I learned time management by reading books by John Maxwell,
Steven Covey and Benjamin Franklin. This skill has made a world of difference
in my life. But I couldn’t expect my high school foreign language students to
do what I did. So I simplified what I learned and created a short lesson.
I wanted my students to know how to manage their time, so
they would be able to complete their homework assignments and projects. I ended
my language lesson a little early one Friday and asked them to take out paper
and pen.
I told students I wanted to help them have time for fun,
while still finishing their school work. This got their attention. I explained during the two years I was in South Africa, I worked pretty much all the time. I knew I wanted to “get a life” when I came back to the US. To do so, I
needed to identify my goals. I wrote my five goals on the board in front of my classroom.
1.
Spend more time with family and friends.
2.
Increase my level of fitness.
3.
Have fun.
4.
Buy a dog.
5.
Earn enough money to live comfortably.
I answered any questions they had and asked them to suggest
something I might want or need to do during the coming weekend. As they shouted
out suggestions, I wrote about fifteen of them on the board. They included
chores like doing laundry, going shopping, cleaning the house, grading papers,
and fun activities like going to the beach, going to the movies, etc.
I told students to put an “A” by the most important
activity or chore, “B” by the next significant and “C” next to those not really
important at all. They all said grading papers was most important. I asked them
where that appeared on my list of goals. It may have been important to the
school or to them, but work was low on my list, so it only received a “C”, the lowest of
the three choices. They understood. It was a real eye opener for them. We went
through all activities on the board until they all had letters next to them.
Then we ranked the items in each category by urgency, 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, etc. So all items on the list were identified according to the time management
grid: Important-Urgent, Important-Not Urgent, Not Important-Urgent, Not
Important-Not Urgent.
This lesson helped them schedule their time by their
priorities, not those of someone else. It may have been most important for them
to do school work, since it would help them reach their college goals. But my
goals were not theirs. My goal was to get a life. After this little exercise,
they understood the first step in time management is always to identify long term and short term
goals. When they did so, they finished more school work while experiencing less
stress and having more fun.
For more information, you’ll want my new book, Free
College Awareness, coming soon from Griffin Publishing. How to avoid
needing college loans; available soon to families of Pre-K through High School
students.
You are reading from the blog: http://www.roadtofreecollege.com
Photo credit: Google Images
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