TEACHING TIME AND TASK ORGANIZATION IN BUSINESS CLASSES-- A "WINNING" SYSTEM

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1 TEACHING TIME AND TASK ORGANIZATION IN BUSINESS CLASSES-- A "WINNING" SYSTEM MARY J. FRAME, ED.D TERRY M. FRAME, ED.D. Jay Travis, a high school junior who would like to go to college after graduating next year, has been having trouble getting anything higher than a "C" in classes. Jay says, "I just never have enough time to get my homework done, study for tests, work part-time, and have a little fun with my friends." One of Jay s concerned teachers suggested that Jay try making lists of things to do and said to "be sure and include grade related school work in your lists." "Yesterday," says Jay, "I made lists on several pieces of paper. But, now I can't find them. I just know I've forgotten to do something important but I can't remember what it is. It makes me mad! There's got to be a better way! I'll try anything!" Planning is the key to productive time use for most students, and planning means making lists-either in one's head or on paper. Unfortunately, Jay Travis' approach to list making is all too familiar. Many students make sketchy written reminders on scraps of paper which are carelessly tucked into a pocket or drawer and are never again seen. Others try to keep everything in their heads which is even worse. Experience has shown that good time management skills, including the ability to effectively plan, organize, and control one s time and task schedules, have become absolutely essential for persons to be successful in today's fast-moving business world. Experience has also shown that these skills are just as critical for today s students to be successful in school. Therefore, in order to help students both now and throughout their business careers, business teachers should strongly consider including one or more short units on time and task organization in their courses. Business teachers may want to develop an instructional unit based on the time and task organization system described in this article which is easy to use. Inexpensive requires only a few "tools," and has proven to be very effective for high school and college students. This system involves listing and managing information related to a person's activities by using three records: 1) a comprehensive master list, 2) a specific daily list, and 3) a calendar. These records and how to use them as part of a student-oriented time and task organization system are described more fully in the following paragraphs. MASTER LIST The first record in this system is the master list. A master list is a single, continuous list of everything related to the student's activities written in a spiral-bound or small loose leaf notebook The student should list every assignment, test, meeting, project, or other activity-minor and important when they are discussed, announced or assigned. Since the master list is not intended as a daily action list, there are no restrictions on the number or types of entries. Many students include personal activities on the master list; others keep separate notebooks for school and personal matters. The master list is an on-going "to-do" list of tasks and activities for today, tomorrow, next week, next month sooner, later, or whenever! As one student said, "I think of my master list as a storage place where I keep everything I need to do. Each day, I move certain things out of storage, discarding some and adding some to my list of things to do now." When a student reviews the master list each day, he/she should do the following: 1. Eliminate any activities or tasks which upon a second examination seem unnecessary, too ambitious, or do not make good sense. 2. Break down large or complex tasks into smaller components or subtasks. Establish start dates

2 and deadlines for each subtask by working backward from the formal due date. Set a due date for each item if it has not been set. 3. Use a calendar to schedule all items for future times a Month-At-A-Glance calendar works well. Cross the items off the master list as they are transferred to the calendar. 4. Select all items that need immediate attention and write them in a daily to do list. Delete these from the master list. Put a big "X" on a page of the master list when everything has been deleted. DAILY LIST If the master list contains the things to be done sooner or later, the daily list might aptly be called the soonest things to do list. It is very important that this list be prepared at the same time each day so that the student considers this a necessary, regular, and routine part of every day. Interestingly, when the daily list is organized, it is actually tomorrow's to-do list. However, when the daily list is actually used, it is today's to-do list. Regardless of whether it is today or tomorrow's list, the daily list is extremely important and needs to be compiled from the following three sources: 1. Those master list items selected for immediate action. 2. Calendar items such as previously scheduled items or events that have become current 3. Immediate tasks that have evolved during the course of the day Daily list items which are selected should be limited to approximately 10 tasks or activities which can be completed in one day. Small tasks which take only a few minutes should be consolidated. Complex tasks which will take a great deal of time to complete should be broken down into smaller components which can be completed in one day. It is very important to enter only the activities or their components which can be completed that day on the daily list. Tasks or activities which cannot be completed in one day cause task paralysis. Task paralysis is when a person becomes bogged down and frustrated because the task appears to be too large and too time consuming to complete in one sitting. CALENDARS The calendar is extremely critical because it becomes the nerve center of the a student's time-management system. A month-at-a-glance-type calendar allows a student to see a whole month at one time and better anticipate assignments which are coming due, tests or events coming up, etc. These can be purchased with daily boxes which include elaborate printed listings of pre-scheduled events with lines for listing additional activities or they can be obtained with plain, unlined spaces in which to write. However, choosing a calendar is strictly a matter of personal preference-each student has to decide what's best. Because they are inexpensive and easy to obtain, many students are immediately attracted to pocket calendars. Pocket calendars are fine and especially easy to carry. However, because they are small, they are also easy to misplace and lose-similar to the situation with Jay Travis' slips of paper discussed at the beginning of this article. Also, pocket calendars often have limited space to list information on each page and students soon find they have more to record than the pages permit. PAYOFF/PRIORITY RATIOS Students should acquire the habit of evaluating tasks and activities in terms of grades and learning payoffs. They should think of the payoffs as returns on time and talents wisely invested. Students should try to get the greatest payoffs for the time and effort devoted to every task performed and spends very little school-related time doing things which have low payoffs. To identify payoff/priority ratios, students should subject tasks shown in their daily list to a payoff analysis. The payoff analysis will help identify those tasks which provide high payoffs, medium payoffs, low payoffs, and, even, negative payoffs which may become penalties instead of payoffs. A further analysis of the types of payoffs reveals the following: 1. High-payoff tasks are top priority tasks that are associated with substantial, immediate and/or dramatic benefits. As an example, students often find that major tests make up a higher percentage of their grades than quizzes. Therefore, they can readily observe that the payoff is greater for spending more time studying for tests than quizzes.

3 However, even though students might like to use high payoffs to improve their grades all of the time, sometimes they do not automatically choose the high payoffs in activities because the payoffs are not as easy to recognize. For example, when students are asked about the payoffs from homework in two different courses, they often shake their heads and say they don't know. They sometimes say that since they are given approximately equal amounts of homework in both classes they must be the same. When this is pursued further with the students, it often is found that the instructors view those assignments very differently for each course. The instructor in one course may see homework as primarily for enrichment and does not consider home-work as essential to learning the key elements included in his/her course. On the other hand, the instructor in the other course may consider homework assignments as extremely important and develops tests worth 50 percent of the overall grade directly from the homework assigned to his/ her classes. With regard to payoff priorities, homework from the second course should be classified as a "must do" on the daily list. Whereas, homework from the first course is a "nice to do" because it is not considered have a direct learning-or grade related payoff for students. 2. Negative-payoff tasks are usually classified as must do s. They should also be identified as top priorities by students because the consequences of ignoring or postponing them can result in undesirable outcomes. One example might be the consequences of a shy student not making a series of required class presentations. Even though the shy student may dislike getting up in front of groups, not giving presentations could mean the student fails the course. The consequences may result in the student having to repeat the course which means facing the same agonizing negative-payoff tasks again next semester or next year. 3. Medium-payoff tasks are.the basic, day-to-day substance of being a student. Usually, medium-payoff tasks are ranked as secondary priorities even though they are important. Normally, students have some latitude as to when they complete these tasks. As an example, if the student knows he/she must read and study six chapters before the next test, he/she has the option of studying a little each day, all six chapters at once, or in whatever amounts at whatever times are appropriate. Good and poor student time managers will view and react to this quite differently. Even though it is not their top priority, and even though they do not start the task immediately, students who are good time managers will plan when and how to complete this task and try to study the material when they are uninterrupted and "at their best." That is, good time and task organizer will study for the upcoming test when they are the most rested, alert, and best able to retain more of the material for the test. They normally will also set aside some time to briefly review the material during the days or evenings immediately preceding the test to be sure they have not forgotten any key information and/or facts. Students who are poor time managers are often less successful students. They normally will not plan out this type of activity in advance. They normally study "when the spirit moves them!" The spirit usually moves them the day and/or night before the test, if at all! They retain only that which sticks in their minds during short, hurried, very superficial information scanning and fact memorization sessions immediately preceding tests! 4. Low-or nonexistent-payoff tasks are ranked as third-level priorities because they offer little in the way of either positive or negative benefits. As an example, some students recopy their notes verbatim after each class. Students defend spending time in this activity by claiming that it helps them retain the information presented in class. In reality, however, the process of recopying class notes is often a rote function which is done with little conscious effort. That is, when students recopy their notes verbatim, they often do not rethink what was actually said in their classes nor do they attempt to include things which they may not have had time to write during class. Instead, they routinely copy words and phrases from one paper to another and little, if any, additional learning or retention takes place. Unless some additional learning or critical review of the information is involved in this process, it is hard to justify the time spent. Students should strongly consider

4 eliminating these types of activities altogether and/or using the time allocated to these routine tasks for more beneficial activities which include additional learning and or potential for future use by evaluating, revising, reorganizing and augmenting the notes they have taken and are recopying. SCHEDULING AND ALLOCATING TIME Students need to evaluate their calendars and daily lists of tasks in terms of the payoffs previously discussed. They need to make sure that a least one high-payoff task is on their daily list and calendar every day. They should also try to cut down and eliminate as many low payoff tasks as possible. It has been said that each person has a personal prime time which should be the pivot around which his/her day is planned. When does the person feel most alert? When does he/ she feel most capable of clear, concentrated thought? 1. Is it the first thing in the morning? 2. Is it mid-morning? 3. Is it mid-or late-afternoon? 4. Is it in the evening or late at night? When is the "sweet spot" of a person's day? When does he/she have a metabolically determined "high" when he/she is full of energy and at his/her creative best? Students should do their most draining mental and physical activities when they are at their best. Highest priority tasks should be scheduled during peak energy times. Students should perform routine, low-priority tasks when they have the least energy and alertness. All persons should reserve no more than three to four hours a day (and often only about two hours a day if lacking sleep) for top priority tasks. Usually, the backwards scheduling method works well if they will make the effort to use it. Backwards scheduling means that persons start with fixed activities such as their class or work schedules and work backwards to include tasks which require varying amounts of energy and alertness. Finally, an amount of time is allocated to each task. Unfortunately, instead of allocating specific times for specific task components, students often say, "I am going to study for my test this morning," which really means, "I am going to make an unplanned, unorganized, uncontrolled attempt to study for my test." Usually, this approach results in not covering all of the information to be included in the test or spending too much time on certain parts of the material and not enough time on others. To make better use of their time studying for tests, students should plan ahead, organize their approach, build in some controls, and say, I will study for my test from 8:00 a.m. until 12:00 noon today. I will allocate 45 minutes to scanning each of the four chapters the test covers and will devote the last hour to a quick review of key concepts from my class notes. In other words, students should set up specific and "bounded" time allocations for each activity. Then, they should determine exactly what they are going to do during the time allotted. Using this approach, they will be more likely to do a thorough job and be better prepared for the task at hand. SUMMARY Business teachers should strongly consider including a unit for their students on Improving Time Management Skills. The foregoing procedures are excellent for students in high school and college and can be easily adapted to meet the changing personal and professional needs of mature adults. The bottom line is that by organizing both time and tasks, students can become much more successful in school. And, the simple action steps which can help accomplish this are: 1. Record in a single notebook every idea, assignment, project, or task-large or small, minor or important-as it arises. This is the student' s master list. 2. Review the master list daily. Divide large projects into manageable components. Eliminate and delegate tasks when possible, enter future tasks on a calendar, and enter immediate tasks on a daily list. Delete those tasks which have been eliminated or reassigned to another listing from the master list..

5 3. Each day at the same time compile tomorrow's daily list-ten tasks which can reasonably be expected to be completed in one day-from calendar, master list, and also add tasks which have just evolved and must be completed during that day. 4. Evaluate daily list tasks in terms of their payoffs: high payoff, negative payoff, medium payoff, or low payoff. Try to enter at least one high-payoff task on the daily list every day, and cut down on the lowpayoff tasks as much as possible. Rank each item either # 1, #2, or #3, depending on its payoff/priority ratio and level of demand it makes. 5. Determine personal prime time and schedule the highest-priority tasks and activities from the daily list. Schedule lower-demand tasks during non-peak time. Teaching the foregoing system or some other time and task organization system to students has immediate and observable rewards! Students who are good time and task organizers are usually good students! Students who learn to be good time and task managers become winners instead of losers! Teachers who teach a time and task organization system to their students are also the winners! They win by being able to reduce the pressures they must exert and the frustrations they must bear when trying to get students to perform well in their classes! They ultimately win by enjoying their teaching time much more! Remember this: Make time to teach time! Help make your students winners all the time! Teaching students to be good time and task managers is really a win-win for all concerned! Try it! Start today! Begin next week at the very latest!