Page 85 - Keys To Community College Success

RISK ACTION
RISK ACTION

FOR COLLEGE, CAREER, AND LIFE REWARDS

Complete the following on paper or in digital format; for the time management exercise, use the
in-text grids.

KNOW IT Think Critically

Discover How You Spend Your Time
Build basic skills. Everyone has exactly 168 hours in a week. How do you spend your hours?
Start by guessing or estimating the time you spend on three particular activities. How much time
do you spend on each of these activities in a week?
Studying? ________ hours
Sleeping? ________ hours
Interacting with media and technology (computer, online services, cell phone, texting, video
games, television) for non-academic purposes? _______ hours

To find out the real story, record how you actually spend your time for seven days. The
Weekly Time Log chart has blocks showing half-hour increments. As you go through the week,
write down what you do each hour, indicating when you start and when you stop. Include sleep
and leisure time. Record your actual activities instead of the activities you think you should be
doing. There are no wrong answers.
After a week, note how many hours you spent on each activity using the Weekly Summary
chart. Round off the times to half-hours—if you spent 31 to 44 minutes on an activity, mark it
as a half-hour; if you spent 45 to 59 minutes, mark it as one hour. Log the hours in the boxes in
the chart using tally marks, with a full mark representing one hour and a half-size mark repre-
senting a half-hour. In the third column, total the hours for each activity. Finally, add the totals Values, Goals, and Time
in that column to make sure your grand total is approximately 168 hours (if it isn’t, go back and
check your grid and calculations and fix any errors you find). Leave the Ideal Time in Hours
column blank for now.
Take it to the next level. Look over your results, paying special attention to how your
estimated hours for sleep, study, and technology activities compare to your actual logged
activity hours for the week. Use a separate sheet of paper or electronic file to answer the fol-
lowing questions:
■ What surprises you about how you spend your time?
■ Do you spend the most time on the activities that represent your most important values—
or not?
■ Where do you waste the most time? What do you think that is costing you?
■ On which activities do you think you should spend more time? On which should you spend
less time?

Move toward mastery. Go back to the Weekly Summary chart and fill in the Ideal Time in
Hours column with the number of hours you think would make the most sense. Consider the dif-
ference between your actual hours and you ideal hours. What changes are you willing to make to
get closer to how you want to ideally spend your time? Write a short paragraph describing, in
detail, two time-management changes you plan to make this term so you focus your time more
effectively on your most important goals and values.

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