Here’s a quick activity to introduce the concept of #timemanagement to participants

Create a list of tasks with reward points for the participants to complete in 10 minutes – about 15 tasks should do it.

Divide participants into teams of five to eight. Unveil the numbered list of tasks. Explain that they have ten minutes to collect as many points as possible.

Then watch the creative chaos ensue!

I included tasks like taking a selfie and sharing it on whatsapp, make something for the trainer out of paper (results are in the pic below! participants created a pair of glasses and a watch out of paper)

ACTIVITY

Give participants ten minutes to perform their tasks, and enjoy the show! After ten minutes, add up their points using your pre-designed matrix and announce the winner. Keep the list of tasks; you may want to tape it to the wall.

DEBRIEF

After the activity, discuss learning points. Possible discussion topics include:

·How did teams decide what tasks they wanted to do? Most groups will analyze the time the task will take and/or the difficulty level, compare it with the value (possible number of points), and prioritize as a result. We do this when managing our time, too: we often choose the high-yield, low-effort tasks over the low-yield, high-effort tasks (and rightly so!).

·Are any decisions based on task dependencies?

For example 2 tasks are – Assign a nickname to each member of the team (5 points) and Create name cards for each team member (5 points; bonus 5 points if you use your team nicknames)

For the name card task, for example, teams received bonus points if they used team nicknames. Performing these two tasks together would triple the points received. This often happens in life, too – batching tasks increases your results exponentially.

·What group dynamics came into play? If participants knew each other before, they may feel more comfortable performing a personally risky activity, like singing a song. This comes into play when prioritizing tasks, too; we’re more likely to stay within our comfort zone, especially if we’re working in a team.

Do try this activity for your next time management workshop and drop me a line to let me know how it went.