Tuesday 31 May 2011

Some don't "don't like Mondays"

For me it is fairly straightforward - Mondays are the worst days of the working week and Fridays the best.  It has always been like this and for a variety of reasons for example difficult meetings scheduled, a particularly challenging Y10 class, the traffic, trying to get children ready and still get to work on time.  Nowadays it is better and I have learnt to better manage my time, and wherever possible, plan tasks and activities for Mondays that don't fill me with dread at the prospect.
There are positive aspects to this Monday morning dread - I suspect most teachers have it, I think it shows that you really care about what you do and that it means a great deal and you want it to go well.  I still get this feeling now that I don't teach very much particularly after holidays when I return to work and hope everything is going to go well and that I can do a good job.
The other positive is that Friday feeling, the euphoric feeling of the weekend coming soon.  It's not that I don't like work, I like my job very much but the weekend is great and there is also relief that another week has been successfully achieved.  If you don't feel the Monday you don't feel the Friday.
However when talking to some of my colleagues in casual conversation I found out that this wasn't the case for everyone.  For some, Monday wasn't the worst day.  So I decided to ask everyone in my department which was their best and worst day. (There are 17 in my Learning Resources dept but only 13 were around on this day).
The results were:
Worst days. Monday 6.  Tuesday 3.  Thursday 2. Friday 1. Don't mind 1.
Best days. Friday 10. Monday 1. Wed 1. Don't mind 1.
There were a variety of reasons e.g. Tuesdays were considered better than Mondays as you still had some weekend positiveness left on Monday but none on Tuesday.
However it was fairly conclusive that Friday was the best day so as a manager I started to think how I could use this to my advantage.  Firstly we have department meetings once a month on Friday mornings and people are much more upbeat that if we hold them at other times.  I introduce new ideas or plans on a Friday in an informal way so that people are aware of them and then circulate more formal details the following week.  The 'feel good factor' is more apparent in the Learning Resources Centre as a whole on Fridays - students are more upbeat so I try to get staff to be more student focussed and interactive.
Hopefully I'll be able to use this to my advantage in the future and plan activities to get the best out of everyone.

1 comment:

  1. Browsing blogs at the moment, you are obviously a veteran blogger (I am a total noob) Your displays look great, I might be inspired for our own library displays.Thanks!

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