You may have read the Background to TM4T where we talked theory and identified three types of work and how to handle them. Refresh your memory here.
The thing is: work - like any meaty topic - can be sliced up in many different ways. Here's a cake problem to illustrate the idea.
If we are looking at the big picture, we certainly need to consider work under the three headings we've already discussed: operations, projects, and disruptions, but in some contexts - in particular in the context of Location Awareness and Self Awareness, we need to slice the cake a different way.
It is a really good idea to do different types of work at different times of the day - more details here - and possibly in different places - more details here (***). This means we need to slice our cake in a different way. In particular, we might categorise our work using questions like:
a) at what time of the day do I do this kind of work best?
b) what is the best location for this kind of work ?
In doing this we need to be careful that we don't categorise tasks too simply, for example: planning-is-creative-so-it's-done-in-the-morning, marking-is-administrative-so-it's-done-after-lunch, and so on. This doesn't really work.
We need to be prepared to apply a little analysis to our tasks and work out what combination of skills is involved in each. I must emphasize here that I don't recommend that you draw data flow diagrams or read books on data analysis - what we are talking about here is common sense application of common sense principles. Here is some general advice on efficient working: click here.