, if we fill our minds with the most recent “crisis,” the doom, gloom, murder, mayhem, conflict, and outrage that fills the news and much of social media, we will experience mental, emotional, and spiritual “stress tremors” deep within us. We may not always be conscious of these subterranean stress tremors, but they contribute to our weariness. If they go on long enough, the stress tremors can become a full-blown earthquake of exhaustion. When we spend our precious time and mental energies focused on and fretting about things over which we have no control, we add stress to our lives and sap energy that could be put to more productive and life-giving use.  We can experience crisis fatigue.

To rest our minds and souls, we should focus on what we can change, letting go  of the things beyond our control. By focusing on our spheres of power and influence, we can make a positive difference while avoiding the stress and worry induced when we focus on things outside our control or influence.

Reducing cable news and social media consumption is one way to do this. I am not suggesting we become uninformed, indifferent citizens. We are called to seek the city's welfare (Jeremiah 29:7). This does not mean, however, that we should immerse ourselves in and fall victim to the “crisis rage machine” that is cable news, which is more interested in advertising dollars than serious journalism. Instead, rest your mind and soul by filling your mind with that which is:

True, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:8–9).

4. Fill Your Mind with God’s Word

Speaking of filling our minds with whatever is true, we must fill our minds with God’s word. Without spiritual nourishment, our souls wither. Withered souls are tired and shallow souls incapable of producing spiritual fruit in our lives or the lives of others. Withered souls are also troubled souls, full of anxiety.

This is why Jesus tells us: “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:4-5). He also prayed in John 17:17: "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth."

Are you routinely reading God‘s word? If not, recommit yourself to doing so. Put Bible reading in your schedule. Don’t try to live your life or lead your school with a malnourished soul.

5. Seek More Silence

There is too much noise and distraction in our lives.

When was the last time you sat for an hour with nothing more than your thoughts? When did you last stand in line and not grab your phone? When was the last time you drove with the radio off? When was the last time you had an evening without the television on, even as background noise?

Quiet is essential for reflection and refocusing. It is necessary for letting our minds rest. It is also required for deep thinking and creativity. In Put your phone down: 3 steps to intentional, productive work habits, Jack Winston reports:

Older Americans are suffering from phone addiction just as much as the teen crowd. Nowhere is this more present than at work. The average adult spends more than four hours on their phone daily, and much of this time can be categorized as unproductive. If you’re clocking hours, that’s almost 40% of a workday. Amy Blankson, cofounder of the Digital Wellness Institute, estimates that adults today receive an average of 237 notifications per day across platforms like Instagram and Slack. This kind of fragmented attention can reduce our capacity for deep work, impacting our productivity and creativity.

When your mind is distracted by noise, you cannot give undivided attention to the essential things in your personal and professional life. The most significant sources of noise are our electronic devices. We must learn to disconnect from the constant distraction and pull of emails, text messages, and social media to rest our minds and souls. Periodically turn off all electronic distractions, including TV and even music. Minimize the number of notifications you permit on your devices.

Silence can be golden. St. Isaac the Syrian is attributed to say: “Solitude heals the soul from the distraction and turbulence of external affairs.” More poignantly, John Ortberg warns: “The great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them [emphasis added].” (5)

6. Eat Better, Exercise More, and Get Enough Sleep

I know, you’ve heard this a million times! Nevertheless, it is worth repeating. You will be more rested, alert, creative, and less stressed if you eat healthy, exercise more, and get plenty of sleep. There is no shortcut. This requires discipline. If you find the discipline to create healthier habits of mind and body difficult, I highly recommend the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Practicing the “strategic no,” getting control of your schedule, avoiding a constant diet of gloom and doom, spending time in God’s word, periodically tuning out the noise, and developing healthy habits and a healthy lifestyle will go a long way to reducing stress and giving rest to your mind, soul, and body.

Take time this summer to recalibrate your lifestyle. If you do, you will be rested and restored rather than ragged and rundown.

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1 Porter, M. E. and N. Nohria (2018, 2018-07-01). "How CEOs Manage Time." Harvard Business Review. from https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-ceos-manage-time.

2 William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act IV, Scene 1 https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=asyoulikeit&Act=4&Scope=act&pleasewait=1&msg=pl

3 John Ruskin. n.d.. Munera Pulveris, Pre-Raphaelitism—Aratra Pentelici, The Ethics of Dust, Fiction, Fair, and Foul, The Elements of Drawing. Colonial Press Company. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26716/pg26716-images.html

4 Benjamin Franklin originally used this phrase in the context of fire safety in a letter to The Pennsylvania Gazette in 1735, advising citizens of Philadelphia on the importance of being proactive to prevent disastrous fires. See https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0002

5 John Orberg. 2002. The life you‘ve always wanted. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.