In order to effectively reduce clutter you’ve got to improve your time management skills. This fun and engaging activity involves the use of play money in a mock auction to buy ideas for removing clutter and maximizing time.

Objectives

•To enable participants to identify the types of time management ideas which appeal most to them.

•To consolidate and reinforce any previous learning of time management techniques.

•To remind participants of the range of time management approaches available.

•To give participants practice in issue analysis and decision-making (via planning).

•To offer a practical activity in obtaining by mock auction what the participants have decided they require and to practice contingency decision-making based on planning

 

Directions

1. Issue the handout which should be modified to include fewer items than the number of participants. The items should be those which have been discussed during the program and have been found to be the more acceptable ideas; they may even be the more novel ones.

Ask the participants to:

    a. study the document

    b.identify which of the Time Ideas appeal to them most and which they would want to implement

   
2. Issue $150.00 in assorted play money and inform the participants that you         will be holding an auction for the Time Ideas and that they should now decide their strategy for buying the Ideas.

 
3. Allow time for:

    a. planning revision of selected ideas

    b.strategy planning for the auction

 
4. Conduct the auction.

 

5. Hold a plenary session after the completion of the auction to consider

    a. to what extent were the plans fulfilled?

    b. to what extent did they have to modify the original plans?

    c.how difficult was this?

    d. how much pressure was felt from the auction?

    e.what had they learned from the activity?


Handout: Time Management Ideas

 

(This list is based on an activity with twelve participants. If there are more than twelve, the number of ideas could be increased to twelve for a group of
eighteen, for example, or reduced to six for a group of ten.)

 
1. Decide your personal Aims, Objectives and Activities and have these written down in a very convenient place for regular review.

 
2. Use the priority system A, B, C, D to review the tasks you have to do and your morning mail.

3. Use the two "To-Do" lists system and discipline yourself to its regular use.

 
4. Have a published starting time for your meeting. Stick to it. Have a published finishing time. Stick to it.

 
5. Negotiate with a colleague telephone watch-time while you perform an urgent task: negotiate a reciprocal arrangement.

 
6. Handle each piece of paper only once if at all possible and when handled, do something with it: don't just look at it (again, and again and again!). Use a Mail Analyzer.

 
7. Keep a personal Time Log for intervals at different periods and don't forget to analyze them-

 
8. Learn speed reading; speed comprehension