Time Management Course

Time Management Course Programme

We tailor all our courses to reflect the needs of the delegates on the day. The course content may include many of the exercises listed below, and any additional material that the trainers feel is relevant.

Introduction by Impact Factory

We'll start the day with a light-hearted and energising warm-up exercise designed to highlight commonalities shared by delegates.

Delegate input

We begin with a discussion about the time management issues delegates face. Delegates will be asked to identify the key challenges they face and the things they find difficult so that the time management day can be shaped to their needs.

Time Management - The Story So Far

A day in the life

In pairs, and with reference to participant's time logs, we'll ask delegates to outline their typical day. This is an awareness building exercise to allow delegates to gain a sense of what they do in a day and the pressure additional requests may place on their time management.

Seeing Time Differently

Einstein's Relativity or... It's all in the Way You See It

Why do you think it has to be that way? In a light-hearted exercise, we'll look at the worst case scenario by creating a time management catastrophe. What would happen if you...?

Time Management Reality Check

In this section of the day, we'll give delegates a chance to consider just how real their beliefs about their time management dilemmas are.

The Three Most Important Things to Change

Here delegates will identify the three things they'd like to change about their time management.

Getting Time Management Straight

So Where Do I Go First?

How do you decide to juggle priorities in a way that gets everything done? Having time to stop and think is often the biggest problem! In this part of the time management course, we'll offer our Filling the Vase and The End of the Line strategies. Two quick and easy time management techniques for prioritising tasks that take just a few minutes to do but can give a great handle on which job really should be done first.

The "V" of Well-being

So now we know what our priorities are, all we have to do is stick to them, right? Sometimes that's the hardest part of all. Here, we look at what goes on for delegates both emotionally and physically when they're overloaded and the consequence on their professional and personal life. Then we'll offer a simple and practical time management tool to help delegates stay at their most effective.

"Now, Why Do I Wanna Go and Do That?"

Here's where we take a look at the cousin of getting overloaded at work - procrastination. Sometimes we immerse ourselves in the little jobs because they're easier all the while letting the bigger, maybe even more important tasks, get the better of us.

In this exercise Time Management Course delegates develop an awareness of their diversionary tactics and personal motivators and how to use the latter to tackle tasks head-on. It's a useful time management skill to develop and can mean the difference between getting things done and eternal time wasting!

Making Sure Time Management Happens

What's the Plan?

We'll look at a number of time management tools and techniques for planning tasks and scheduling events so that relationships between different tasks are recognised and delegates understand how delay in one area, affects others - the critical path.

We'll also explore the merits of planning both forwards and backwards.

Eating Elephants

With the best will in the world - and the best plan - sometimes things just seem too big and overwhelming to get started. With this time management technique - chunking down - delegates may eat that elephant after all.

Time Bandits

How often do we get to the end of a day and find that our time has been whittled away by little things that have stolen our time? This is where we 'out' the time bandits and then look at how to manage them more effectively.

Working in pairs, delegates spend time looking at their time bandits and 'hooks' (what gets them hooked in - what can't they seem to resist?). Delegates then identify what knocks them

"Yes, oh, I Mean No."

So, how do you handle that tricky art of saying no? Well, in this section of the time management course we'll explore some of the techniques that will help delegates say 'no', often without ever using the word.

We'll use various time management situations delegates identify when they said 'Yes' instead of 'No' to look at what could be done differently in future. We'll also look at which time management techniques fit different people's styles.

Getting the Support You Need

I'm Too Busy

Delegating with flair

One great frustration is delegating something that then doesn't get done. What do you do?

Here we look at a variety of ways to delegate to others in a way that is empowering and empathic to the delegate.

From My Thought to Your Action

So often we assume that having delegated something to someone, we will be clearly understood, and can turn our attention to our next task. How wrong we are. More often than not, what we say and what we mean and what someone hears and what they do are actually quite different.

Delegates will have a go at creating their view of the Ideal Delegation Cycle.

Time Management - The Next Step

As we wrap up the Time Management Course, delegates identify what they'll do differently, and make a seven-day commitment based on the three important changes they identified at the beginning of the day (it doesn't have to be big).

They also have access to a course web page containing

• Handouts used during the course
• New supportive material
• Impact Factory PDF documents
• Recommended reading
• Links to our favourite videos
• Photos of the day

to help further their progress.

Time Management Course