Instructions for Trainers
You are invited to prepare your own course on time management. In this section, you find a few hints to get started.
The material here allows you to prepare a 2 hour workshop on Time Management.
Workshop Goals
- Participants assess their use of work time
- Participants apply basic time management tools
- Participants improve their long-term work efficiency
- Participants improve their awareness of work-life balance
General recommendations
Preparing an introductory course on Time Management is not difficult. It is a topic everybody can relate to. Also I found the literature relatively uniform. That is, it is enough to read any book on the topic. You don't need to read a pile of books.
If you have little experience with conducting interactive teaching, I strongly recommend the following:
1. Start with a small group.
You can make lively, useful workshops with 5-7 people. The larger the group gets, the harder the dynamics are to handle spontaneously. Of course if your group is large, you can decide to give a presentation, but then it will be more difficult to make the participants think.
2. Use the exepertise in the group.
You don't need to claim you are an expert. Probably everyone can contribute some of their own experience in dealing with time. You can make it sound like an invitation, e.g.:
"I found this material on the web and would like to go through the exercises together. Maybe we find a few ways to optimize our work."
rather than claiming
"I have read 3 books on Time Management and will tell you how to do it."
In my opinion, it depends a lot on personality which Time Management tools work best for whom.
3. Safety precautions: Tensions
Be careful if there are tensions within the group. If everybody in your group is stressed and there are conflicts within, it will be difficult for you to stay neutral. In that situation, an external mediator may be a better choice.
4. Safety precautions: Hierarchy
If your boss will be among the participants, doing an interactive workshop can be very challenging! Unless you have a very supportive supervisor or you know how to handle teaching in such situations I recommend you to switch to a frontal presentation.
Contact
Please feel free to contact me in case of questions via [email protected]. Also I am curious to hear how the material here worked for you.