The Experience of Time
People experience time individually and collectively. Most people have some experience of time “dilation,” that speeding up and slowing down of time depending on attention. If you are focused on something that’s meaningful and important to you, time feels like it’s speeding by. If you are very busy moving from task to task without much time for transitions, you can feel behind, like the clock is racing past you. If you are bored, or don’t like the task, time seems to stretch out.
These perceptions are your brain experiencing time in relation to your focus and attention. It feels very real and causes real problems. We are late. We get behind on important tasks. We let each other down. So, we invented calendars, planners, alarm clocks, and other tools to solve the problem. And they SORT OF work… if, and when, we USE them.
Personal
Tools are only successful if they fit the job AND the person using the tool. Time awareness is a very individual experience, so the way you apply any tool to support it needs to be too. In ”Executive Functions – Blueprint for Learner Success” I offer tools and strategies to find these modifications for individuals. This is really useful for people who are creative, gifted, or otherwise neuro-divergent.
Collective
Cultural expectations about how to spend our time have a big impact. In close families, for example, you may have obligations on your free time that others don’t. More family functions, traveling to visit people, or hosting gatherings, can be expectations that the larger culture doesn’t assume are priorities.
Time is a big factor in cultural definitions of productivity, effectiveness, competitiveness, and work quality . We often have to perform in social groups where being fast is considered as important as being accurate. That’s a very modern pressure that affects us deeply.
Memory & Prediction
All of these factors work together to create a relationship between your memory of time and your skill at predicting how to schedule it. Some people seem to have an innate clock in their bodies that helps them plan accurately and get to places at exactly the right moment. Most of us don’t, which takes us back to the alarm clocks and calendars…
Another challenge to good time management is the human brain itself. Almost all of us are overly optimistic about how long something will take. Many engineers and project managers suggest taking your first hunch, doubling it, and then adding a third. If you guesstimate something will take 20 minutes, double that to 40 and add a third of 40, which is just over 53 minutes total. To get better at allocating time to assignments you have to practice. In real life, good time prediction is like salt in your food. Everything is better when you can use it well.
Human Development
Scaffolding & Modeling
Teaching younger learners how to manage their time starts with two stepping stones: “scaffolding” and “modeling.” Scaffolding is providing age-appropriate steps that, over time, build into the full skill set. Modeling is providing a good example so the beginner can see the reason to learn it in the first place. Of the two, modeling is probably more challenging. Happily, the age-appropriate part of scaffolding can help with that.
The scaffolded steps, with some details added or deleted according the need, are:
- Look at the due date
- Look at the time available between now and the due date
- Break the work down into chunks that either
- Fit into a certain available time block, or
- Represent some phase of a longer project or assignment
- Allocate the chunks to be done into the available time
- Assess if there is enough time available
- Consider the other time pressures in the same period to make a more accurate assessment
- Negotiate for more time sooner than later if you think it might be necessary
Italic is for elementary school aged learners. Bold is appropriate for middle school. Bold Italic is for high school and adults.
Modeling good time management is not as daunting as it might seem. First, share your own time management issues, difficulties, and tools with the learner you support. They will be happy to learn it’s a human thing and we all struggle with it.
Second, use processes at home to practice looking at time issues critically. Maybe there’s a chore chart in need of revision. Or, some seasonal task, like cleaning up the garage, could use a revamp. Let your learner try their hand at it as your assistant. Or, with older learners, you be their assistant.
Third, look online for unique time and task management printables that solve the problem in ways you may not have seen before. Graphic organizers, KanBan boards, task maps, are options that might inspire your own custom approach. Some chunk tasks into very small parts to help with initiating tasks, keeping up momentum, or identifying places to add rewards and incentives.
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Tahiya Marome
Instructional Systems Design
