Time Management - Overcoming Procrastination

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• Personal Development
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• Lower Secondary (Key Stage 3)
• Upper Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• Further Education (Key Stage 5)

Introduction

This lesson looks at a technique for overcoming procrastination and ensuring your students are focussing on tasks and events in order of priority.

Instructions

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Introduces time management through a simple jar-and-orbs model for planning a day. Sharpens the distinction between what students must do, should do and would like to do.

Sets ground rules for respectful discussion, since conversations about workload, pressure and wellbeing can be personal for some students.

How often do you feel you have 'no time' to do things?

Starting from students' own sense of having "no time" draws out prior experience and the words they use to describe pressure and workload.

Stretch: Students identify one recurring situation where they run out of time and suggest what actually causes it.

Device-Free: Students rate how often it happens on their fingers (one for rarely, five for constantly), then share one example with a partner.

LO:

Exploring what time management means, and how it could positively impact your studies (and even your mental health!)

Shares the learning objective: what time management means and how it can benefit both studies and mental health.

The clip brings real-world context to why managing time matters; check before the lesson that it still plays and suits the group.

Stretch: Students pick one idea from the clip and explain how it would apply to a typical school week.

Device-Free: If the video is unavailable, pairs list what usually eats into their time after school before moving on to the jar model.

To make it easy, think of your day as a jar, and the tasks and activities you would like to do as physical 'orbs' - with each orb representing one hour... However, this jar can only hold so many orbs. Realistically only 9 or 10.

So how do we prioritise what orbs have to go into the jar, which ones we should put in the jar, and which ones we would like to put in?

Well, that is normally down to each person's individual demands, necessities, responsibilities and interests.

Let's explore some examples together.

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The jar model makes time finite and visible: each orb is one hour, and only nine or ten fit into a day.

Stretch: Students justify why the jar holds only nine or ten orbs when a day has 24 hours.

Device-Free: Draw a jar on the board and add an orb for each activity students suggest until it is full.

What would be some "must do" examples?

Gathering "must do" examples builds a shared definition of the non-negotiable commitments that go into the jar first.

Stretch: Students challenge one suggestion and argue whether it is truly a "must" or could be moved.

Device-Free: Each student writes one "must" on a mini-whiteboard and the class holds them up together.

What would be some "probably should..." examples?

The "should" category brings out tasks that matter but have flexible timing, widening students' vocabulary of priority.

Stretch: Students explain what would happen if a "should" task were left undone for a whole week.

Device-Free: Pair talk, then each pair contributes one example aloud.

What would be some "would like to..." examples?

Collecting "would like to" examples shows that enjoyable activities and rest have a legitimate place in the jar.

Stretch: Students decide which "like" activity they would protect first in a busy week and justify the choice.

Device-Free: Quick-fire hands-up round, with answers recorded on the board beside the "must" and "should" lists.

So now you have tried that - why not write out what your 'orbs' for the week would be, and split up a piece of paper into 7 sections, or 'jars'.

Use a highlighter to denote whether they are a must / should / like use of your time. (e.g. Maths class is highlighted red, because it is a 'must' - walking the dog is a 'should', so it's a yellow - whereas seeing my friends is a 'like' so I highlight it green)

Then organise the 7 days/jars, with a maximum of 10 orbs per jar.

1. Allocate all the "musts" (red in my example) first - they generally have a time and date where they have to happen.

2. Then assign your "should" pile to the spaces where it makes the most sense.

3. Finally, fit in the "like to's.." - you might not be able to fit them all in, which is OK! If you can get more "must" and "should" done in a day than you expected - put some greens into the gaps, or use that time to simply have nothing to do... your brain and body need a break as much as it needs structure, and after finishing all your must/should tasks - you will have earned it!

The model becomes a practical weekly plan here, colour-coding musts, shoulds and likes across seven jars with a ten-orb limit.

Stretch: Students justify the order of allocation (musts first, then shoulds, then likes) using one real day from their own week.

Device-Free: The task is already paper-based: students divide a sheet into seven sections and use red, yellow and green pens or highlighters.

Closing slide; invite final questions on anything covered before students leave.