Why you should ‘eat the elephant’ this summer holidays

There is a particular kind of dread most teachers know well. It arrives somewhere around the second week of the summer holidays, when the euphoria of the last day has faded and the nagging concern begins.

It might be that scheme of work that still needs reviewing, or perhaps some differentiated worksheets you promised yourself you would make before the new classes arrive. It could even be the whole-school oracy Inset you volunteered to design and deliver in September.

You know these jobs exist, you know they need doing, and yet they sit there, untouched, growing larger in your imagination. And alongside the dread comes something worse: a low-level guilt that quietly takes the shine off a well-earned rest.

Time to eat the elephant

The problem is not laziness: it is scale. When a task feels enormous, the brain effectively freezes.

Cognitive psychologist John Sweller’s foundational research on cognitive load theory explains why: when we are confronted with too many moving parts at once, our working memory hits a bottleneck and shuts down.

However, this is where the idea of “eating the elephant” can help.

The phrase is most famously associated with archbishop Desmond Tutu, who used it as a genuine political philosophy for dismantling apartheid.

His argument was that staring at the full scale of systemic injustice produces exactly the same paralysis, but that small, consistent daily action, ie, one bite at a time, is the only way through.

It’s a view backed up by the likes of BJ Fogg, founder of the Behaviour Design Lab at Stanford University, in his book Tiny Habits, and James Clear in his book Atomic Habits.

Keeping motivation building

They note, for example, that spending one hour a day on a project is far more achievable to commit to and therefore start getting work done, rather than relying on willpower, a notoriously fickle feeling.

Research from Columbia University, meanwhile, suggests that breaking a large project into small stages creates a series of finish lines, keeping motivation building rather than fading.

It’s an approach I wholeheartedly endorse and have used regularly in my career.

For example, as an early career teacher, I spent my first summer planning my entire sixth form A-level Tudor unit, roughly an hour a day over several weeks.

This year, many years on, I will be taking the same approach to work ahead of me to build an Oxbridge activity resource programme and revise a new edition of an A-level politics textbook.

Rest is not optional

It is also worth being clear about what this approach is not. It is not a case for turning your summer into an extension of the school year.

Rest, recuperation and time with friends and family matter and should be your priority, and are well worth planning for, too. I have tennis lessons booked for the same reason as the above - to ensure I get out and enjoy my break.

So this summer, eat the elephant and enjoy your time off without that nagging feeling because you know the work you have to do is being quietly devoured, one bite at a time.

David Tuck is head of history and politics at Harrow International School Hong Kong