How to Relax and Still Be Productive This Summer

Many educators spend the summer searching for some kind of balance between restoration and productivity. Over the years, we both have learned that the more intentionally we spend our free time, the more likely we are to return to school refreshed and energized. We recommend the following three practices to reconnect, reflect, and restore this summer.

Reconnect: Plan Your Own Dinner Party

During the school year, endless social media posts, podcasts, articles, and videos beckon for our attention, yet we don’t have the time or the energy to engage. As each school year winds down, we jot down the names of people and topics we’d like to revisit during summer break, so we have a curated list of conversations to explore, rather than starting each day with the same scroll.

Similar to the question, “If you could invite three people to dinner, dead or alive, who would they be?”—this summer, consider building a metaphorical “table” of people who might help you reconnect to your priorities and values.

For example, during the school year, Margaret typically focuses on conversations that directly connect to teaching upper-grade English language arts content. This summer, her “dinner table conversation” will circle back to ideas she came across but had to put on hold to meet the daily demands of classroom teaching. She’s curious about additional ways to connect to her high school students, so she plans to research building relationships in general while reading on the beach or listening to podcasts as she gardens. Maria Shriver’s work, for example, explores ways to find common ground during moments of conflict, and clinical psychologist Dr. Shefali Tsabary provides parents with concrete strategies for strengthening relationships with their children. Teachers might benefit from these communication tools, as well.

Whether it’s a deep dive into exploring emotional well-being and personal growth with authors such as Brené Brown or James Clear, or learning more about the mindsets of successful individuals like Keanu Reeves, Simone Biles, or Ina Garten, taking time to carefully curate a “dinner party” guest list can be an experience that satisfies your innate curiosity… and perhaps inspires you to similarly give students the freedom to guide their own learning.

Reflect: Celebrate Your Wins

According to the research, reflective educators improve their practice by identifying areas for growth. But often that glance back leads to thoughts (and colleague conversations) about the books we didn’t get to, the skills we left uncovered, and the students we never quite got on the right track. It’s easy (and maybe instinctual) to focus on what was lacking instead of on what was enough (or often more than enough!).

Fortunately, we can reframe the year by creating what we call the “Feel Good Binder,” a collection of artifacts that documents the wins from throughout the school year. This idea harks back to Stephen Covey’s leadership concept of an “emotional bank account”: We “deposit” positive experiences to later draw upon when we are feeling depleted.

We both use binders with plastic sleeves to preserve our wins: thank-you notes from administration, printed emails from parents expressing gratitude for “being there,” college essays that highlight classroom moments, and even a dried-out sticky note with “thanks for the extension.” Built over time, the binders enable you to savor these moments and remind yourself that you are an educator who shows up, does your best, and makes an impact. And how we see ourselves in our role is crucial, not only for teachers but also for their students. John Hattie’s research suggests that teacher self-efficacy has a direct influence on student engagement and classroom success.

Whether you create a handcrafted scrapbook, a digital collection, or, like us, a simple three-ring binder, curating these feel-good mementos will help you celebrate your wins and reframe your “losses” as lessons to learn from. Ultimately, spending time reflecting on positive memories allows us to ride the inevitable ebbs and flows of teaching, affirming why we entered the field to begin with: to positively impact our students’ lives.

Restore: Find Your Flow

This summer, consider the intersection between the concepts of flow and hard fun to choose or reacquaint yourself with personally meaningful practices. “Flow” occurs when you are so engaged in an activity that you lose all track of time. We think of these immersive activities as “hard fun,” a term coined by the late mathematician and educator Seymour Papert, who believed that “everyone likes hard, challenging things to do.”

For example, as an avid reader, in the summer Beth likes to tackle books that are a personal challenge because of their length, topic, or text complexity. She’ll listen to the audiobook while riding her bike and have a hard copy at home to reference what she might miss through listening or passages she wants to revisit. Last summer, she completed John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, a novel on her reading list for years. With the book being over 600 pages (a 27-hour audiobook), completing it felt like an accomplishment, and Owen Meany’s eccentric nature and the enduring impact of his unwavering morality and loyalty will stay with her for a long time.

Most important, Papert writes that hard fun has “to be the right things matched to the individual.” We’ve seen colleagues find their flow and engage in hard fun using apps to run a 5K or master a second language, explore the hiking and biking trails near their home, document their summer through photo-journaling, and learn how to play an instrument or sing. The satisfaction that comes from engaging in hard fun and finding your flow is both restorative and inspirational. In the fall, perhaps this experience will inform opportunities you create that offer choice to your students.

If you believe, like we do, that we show up to our classrooms the way we show up to our lives, this summer break, find some activities that you find engaging and affirming. Share with your teacher friends (and us) any creative, enjoyable summer strategies you use that set you up for return success. We need to support each other to reconnect, reflect, and restore, so that we return to school motivated and present for the next group of students who need us.