7 Tips For Teaching Time Management Skills

Learning time management skills can provide a powerful toolkit for people of all ages. Persistent procrastination and poor time management can lead to feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and low self-esteem, contributing to mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. Time management skills can be a powerful toolkit for people of all ages. By learning to effectively manage one’s time, individuals can employ strategies to prevent procrastination and enhance their productivity. 

When teaching time management skills, it can be important to be patient, understand that some strategies may work more effectively for different individuals, and embrace the learning process. Whether you are interested in teaching time management skills to your employees, students, children, or peers, following the seven tips contained in this article may help make it a more positive experience for everyone.

1. Understand your audience

One of the first steps to teaching time management skills might be to understand the audience and the end goal. Are you teaching your employees time management skills to boost productivity? Or are you equipping your child with time management skills so that they can manage their homework load more effectively? While the strategies may be similar, the audiences can vary widely. 

When beginning the teaching process, try to put yourself in the shoes of your learners. This can help you recognize which obstacles might be in the way of their success. For example, if you are teaching your employees, consider the working environment. Ask yourself questions like: 

• Do your employees have a quiet space where they can focus? 
• Are your employees overwhelmed by the amount of work they must complete each week?
• What is the current work schedule like? For example, consider whether employees are working late or leaving early.

The questions you ask yourself are likely to be different depending on your target audience. For example, if you are teaching your child, you may ask yourself questions like:

• Does your child know how to do their homework, or have they fallen behind in class content? 
• Is your child tired from extracurricular activities? 
• Does your child have an overwhelming homework load? 

Try to put yourself in their your audience’s shoes and think about simple changes you could make to reduce the obstacles in their way. Understanding the potential causes of procrastination for your audience can help you identify more appropriate solutions. For example, if you notice that the office is always loud and there is a workplace culture of socializing throughout the day, this may be just one cause of low productivity

2. Encourage self-reflection

Encourage your audience to reflect on their time management skills. Ask them questions such as, “What tasks do you procrastinate on most often?” and “What strategies do you currently use to manage your time?” It can be important to periodically ask your audience these questions as they continue to improve their time management skills. Understanding how your audience spends their time and whether they perceive their time to be effectively spent can provide you with many insights that might affect your teaching methods. In addition to this, checking in to see how they view their strengths, weaknesses, progress, and setbacks can help you adjust your teaching strategies as necessary.

3. Present several solutions

It can be crucial to present several different strategies and tips to your audience so that they can pick the right ones that make the most sense for them. Some common time management tips include segmenting tasks into smaller steps, prioritizing task lists, eliminating distractions, and allocating specific time for tasks. 

You might also suggest specific techniques to your audience to help them manage their time. Once tasks have been segmented and prioritized, you may present methods like “time-boxing” and the “Pomodoro method.” Time-boxing refers to allocating time for specific tasks. For example, if an employee must complete two one-hour long segments, they can set aside two one-hour long blocks of time at specific predefined hours in their day. The Pomodoro method, on the other hand, calls for working in 25-minute segments followed by a five5-minute break and repeating this cycle until all tasks are complete.

Your audience may differ in how they prioritize and organize their responsibilities. One member may be more productive if they start with the tasks they enjoy the most, while another might prefer to get their most stressful to-do item out of the way first. Yet another individual might prefer to follow the “two-minute rule,” which involves completing each task that can be completed of the smaller, under two-minute tasks as they arise before moving on to bigger items. Presenting different strategies in an unbiased way can give your audience the freedom to choose which methods that feel right for them. 

4. Stay flexible

Remember, what works for one person may not work for everyone, and some individuals may respond better to certain strategies than others. To begin workshopping time management strategies, consider opening a discussion with your audience about their work schedule preferences and which strategies resonate most with them. Once this is identified, you can work together to find an appropriate solution. Remember, the end goal is for your audience to manage their time efficiently, regardless of the chosen strategy.

5. Provide real-world examples

Providing real-world examples of how to manage one’s time may make time management skills seem more relatable, attainable, and understandable. Try to tailor your examples to your audience. For example, you might provide an example of how to segment a workday to employees with real due dates and tasks. When teaching children, you may consider extracurricular activities, study sessions, and homework to help them see how they might choose to structure their week.

6. Be patient

Unlearning certain habits can take time. Once you begin to teach your audience how to spend time wisely, it may take a while before results show. Your audience may need to adjust from perceived time to actual time. Even small changes, such as a child turning one homework assignment in on time, can be considered a sign of progress. Offering encouragement, support, and motivation can help individuals stay on track with their time management practices. Try to make a point of acknowledging small successes and recognize how this helps your cause.

7. Offer rewards

In some cases, offering rewards may help to boost productivity and sustain desirable results. For example, if the goal is to encourage employees to stop procrastinating on completing their weekly reports, offering a reward for those who submit their reports first could encourage employees to stop procrastinating. You can also offer several rewards, each attributed to steps of one task or several tasks.

Time management and mental health

Time management can play an essential role in reducing procrastination, boosting success in professional and personal endeavors, and relieving negative emotions associated with a mounting workload. Procrastination, commonly associated with poor time management, often represents an emotional mechanism for dealing with stress, fear, and negative feelings associated with certain tasks. This avoidance behavior may provide temporary relief but can ultimately create a cycle that exacerbates stress and anxiety over time. 

Those seeking to improve their time management skills, enhance their productivity, and boost their overall mental well-being could benefit from speaking with a professional. Even small improvements in time management can lead to significant changes in daily life, including improved academic performance and an increase in executive functioning skill levels. Understanding the link between time management, procrastination, and mental health can play a critical role in building emotional well-being, and a therapist’s mental health professional’s guidance can be crucial during this process.

Support for building time management skills

While teaching time management skills to employees or students can lead to real improvements, it is not necessarily a replacement for professional support. If you’re a person’s quality of life is being affected by poor time management skills, online therapy could be a valuable resource to consider. With online therapy platforms like BetterHelp, you can explore any underlying complications that may be affecting your ability to manage your time effectively, such as anxiety or perfectionism. 

If you’re already pressed for time in your personal life, it may be difficult to make it to in-person therapy sessions. Online therapy allows you to meet with a professional according to your schedule without having to make an extra commute to an office.  

The efficacy of online therapy for time management

A growing body of research indicates that online therapy can be just as effective as traditional face-to-face therapy for many mental health conditions and life concerns, including those related to stress and time management. In one study, researchers found that an internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (ICBT) intervention successfully improved behaviors related to procrastination. By the conclusion of the study, participants were able to manage their time more effectively and cope with difficulties related to procrastination more successfully. CBT is an approach that teaches people how to recognize and reframe their negative thought patterns to promote healthier, more positive ways of thinking and behaving. By the conclusion of the study, participants were able to manage their time more effectively and cope with difficulties related to procrastination more successfully.

Takeaway

Teaching time management skills might be an ongoing process, but the benefits can be significant. Effective time management can lead to academic success, reduced stress, and greater overall well-being. With these tips, you may be able to equip your audience with the tools they need to manage their time wisely and succeed in their personal and professional endeavors.

If you or your audience want to go one step further, working with an online therapist through a platform like BetterHelp can allow you to receive personalized guidance tailored to your unique needs. Since online therapy sessions are held according to your availability, this may be an ideal option for those who are short on time but still need professional support.