Too Much to Do, Too Little Time: The Opportunity Hidden in Teacher Overload

Ask any PE teacher how they’re doing and you’ll usually get the same answer.
Busy.

Busy teaching.
Busy coaching.
Busy organising fixtures, trips, events, reports, meetings, equipment, and a hundred other things that never appear on a timetable.

The workload in PE doesn’t come in neat boxes.
It comes in waves.

And most teachers are doing their best just to stay afloat.

The feeling of having too much to do and too little time isn’t a sign of poor organisation.
It’s a feature of the job.

But within that pressure sits an opportunity most people never get to see.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝗜𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁
𝗜𝘁’𝘀 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝘁 𝗢𝗻𝗰𝗲

When everything feels urgent, nothing gets the attention it deserves.

Planning becomes reactive.
Lessons become survival.
Reflection disappears.

Teachers aren’t short of ideas or commitment.
They’re short of space.

Mental space.
Time space.
Energy space.

So the default becomes doing more.
More activities.
More resources.
More sessions.
More everything.

And yet, the more we add, the heavier everything feels.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀

In high performance sport, pressure does something useful.
It exposes what matters and what doesn’t.

When time is limited, you don’t train everything.
You train what moves the needle.

Teaching is no different.

Overload forces an important question.

What actually makes the biggest difference to my students?

Not what fills time.
Not what looks impressive.
But what genuinely supports learning, confidence, and progress.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆
𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻

The solution to overload is rarely doing more.
It’s doing less, better.

This might mean:

• Letting go of unnecessary complexity in lessons
• Repeating core skills more purposefully instead of constantly chasing novelty
• Using simple structures that reduce decision fatigue for both teachers and students
• Building routines that carry lessons instead of reinventing everything each week

When teaching becomes simpler, it doesn’t become smaller.
It becomes stronger.

𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀, 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗹

The biggest shift happens when teachers stop trying to cope and start trying to design.

Design lessons that run themselves.
Design routines that students understand deeply.
Design progression that guides planning instead of rewriting it every week.

Systems don’t remove workload.
But they stop it from being wasted.