It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?
-Henry David Thoreau
A few weeks ago, I wrote about setting goals, but what do we do with those goals once we’ve set them? We have to break them down into steps and get those steps entered into our calendars. Poor time management is probably the number one reason adolescent and young adult clients with executive dysfunction are referred to our practice. In their book, Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, Peg Dawson and Richard Guare define time management as “the capacity to estimate, allocate, and execute within time constraints.”
How important is time management? A study in The Journal of Advanced Academics, reported that students who did not return to college for the second year had poorer firs-semester time management skills than those who remained in college. Several other studies have shown that students who are able to manage their time effectively have higher GPA’s and show more positive adjustment in college than students who lack these skills.
Although I have not collected data, I find that many of our clients believe that successful students don’t schedule their time; they are just magically able to pull off good grades. My first advice to parents would be to model how you yourself keep your time organized in order to be able to meet your obligations. If you are also a person who struggles with time management, then you might want to research the subject and try out various strategies along with your child. This will validate and confirm the fact that time management is a worthy pursuit.
There is no time management system that is perfect for every person, and the options online, in bookstores, and in office supply stores are endless. If your child is struggling with the abstract concept of time, I strongly suggest that they start with a paper calendar over a digital version. The paper versions, particularly those that are divided into 15-minute increments, make time visible and somewhat tangible. Start by helping your child enter all of their obligations and appointments for the month, such as Dr.’s appointments, sports practice, speech-language therapy, etc. Meet on a weekly basis to update those entries. At that time, you should help your child to enter specific study obligations. For example, an entry might state “create history notecards for chapters 1 and 2 between 7:00-8:30 on Tuesday night. Note that this entry has time constraints and includes not only the subject, but the specific activity as well.
Finally, based off of personal and academic goals, your child should enter any activities for the week that will help achieve those goals (above and beyond homework assignments). Perhaps his current goal is to score a specific number on the SAT. He should then schedule times during the upcoming week to practice for the exam and to note exactly what he will be practicing. He might enter “Khan Academy reading comprehension review practice on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 7:30-8:00.
My final note is to be sure to leave unscheduled time every day. All of us need time to breathe and enjoy activities that we love, but aren’t obligated to do. Those are often so much more enjoyable when we’ve already crossed off everything on our to-do list.
LeeAnne Fura, MS, CCC/SLP