The Bright Prospect® Guide to Time Management

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What Are Your Activities?

•How do you spend your time between your last class each school day and when you go to sleep?•On weekends?•Write your activities on the Activity Chart on the next page. Color them in.

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Personal Activity ChartKeep track of how you use your time for one week. Homework Eating Sports/Clubs Communicating w/Friends SleepingCHOOSE A COLOR FOR EACH CATEGORY TV/Videogames Working/Job Household responsibilities Other

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Primary Activities• Let’s list everyone’s primary activities

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Can You Fit More Into the Same Space?

• Let’s do a little Experiment• Your team has a vase, and

three groups of spherical objects of different sizes

• Try to fit as many objects into the vase as you can

• One person on your team records the strategy and steps you took

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Let’s Try Putting In the Small Objects First

• What happens?

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Which Strategy Works Best?

• Put small things in first, then medium, then big?

• Put big things in first, then medium, then small?

• Mix it up as you’re putting them in?

• Another Strategy?

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What’s the Connection to Managing Your Time???

• Should you:• Do the small things first,

then medium, then big?• Do the big things first,

then medium, then small?

• Mix it up as you’re doing them?

• Another Strategy?

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How to Get More Done in the Same Time

• What do the Big Balls represent? The Small Balls?

• How does your strategy impact what you can get done in the same amount of time?

• What do you need to do?• Make a plan• Prioritize

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What Are The Consequences of Not Planning Your Time?

• Not finishing assignments• Lower Grades• Limited (or no) options for

college• Less financial aid

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The Urgent vs The Important

• Place the activities on page 4 in each quadrant

• How would you prioritize each quadrant?

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How to Plan Your Time for Large Assignments

• Break them into subtasks• For Example – A Research Paper

• Research• First Draft• Revisions• Final Draft

• Start at the Final deadline, and assign your own deadline for each subtask

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The Rewards of Planning Your Time

• Better Financial Aid, means going to a better college• An A can be worth up to $3000 more

than a B• A lot less stress in your life!• Enjoying free time without guilt!• Developing good habits that you will

absolutely need in college

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Tips to Avoid Procrastination

• When appropriate, study with others• Study in the library• Set up a rewards system for yourself• Make a detailed list of what you have to do

• It feels great to cross things off• Include all your own subtasks

• Temporarily deactivate Facebook, MySpace and the Internet during finals week

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What About A Job?

• Research shows that if you work more than 15 hours per week, it impairs your school work and lowers your grades

• Working less than that generally doesn’t affect your school work or grades

• You need to think seriously about:• The advantages of working for better

grades (Each A is worth $3000 more than a B)

• The advantages of working in a minimum wage job to buy stuff you don’t really need

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What Are You Going to Do?

• Make a commitment to yourself• Find a partner, make a commitment to

each other• Form a team, make a joint commitment• Help each other

• Plan• Stay on Track

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