It may not be immediately obvious why decision-making is important in the context of time-management, but the fact is that a lot of the wasted time in school, and a lot of the stress, involves poor decision-making. When we say 'poor decision making' we don't mean that the outcome is wrong, we mean that the process of decision-making itself is poor: too stressful, too time-consuming, lacking in logic, devoid of emotional intelligence. We are therefore going to look in some detail about what is involved in decision-making.
As always, we will strive to avoid making TM4T a management training site - we are talking here about decision-making at the individual, personal level, not the organisational process. These two things are very different: what seems logical and participative at the corporate level can easily seem cold and manipulative on the receiving end.
Also as always, when introducing a complex topic to busy teachers, we will start by breaking things down a little.
First, we'll talk about YOU and how well you and decisions get on
Secondly, we'll look at some of the emotional and subconscious dimensions involved in decision-making. This includes things like influencing and subconscious suggestion, as well as the issues of management culture in a school.
Thirdly, we'll look at structured decision-making.
Note: I should really apologise to the nice people who taught me Decision Science at university, as very little of what they taught me is relevant here.