As part of setting up your TM4T system, you should consider your working locations - as always we are considering only your non-teaching time and not student contact locations.
First of all, here's a question: do you ever work in a silly, inappropriate place? No, of course not. The fact is that most of us are unaware of the silly things we do and find it very difficult to think clearly and identify our own weaknesses.
In order to do so, we have to be very explicit and painstaking in analysing our behaviour, even if it seems that we are stating the obvious.
You should write down any place that you regularly work at present, or wish to work in the future. You should be honest, and write down everywhere you have worked or might want to work. You should write this list down, as it is too easy to omit some locations when doing this mentally.
You might end up with a list that looks like this: My desk in my main teaching room, Room 3, restaurant, mentor's office, portacabin my desk in my form room, the old office down the hall, the photocopier room, the staffroom, the postroom, the department office, the School Office, my home office, my living room, the school library, the school technical support area, my mum's kitchen table, the bus stop & the bus.
When you have your list, review it objectively, writing down what you already know.
Now, you should brainstorm any additional locations that your school offers, which you have not used yet. If necessary, go for a walk around the school outside of working hours and see if any useful locations are unused. There are frequently underused facilities in schools outside teaching hours, for example IT suites, which have great potential for efficient working.
You do not need to type up this list, but you do need to do some analysis similar to that shown in the table below.
You might wonder why you should waste time in writing down what you already know. There is no mystery here. This basic technique is used in many forms: writing down how many units of alcohol you drink, or writing down a list of good things about your boy or girlfriend: the intention is to clear your mind and clarify your thinking.
The next step: you should specifically identify at least one, ideally two, locations in each of these three categories:
a) your social spaces, where you can meet other people and interact
b) your private space, where you can think quietly, undisturbed
c) your office space, where you can concentrate and work steadily on routine clerical tasks
It is a really good idea to keep the last two (private space and office space) separate. The idea here is that you are going to train yourself to associate these places with a particular aspect of your life. You need a comfortable place to work, which you associate with well-structured tasks, and you need a separate place for peace and personal reflection.
It's important that you get a clear idea of what options you have, when they are available, what kind of work they are/aren't suited for, and what facilities you don't readily have available. The availability of 'quiet space' is often problematic in schools, and some research and negotiation may be necessary to get what you need.
Review your list objectively and decide where you should do your 'office' work (in the example above, the Main Teaching Room is clearly OK for most work. In doing this, you should explicitly write down (on your Tick-List) any specific issues which arise. For example 'no phone in my chosen workspace'.
Next take the opposite approach: read more here.
Next figure out what equipment you need: read more here
Finally, a couple of hints and tips about where to work. Click here.