5 Making time for this course
One of the key skills that you will need to demonstrate during this course is managing your time effectively. If you are working full time, or balancing your studies with other responsibilities such as childcare, you will have only a certain number of hours in the day.
To gain the most benefit from this exploration of leadership and followership, you’ll need to set aside a certain number of hours each week for completing the course and doing any extra work involved. If you follow the steps outlined in this section, you should be able to plan your time and fit everything in.
A useful place to start is by identifying how you currently spend your time. If you’ve completed our other badged open course, Understanding your sector [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , you may have undertaken this activity before.
Activity 6 How do you spend your time?
The schedule below lists 90-minute blocks of time between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. on the seven days of the week. It assumes that most people sleep sometime between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m., but you can adapt this for your own circumstances. Complete the boxes, showing how you spend the hours within each block of time.
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | |
| 08:00–09:30 | |||||||
| 09:30–11:00 | |||||||
| 11:00–12:30 | |||||||
| 12:30–14:00 | |||||||
| 14:00–15:30 | |||||||
| 15:30–17:00 | |||||||
| 17:00–18:30 | |||||||
| 18:30–20:00 | |||||||
| 20:00–21:30 | |||||||
| 21:30–23:00 |
Discussion
After undertaking Activity 6 you should have a clearer idea of the time available in your usual week. You can hopefully identify blocks of time that you could devote to completing this course and achieving any goals you set yourself.
If you need additional help in finding those blocks of time, you can use the Time Management tool in the Toolkit. This will help you break down large tasks and be realistic about your priorities.
Time management is also a crucial skill for a leader with competing priorities. Pressure to complete a project or deliver an outcome within a short time frame can come from many sources, including senior leaders, clients, funding bodies or even governments. Managing your time effectively can make meeting key deadlines much easier.