Shyam Barr

Blog

 

PREFACE

This blog discusses topics that exist between the fields cognitive psychology and leadership, teaching and learning. Although I make connections between research and personal experience (my attempt at bridging the age-old ‘theory-practice’ gap), I write for a general audience. It is as Mihaly Csikszenmihalyi stated in the preface of his book FLOW:

“To take this step is somewhat dangerous, because as soon as one strays from the stylised constraints of academic prose, it is easy to become careless or overly enthusiastic about such a topic” (p. xi)

To avoid carelessness, I will endeavour to include references to journal articles, books and alike (as commonly expected in academic writing), but not at the expense of accessibility and ease of reading. This will be a delicate balance and one I will endeavour to achieve.

To end, I chose the word ‘discusses’ in the first sentence of this preface, to highlight that although the blog articles themselves are very much a dialogue between myself and what I read, I encourage you to share your comments and questions, so that we may start a more authentic discussion. 

 
 

Time management strategies to help you (and your students) self-regulate

  • Do you sometimes feel like you’re wasting time?

  • Not sure where your time goes?

  • Feel like you could manage your time better?

The good news is that how we spend our time is a choice and this article outlines 5 steps to help you improve your time-management. (You’re welcome!)

I recently attended a session titled “168 Hours: Getting more from your time, 24-7” with Laura Vanderkam (and kindly facilitated by the good people from the University of Canberra’s Researcher Development Team). Laura is the author of numerous books about time management, she hosts the podcast ‘before breakfast’ and has also spoken on the TED stage (watch her TED talk here).

Laura shared multiple strategies to help manage time and I’ll do my best to document some of my learnings from the session below.

Step 1. Track your time

A good place to start with any improvement effort is to establish a baseline. Essentially you want to answer the question - what is happening right now? In the context of time, start by tracking how you currently spend your time. You can use a weekly spreadsheet with each day divided in 30 minute blocks.

Expert tip: Laura has been tracking her time on a weekly spreadsheet for 6 years! She checks in with her spreadsheet 3 times a day and can complete each check in within 1 minute.

You can track your time for a week or longer until you feel you have a good indicator of how you are currently spending your time. Try adding up the major categories of where you spend your time - what do you notice about how you are currently spending your time?

Step 2. Identify your priorities

Before you make any changes to how you spend your time, you need to be clear on how you want to spend your time. Looking at your spreadsheet:

  • What do you like most about how you are currently spending your time?

  • What do you want to spend less time doing?

  • What do you want to spend more time doing? 

Expert tip: Laura suggested making a list of 3-5 annual goals for career, relationship and self (a total of 6-10 goals for the year). One way to think about your priorities is to ‘look ahead’ and imagine you are already a year into the future - “What 3-5 things would you have accomplished to have made this year amazing?? (What 3-5 things would you be telling people about? Be proud to share with people?)”

The statement “I don’t have time” is arguably the same as “it’s not a priority” 

Step 3. Schedule priorities first!

Once you have your priorities clear, it’s time to prioritise them! Multiple time management experts (e.g., Laura Vanderkam, Robin Sharma) advocate for planning time whether it be on a Friday afternoon (low opportunity cost) or over the weekend to consider the future weeks’ schedule. Keep your annual goals handy and schedule them in first! (e.g., “Front load them in the week – put them on the Monday and Tuesday or put them first thing in the morning and this is non-negotiable time!”)   

As part of your planning time – have a look at what is already on your calendar? What is not important? In a few minutes of looking at a calendar, consider what you can delegate, eliminate or automate, or as Laura put it “Ignore, minimise or outsource”. 

Step 4. Build space into your schedule

Once you have your priorities scheduled, now it’s time to build in open space. Acknowledge that things may take longer that anticipated. Mitigate this by planning in ‘buffers’ or what Laura refers to as ‘white or open space’.

Things don’t have to happen daily, nor do they have to happen at the same time every day (Don’t look for the perfect time – just look for the time) 

Step 5. Protect your schedule

Have you ever heard the saying ‘if you want something done, ask a busy person’? The problem is that the better you manage your time, the more successful you will be. With success, comes requests for a range of new tasks that may not relate to your priorities. You need to be very careful with the word “YES”. Laura suggests that if you are asked to do something in the future, ask yourself - “Would I do this tomorrow?”. Many years ago I read an article that shared the phrase “if it is not a hell yes, then it’s a no” and it is a phrase that I often repeat to myself when making decisions.

“When we say yes to something, we say no to something else” (rate the decision on a scale of 1-10… and anything that is less than 8 or 9 is a no). Be kind to your future yourself.

Implications for the classroom

  • Do you sometimes feel like your students are wasting time?

  • Feel like they could manage their time better?

Studies have suggested that students’ possess low-quality knowledge of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies, including time-management strategies. One of the best ways to foster SRL in the classroom is to explicitly teach students SRL strategies, for example, time-management strategies. In other words, consider yourself a ‘time-management teacher’. Below are some examples of how I would approach this in the classroom.

  1. Get students to track their time. Tracking time (or anything for that matter) is a metacognitive strategy known as ‘self-recording’. The simple act of self-recording brings awareness to the behaviour.

  2. Engage students in a semester or annual goal setting exercise that moves beyond solely performance based goals. Goal setting is common in schools, but it is often focussed on short term performance goals that align neatly with SMART goals. Consider goals beyond traditional academic grades and incorporate goals for wellbeing, physical health, self-management etc.

  3. Help students with scheduling. This requires students to have some choice about their schedules or the activities that make up different blocks of time (Where is the student choice and autonomy in your school’s program?). Explicitly model how you set up your schedule each week. including how you start with priorities, include buffers and then protect your schedule.

Shyam BarrShyam Barrtime-management, self-regulated learning, prioritiesComment