Time Management Principles 1.3 Multitasking

Some teachers may have been introduced to time-management as a student, and they may have been encouraged to save time by multi-tasking. This technique is useful in some contexts, but it has very limited value in schools.

The TM4T method actively discourages multi-tasking as an everyday practice; in fact, it advocates the opposite: a rigorous focus on doing one thing at a time, excellenty well.

If you are new to education, you should be wary of the persistent myth of the multi-tasking teacher, who effortlessly fits in mountains of work to their busy day. The illusion of productivity is beguiling but entirely misleading. The fact is that multi-tasking frequently means that each task takes longer, the quality of output is reduced, and – most importantly – there is a significantly increased likelihood of stress. Multi-tasking is an example of a non-scaleable technique – one that works in small-scale situations, but does not cope with high volumes of work (the law of diminishing returns applies). This does not mean that you should never multi-task, of course. If an obvious time saver occurs to you, then put it into practice. Just don't expect to find useful multi-tasking time savers in every teaching context. The time savings are frequently an illusion.

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