I used to teach a student - let's call him Jack - who had a punctuality problem. Read Jack's story here.
When you draw up your Yearly Plan, you will almost certainly see problems at certain times. We call these 'hotspots' in our plan.
The point of Jack's story is that - in TM4T - the solutions frequently do NOT co-reside neatly with those problems. You do though, need to review your Yearly Plan and identify your hotspots clearly in advance. For most teachers, this is not difficult: exams, coursework deadlines, student report dates and so on. For specialist teachers, other dates will leap out: sports day, school play and so on. Right at the beginning of the school year, most of us can unerringly anticipate (often with a sinking heart) what lies ahead. "Are they really expecting me to do Year 8 reports during BTEC moderation?"; "Are the District Finals really on OCR deadline day?"; "Isn't that our anniversary?"; "OMG Jokes, right?". You may find yourself asking yourself any - possibly all - these questions, and mentally answering 'yes-yes-yes-no'. Not a joke at all.
Now, when problems like this occur, it is of course possible that the solution resides neatly near to the problem. You may be able to get the Year 8 reports re-scheduled, or bribe the BTEC moderator to come a week early, or hold your anniversary another time, or.... but it's unlikely.
The key technique is to focus away from the problem and to minimise the impact of any hotspots. The Action you take will vary depending on your circumstances, but these are likely avenues to explore:
1. Enter preparation tasks on your Yearly Plan BEFORE your hotspots. For example, if your Yearly Plan shows that you need to mark three lots of coursework in March, then earmark two weeks in February for preparation. Don't worry too much about the detail of this - it might involve anything from printing marksheets or labelling crates to buying paracetamols, but make sure you have enough time to prepare yourself to work efficiently.
2. Take a broad view of what ELSE is going on during your hotspots, and also during your preparation time. For example, you might be teaching a Year 7 class at the same time as your Year 11 coursework needs to be marked; if so, review your Year 7 scheme of work and make sure that you have low effort, low energy lessons at that time. Impose homework holidays to remove any concurrent marking during your hotspots. You may have optional after-school clubs: tell your students now that they'll be paused at specific times.
3. Involve your family and loved ones in your calendar. For example, you might need to tell them that Easter is going to be really really busy for you and that you're going to need a bit of space and support. So: you need to tell them w-a-a-y in advance of Easter and remind them periodically.
4. As well as earmarking time for preparation immediately before your hotspots, schedule some time early in the year to think about the mechanics of your marking. Are there things which you could do - or your students could do - to make your marking workload any easier? Try to make sure that when your students hand in work to be marked, it is laid out EXACTLY as you need it for efficient marking. You may at this point recognise the tone of someone who has removed 142 pieces of coursework from 142 plastic wallets before marking it.