Before explaining what X-Time is, it is worth summarising where we have got to with our TM4T system:
We have started with a calendar showing major school events, and scheduled any necessary preparatory work. 'Scheduled' means that we have added a task to our calendar - our Yearly Plan.
We have then planned the courses we are going to teach, using skeleton schemes of work, and added lesson scripting and assessment tasks to our calendar. This means that we have done the important stuff first.We have followed the big-bits-first principle in our planning. If you don't understand big-bits-first, read about it here.
We have added planning sessions for our routine administration tasks (Tens and Ticks-and-Twos above)
Now we need to assess the situation, using our free time calendar. How much contingency time do we have to cater for larger items of work which come our way? You need to accommodate this, even if it means compromising the preferences you have recorded in your free-time calendar. This is what we call X-time. We do not want to use it - it may involve our precious weekends - but we need the comfort of knowing that it is there if it is really needed. It is also a clear, explicit indication that we are starting to do too much work.