You should consider your own strengths and preferences and make sure you know the following two aspects of your own personality. Of course, this is not something that you need to do every year - your personality type does not typically change
First Aspect: your time preferences - when you work best at different types of task. In particular, you should know at what time of the day you are most creative and at what time of the day you are most comfortable with repetitive work. Take some time to identify when it is best for you to do the following four different types of work:
Type a) creative idea-work
Type b) short-burst rapid-fire tasks
Type c) meticulous, difficult tasks requiring concentration
Type d) repetitive, dull tasks requiring not much brain and not too much effort.
Of course for some of us this analysis is unhelpful (my bursts of creativity tend to come at random and my periods of clear thinking are unreliable) but many people can confidently predict swings in performance. The following breakdown is not unusual for the three typical types of teacher-tasks:
Type (a) and (b): early in the day, typically with first morning coffee, sometimes immediately after getting up – best time for jotting down lesson ideas, solutions to problems; sometimes after a glass of wine (just one).
Type (c): later in the morning, before hunger pangs start; definitely NOT straight after lunch, never after alcohol. Frequently in the middle of the afternoon or early evening; for night owls, when the sun goes down.
Type (d): no really good time, but better with comfort food and a calm environment.
To read more click here.
It is worth talking a little bit more about Type (b) - short-burst rapid-fire tasks. In TM4T it is important to be able to work like this - for about ten minutes each day. This is when you ruthlessly scythe through your Tick-List of things to do, and decide when and where to do them. The perspective that we take in TM4T is that this involves a mindset - it is a role you play, a hat that you wear; it is not a part of your ingrained personality. Anyone can do it and everyone has to do it. This is what we call an XA mindset. Read more here.
Second Aspect: your personality type: you should particularly be aware of any negative tendencies you may have in relation to time-management. Examples of negative tendencies might include:
spending too long on tasks through being a perfectionist
overcommitting to work through a reluctance to say 'no'
overcommitting to work through 'can-do' determination
enjoyment of risk-taking when making decisions and planning deadlines
being too quick to abandon plans and ideas when they are no longer new
over-analyzing problems when several acceptable solutions exist
burning out on a task because of starting at the wrong pace
absent mindedness regarding tasks and deadlines
being too quick to compromise on quality in order to finish early
being over-optimistic or unrealistic about deadlines and achievement
getting bored easily even with important tasks
reluctance to make longer term commitments eg plans, deadlines
intolerance of data and quantitative measures
stubbornness in preferring an old way of working rather than try new ways
insistence on doing things by the rule book even when logic dictates otherwise
There are, of course, many many books and other resources dealing with personality types, and a lot of teachers find this topic of interest. However, if you are using this website, I realise that you may not have a great deal of time to invest in interesting distractions, so we will focus only on those aspects which are relevant to time management.
The key point here is that you recognise those behaviours which may hinder your time-management, and realistically assess how important they are. In most cases, it is enough simply to be aware of your own personality - to recognise, for example, that you tend to be a perfectionist, and to be ruthless about time-boxing non-critical activities. If however, you feel that your personality traits are so strong that they will hinder your achievement, you may wish to modify your behaviours and there are several approaches available to do this.
For more information on personality types click here.
In working through the list of issues above, you are analysing yourself, not an objective assessment. You should be very aware that, as a teacher, your opinion is probably skewed. Read more here.