Time Management for the Teacher
Time management can be tricky. I know. I recall many times that teachers just didn’t have it under control. They would come to work early, burn up their prep time, stay late at night, and STILL come in on Saturday to work – not to mention the times they took their bag home and opened it. They often wondered, “Am I ever going to get this time management piece down and get my life back?”
They didn’t eventually start to figure some things out. It took time. Some teachers had to take some baby steps, but really, learning time management was a huge chunk of it.
A Key to Time Management Is Evaluation
One of the first things teachers needed to do was to stop and evaluate many different things. First, they had to evaluate how they are spending their time. They need to take note of their daily activities for a few days – everything. That will be an eye-opener for them to see just how much time they waste. You don’t realize until you keep a record just how much of a time sucker Facebook, Pinterest, and your email are! I mean, I had an idea – but you guess you were just in denial. Once you were able to see how you were wasting spending your time, you then made a schedule and forced decided to stick to it.
Next, you evaluated when you felt you worked best. Was it morning? Evening? Afternoon? For some, it is the first thing in the morning, right after their first cup of tea.
Finally, you need to evaluate the list of tasks you need to do and their level of priority. You are to take a four-quadrant chart and sort your tasks based on how important and urgent they are. This is an example below.
Adeyinka Meduoye
