How to Teach Time Management

Time management is no easy task. For some adults, it may come easy but for others, it may be close to impossible. If you struggle with time management now or did when you were younger, then your students are mostly likely struggling as well. It’s important to help students develop their time management habits from a young age but time management can be taught at any time. Keep reading for a few lesson plans and tips that are sure to make teaching time management easier this school year.

What Prevents Time Management?

There are a few common reasons that students struggle with time management: distractions and procrastination. Distractions could be electronic devices and notifications or a bad study environment, all of which can be easily fixed before students do homework or work on projects.

Procrastination is a little harder for students to figure out. If students really don’t want to start on their tasks, they’ll find any excuse not to. This mindset ultimately prevents students from completing assignments by the due date which leads to the downfall of their grades. However, once you introduce your students to effective time management strategies, procrastination will be the last thing on their minds.

Teaching Time Management

Encourage Time Estimation

To start your students down the time management road, it might be easiest to start with time estimation. In class, provide students with an assignment. Before they begin, ask them to write down an estimation of how long they believe it will take them to complete the task. After they’ve finished the assignment, have them write down how long the task actually took. The process of estimating the time it takes to complete a task will help your students understand what homework may take the longest or shortest amount of time, helping them plan and prioritize better.

Make estimating time easier for your students with our A Question of Time Lesson Plan.

Introduce Visual Aids

Using timers, tables, or color coding can prove to be helpful to your students when they’re learning time management. Timers help students plan out how long a task will take while students can write out their assignments and due dates in a table to visualize when they need to complete everything. Color coding is another great visual aid to teach your students. Encourage students to color code assignments based on deadlines. For example, using red for deadlines that are close and green for deadlines that are far away.

Introduce visual aids and planning with our What’s on Your Schedule? Lesson Plan.

Promote Prioritization

Once students have time estimation down and have started using their visual aids, prioritizing tasks will become much easier. Using other time management tools like planners and calendars can also help students break down assignments into smaller steps. Having more manageable tasks decreases the chance of procrastination and allows students to visualize what needs to come first when they start working on assignments.

It’s important when teaching time management to emphasize the consequences that may happen if students have poor time management. Failing to complete homework by the due date or not leaving enough time to study can lead to poor grades but with the right strategies, students can tackle assignments with no problem. 

If you’re looking to make teaching time management a little easier, try incorporating one of our time management lesson plans in your classroom!