4 Making time for this course
While you will no doubt have signed up for this course with every intention of completing it – we all experience time pressure in our lives and it is often the additional activities that we take on for our own development or enjoyment that fall away.
Spending a small amount of time identifying when you can work on the course each week, and deliberately setting aside that time, can make all the difference.
To complete the course, it is recommended that you allow a minimum of three hours each week. If possible, you should choose times when you can bring energy and attention to the task. For example, if you function better in the mornings, you might want to set your alarm earlier and complete a section or two before you start your daily routine. Alternatively, a person who is more energetic and motivated in the evening might find allocating time towards the end of each day more productive.
Activity 5 provides a tool that will help you to identify the time you have available for this course. If you’ve completed other courses on OpenLearn, you may have undertaken this activity before.
Activity 5 How do I spend my 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 |
Comment
After undertaking Activity 5 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 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . This will help you break down large tasks and be realistic about your priorities.
If you want to explore your energy levels and productivity further, Chris Bailey has written a book on managing your time, attention and energy – The Productivity Project (2016). Or you can view recent articles and sign up for his monthly productivity newsletter here.
Effective use of time is also an important element of mentoring and coaching – whether you are the mentor or coach ensuring that time spent with your client is productive, or the mentee/coachee finding time to reflect or take action between appointments.