When the Work Feels Heavy—Just Wash the Towels

by Claire Brady, EdD

“Sometimes knowing we're not alone in the heaviness is its own kind of lightness.”

If your day feels hard, wash the towels.

That simple wisdom from writer Casey Huff landed differently for me this semester—because in higher education right now, the days feel hard more often than not.

She reminds us that when life feels too big, start small. Towels are easy. No matching, sorting, or strategizing—just one small act of progress you can see, touch, and fold.

Last week, a colleague told me she'd spent hours crafting the perfect email to her provost about a retention initiative—only to realize she was procrastinating on the real problem: she was burned out and didn't know how to say it. She needed permission to do something small. Something finishable. She needed to wash the towels.

Why the Work Feels Heavy Right Now

Let's be honest—our work is hard right now.

Budgets are shrinking while expectations are ballooning. Teams are running lean. Students are struggling in new and complex ways. Many higher ed professionals are leaving the field at an alarming rate. They're not leaving because they stopped caring—they're leaving because caring became unsustainable.

We're navigating generational change, political disruption, enrollment uncertainty, and deep questions about belonging and purpose. It's no wonder so many of us feel both proud and perpetually exhausted.

The leaders and staff who show up every day—pouring empathy, strategy, and innovation into their campuses—are carrying a weight that few outside the profession understand.

What "Washing the Towels" Looks Like in Higher Ed

When you're in the thick of it—when every inbox message feels urgent and every meeting feels heavier than the last—it's easy to feel like you're treading water. That's when it helps to find your version of "washing the towels."

Maybe it's:

• For enrollment managers: Updating one prospect's file completely

• For faculty: Grading just a few assignments instead of the whole stack

• For student affairs professionals: Responding to one student who's been waiting

• For academic leaders: Writing one genuine sentence in next week's campus message

• For anyone: Clearing your desk before you head home, sending that overdue thank-you note, or revising the paragraph in the annual report that's been nagging you

Something you can finish. Something that reminds you that progress still exists, even on the days when the bigger picture feels blurred.

The instinct is to stay late, fire off 30 emails, and emerge victorious. But that's not washing towels—that's proving you can still lift the mountain. And mountains don't get lighter through willpower alone.

Why This Mindset Matters for the Long Game

The towel-washing mindset isn't about productivity for productivity's sake—it's about reclaiming agency. When you fold a stack of clean towels (literal or metaphorical), you remind yourself that small acts still add up to something meaningful.

One load doesn't fix the laundry mountain, but it gives you a win—and sometimes that's enough momentum to tackle the next one.

I know some of you are thinking: "I don't have the luxury of small wins—everything on my plate is critical." Fair. But burnout doesn't ask permission, and you can't pour from an empty cup. Even five minutes of intentional reset can be the difference between sustainability and collapse.

Higher ed work has always required heart. But lately, it also demands endurance. That's why these small acts matter—not because they solve the big challenges, but because they help you stay in the work long enough to be part of the solution.

The system doesn't need superhumans. It needs steady, human humans—people who know when to pause, reset, and find grace in the small things.

Just Wash the Towels

So if your campus feels like it's asking for more than you can give today, don't try to overhaul the system or rewrite the strategic plan before lunch. Start smaller.

Take one action that lightens the load for you or someone else. Approve that student request that's been waiting in your inbox. Schedule that one-on-one with a colleague who's been struggling. Step outside for five minutes and breathe some real air before the next Zoom.

When the day feels impossible, when leadership feels lonely, when you're questioning how to keep showing up—just wash the towels.

Not because it solves everything.

But because it reminds you that you still can.

And tomorrow, when you show up again (and you will), that small act of completion will have been the thread that held you together.

The work needs you. Start small. Stay human. The towels can wait if they need to—but so can the emails, the strategy docs, and the crisis that feels urgent today but won't matter in five years.

What matters is that you're still here. Still showing up. Still choosing to care.

That's enough.

P.S. What's your version of washing the towels? I'd love to hear what small act helps you reset when the work feels heavy. Sometimes knowing we're not alone in the heaviness is its own kind of lightness.