28timekeepingsindarin Lessons



A lot of working friends ask me about time management exercises and hacks they can use in their day to day lives to optimize productivity. This question is so frequent that I decided to put it down in words.

Here are some things that I hear repeatedly:

Everybody is busy. Between work, family, and trying to get a decent amount of sleep at night, there never seems to be enough time in the day to do anything new. Without knowing it, we seem to fall. A good time management lesson plan will teach the art of successfully managing time to students of all grade levels- elementary, middle school and high school students.

  • “I never complete my to-dos for the day” (here’s my recommended to-do list format)
  • “I’m always being interrupted by coworkers” (I talked about the importance of deep work when discussing the Pomodoro technique)
  • I waste a lot of time in pointless meetings
  • “It takes me hours daily just to process email” (here’s how to transform it into a GTD Gmail)
  • “I do a lot of things but don’t really feel I’m making progress” (Productivity = Meaningful Work + Progress)

Sound familiar?

I also have friends still in college. It strikes me as funny that I get the same exact question from them. They are also looking for ways to optimize their time so they can enjoy their college life to the fullest. Here are their “complaints”:

  • “I always end up cramming for exams.”
  • “I only study when there’s the pressure of a test.”
  • “It’s just so hard to sit down and just study, without any distractions.”
  • “I’ve tried to make schedules for myself, but I don’t stick to them/unexpected things come up.”
  • “When I’m working on one subject, I get distracted by thoughts of what I have to do for my other classes.”

I remember having those problems as well 😉

So I decided to break this post down into two sections: time management exercises for college students and time management exercises for employees.

Almost all of these time management exercises can be applied to both groups, but some are more effective on students while others are designed with the employee in mind. Feel free to do them by yourself but for best results please do complete them in a group.

What Is Time Management?

Why do some people always seem to be rushing from task to task and never finishing anything, while others are in control of their time and accomplish everything they want?

Do the latter have fewer or easier things to do?

No, not really. Maybe they are practicing good time management skills thus using their time more effectively. This allows them to be more productive and get more things done.

Here’s how Wikipedia defines Time Management:

“Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity. It is a juggling act of various demands of study, social life, employment, family, and personal interests and commitments with the finiteness of time. Using time effectively gives the person “choice” on spending/ managing activities at their own time and expediency.”

What’s important to understand is that time management is a skill.

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And like any other skill, there are time management exercises you can do to help you become proficient.

Time Management Exercises for College Students

Everyone has different expectations for college.

You may want to get great grades, simply enjoy learning with like-minded individuals, or you want college to be the “time of your life” and have fun, go to awesome parties, and make new friends.

Whatever your expectations, you will need master planning and prioritizing in order to meet deadlines for class projects and assignments without depriving yourself of a social life.

At times, you will have to study for multiple exams and work on many different class projects, sometimes in the same week (or even the same day!).

Use these time management exercises for college students to develop your skills, helping you plan for such occasions.

#1 Identifying Distractions and Solutions

We live in the distraction age, with companies competing to attract and retain our attention. This is especially true at university due to a more active social life and environment. That’s why this is the number 1 of time management exercises on this list. Do it right and you will get hours back per day.

Start by identifying the big chunks of distraction that’s eating up your time. Maybe you use your computer for college but end up spending your time on social media instead (pro tip: if you don’t have it, you can’t miss it). Or you watch TV while trying to read a textbook.

To do this time management exercise grab a piece of paper and write down everything that you think it distracts you. When you’re done, write down possible solutions.

For example:

  • You get distracted by your phone. An easy solution might be to keep yourself logged out of social media while studying or switch to airplane mode
  • Random web surfing. Unplug your internet cable or disable your wi-fi. If you have to do research, write down everything you need to search beforehand and stick to it (don’t read it if you don’t need it)
  • Playing video games. Study at the public library or at your university, removing temptation. If it’s a phone game, uninstall it

Do the same exercise for all the distractions in your life. This time management exercise will help you understand where your time is leaking and help you regain your time and attention.

Remember: less is more.

#2 Getting Organised

Most students don’t really think about how their workspace impacts productivity. Optimizing your dedicated workspace can boost your study time while keeping you informed about tasks and deadlines.

Since you will be moving a lot – from home to college and back – you need a simple system that lets you pack in seconds while being easy to maintain.

Keep a shelf in your room with study materials, where you put files, books, pens, notebooks, etc. Use a box for each course, where you put notes, photocopies, handouts, journal articles, etc.

Next, pin a weekly timetable where you see it every day, such as the door. In this calendar, mark your exams, class projects deadlines and other social events.

Finally, have everything else you need on your computer or phone. Remember: you need to optimize for being mobile, and having lots of papers and physical items can turn that into a struggle.

#3 The 5-Step Plan

Students need to juggle lots of different commitments, such as deadlines and social life. So it makes sense that one of the time management exercises lets you plan quickly to get back on top of things.

Here’s the step-by-step:

  1. List Everything: write down all your commitments and deadlines
  2. Break It Down: take on big tasks and turn them into smaller steps. A 2000 word essay can sound daunting, but writing 500 words today might not
  3. Use a Kanban: this method helps you prioritize your tasks. Organize everything under 3 headings: now, soon, and later. Deadlines are a priority, readings for a class might go under soon, most of the things in later you might want to quit
  4. Do Immediately: start with something on your “now” list and get it done. That sense of achievement will help you build momentum
  5. Prioritize the Rest: now go back to all the other tasks and put them in order

Time Management Activities for Employees

#1 $86,400

Everyone is given $86,400 dollars to spend. They can only use the money on experiences, such as learning the piano, going to the gym or working on a project. At the end of the day, this money is written off, whether participants use it or not. They cannot bank more money per day.

Have your team write down on a piece of paper how they would allocate the $86,400 dollars.

When everyone has completed their list, gather your team and discuss why and how they spent the money.

Explain that we all have 86,400 seconds to use or invest each day. Invest it wisely, and it will pay you long-term dividends in health, skills, knowledge, and relationships (I like to call this compound time-activities). You can’t save it directly, but you can spend it so that it pays you dividends for a lifetime.

This is a great time management exercise for students and teams.

#2 Ribbon of Life

For this time management exercise, you need a ribbon with a length of 100cm (1 meter) and a pair of scissors.

Ask your team:

  • What is the estimated lifespan of an individual?

The normal response will be in between 75 and 85. The actual figure is 79 years, so you need to cut 21cm of your ribbon. It is now 79cm long, meaning we have 79 years left.

  • What is the average age of the participants?

This depends on the group you’re doing this exercise with. If you are using this time management exercise for students, it will be lower than with members of a team in a company.

28timekeepingsindarin

Let’s say the number you get is 29, so you chop another 29cm of your ribbon. These years are what you would call “sunk costs”, you can’t do anything about them.

Your ribbon now has 50cm.

  • So we have 50 years left?

This is a trick question: people will say yes but the actual answer is no.

You still need to factor in a lot of variables: weekends, public holidays, casual/sick leave, and annual holidays.

Every year has 52 weeks, so that’s 52 Sundays per year. Multiply that by 50 years (the current length of our ribbon) and you get 7.14. Reduce the ribbon by 7cm.

The same logic applies to Saturdays. Reduce another 7cm.

There are 10 Public/National holidays per year, which gives us 1.5 years when multiplied by 50. Reduce the ribbon by 1.5 cms.

We spend approximately 40 days a year on casual leave, sick leave and annual holidays. That’s around 5 years, so you cut off another 5 cms.

You are now left with about 29.5 years.

But we still need to take into account sleeping, eating and commuting.

We spend a third of our day (and so a third of our year) sleeping. Considering an average of 8 hours of sleep per day, we get 122 * 50 = almost 17 years. Cut off another 17 cms.

You need around 2 hours per day to eat lunch, breakfast, snacks, and dinner. 30 days a year X 50 years= 4 years or so. Cut off another 4 cms.

Lastly, let’s factor in commuting and time spent traveling from one place to another for activities. If we average one hour a day, that’s 2 more years.

We are now down to 6 years of life to make it or break it.

It’s up to us to make the best of out of them.

#3 The Disconnection

Give your team members a piece of people and ask them to write down 10 things that they did at work yesterday. They don’t need to write an order or additional comments, just list 10 things.

Next, give them another piece of paper and ask them to write 5 topics that they expect to discuss with you (assuming you are their manager) or their boss in the next one-on-one appraisal/performance review.

Now, ask them to look at the two lists together and link tasks from the first list to goals of the second one. A simple number to identify the link is enough. Be warned: some of them will try to come up with complex explanations of the links and why they did what they did.

The “aha moment” of this exercise is when your employees realize all the time they spend doing things which have little or no direct impact on the company or their work.

Finally, ask them to list 10 things they need to do this week and connect them again to goals. Choose the top 5 tasks that are truly urgent and are going to move the needle on their performance and in the company.

Recap

Productive people know that time management is a skill and you can use time management exercises to hone that skill.

Being in charge of your time will help you prioritize better, get more things done and feel progress in meaningful work.

The best time management exercises for college students are:

  1. Identifying Distractions and Solutions
  2. Getting Organised
  3. The 5-Step Plan

The best time management exercises for employees are:

  1. $86,400
  2. Ribbon of Life
  3. The Disconnection

Time Management for Teachers

Time management for teachers helps teachers meet the demands of their job. With papers to grade and classes to prepare, teaching can feel overwhelming.

Time management for teachers saves you time without compromising the quality of your teaching.

Teachers face unique time management issues.

Your daily schedule is booked and there is little flexibility in class schedules.

You have papers to grade and lesson materials to prepare - and on top of this you have to teach.

It can feel overwhelming!

Teacher time management can be broken up into:

  • fixed classroom times in which you are teaching and
  • the one to three hours a day that you have outside of class in which you need to do routine administrative tasks, make phone calls, and prepare lesson plans.

An important part of a teacher's job is to prepare materials and to be available for students and parents outside of classroom hours.

Attention Teachers

How do you manage time? Are there challenges you have overcome with good time management.

Share your story here
and get on the Net.

Taking work home, grading papers well into the night, giving up your weekends to prepare class.

This can blur the boundaries of work life balance.

This is one reason why teachers are often stressed and suffer a high rate of job burnout.

You can be so busy preparing lesson plans, marking, and teaching that you forget about taking care of yourself!

time management at work gives you a greater sense of control.

Time management for teachers will:

  • provide you with stress relief and greater job satisfaction
  • increase your efficiency and effectiveness in the classroom
  • give you more time and improve the quality of your lessons.

This makes time management for teachers important for you and your students.

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Here I provide four teacher time management tips.

These include:

  1. Plan your workday
  2. Focus on your important and urgent activities
  3. Organize yourself and your workspace
  4. Misbehaving students

Plan your workday

A common thing I hear from teachers or in time management workshops is 'I don’t have time to do any planning,” or “Things change too much to plan!”

But the simple fact is that planning saves time and gives you a greater sense of control over what you have to do.

Even if things don't stick to plan you can always come back to your plan when things settle.

A plan enables you to become more effective, organized, and reduce your stress.

Take 10 minutes a day to plan your day.

Abraham Lincoln reportedly once said, “If I had 60 minutes to cut down a tree, I would spend 40 minutes sharpening the ax and 20 minutes cutting it down.”

Time management for teachers can improve with planning your day and week in your personal organizer.

Spend 10 minutes planning what you can do between class times.

Getting your tasks down on paper and out of your mind reduces your stress and improves your focus

By having a plan you give yourself a greater sense of control and this allows you to decide how you are going to spend your time most effectively.

What to do with large tasks?

Groups tasks together for increased efficiency

Teachers can save a lot of time by grouping like activities together.

If you have 10 phone calls to make to parents, or 5 emails to reply to, then grouping these tasks together saves you time.

These time management tips suggests other ways that teachers can save time.

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Sometimes there are large tasks that you cannot do in one sitting.

For example I have university marking that I need to do in the next three weeks - 120 papers that take 25 minutes each.

I break this task into smaller segments of 1-2 hours and put these into my time management schedule.

By breaking your tasks into chunks and scheduling them into your time management planner you increase your focus and reduce your stress as you progress.

Sometimes teachers can be so busy grading reports and preparing lesson plans that there is little time to focus on their own career goal setting.

28 timekeeping sindarin lessons examples

Aim to work on your personal goal for a period each day.

Focus on important and urgent tasks

Teachers have alot to do!

Grading reports, preparing lessons, filing and administrative tasks, and responding to parent and student concerns.

This means that you probably won't get through everything so you want to make sure you get through things that are important to your job.

Prioritizing tasks improves time management for teachers.

Once you have a list of activities in your to do list, put your activities in order of priority.

Your 'A' tasks are very important and the consequences of not doing an 'A' task are high.

For example, if you don't prepare for tomorrow's Year 9 class before you leave today then that will put a lot of stress and pressure on you for tomorrow morning's class.

28 Timekeeping Sindarin Lessons Lesson

So essentially your 'A' tasks are your 'must do's'.

'B tasks' are not that important and the consequences are not so high.

Focus on those tasks that are top priority. According to the Pareto principle 20% of tasks yield 80% of results.

Time Management at Work Activity

Identify those activities that are both important and urgent to you.

Now use time keeping software or an activity log and track your time.

If you can spend 5% more time on your high impact activities you notice an increase in productivity and reduced stress levels!


Search here for more time management for teachers tips.

Organizing tips for you and your workspace

Being organized saves you time.

Did you know that the average worker spends six weeks searching for documents they already have.

These documents are in their filing system, email folders, on their desk, or in their computer system.

Having an organized workspace, whether it is a desk or a storage area will save you time in trying to find things.

Being organized also reduces stress!

If your desk resembles a disaster area and you have not seen it for a while because of the mountains of paperwork here are some tips on how to organize your desk and organize files.

Misbehaving students and time management for teachers

As a teacher, one of the biggest challenges you face are uncooperative students.

Students who misbehave or who are not doing their homework can really eat into a teacher's time.

While each school district has their own policies, there are a number of things that you can do to maximize the chances that their homework goes to the top of their to do list.

I find that along with my to do list I also have a tracking sheet.

On this tracking sheet I record the homework that was not done or the tasks that were not conducted by the students.

For example if Jack did not do his homework then this would go on the tracking sheet, and only when he hands in that homework will his name come off the tracking sheet.

If his name does not come off the tracking sheet, or his name continues to be added onto the tracking sheet, then school policy dictates the outcomes.

I find that these two activities by themselves save teachers a lot of time.

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