Do Your Best, Don’t Stress

INSTRUCTOR: _______________

Lesson One: Budgeting Your Time

Grade level: __

Activity: Time Management Game, Worksheet, Discussion, Pre

and post-test

ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors (Domain/Standard):

Category 1 - Mindset standards

Category 2 - Behavior standards

1. a. Learning strategies

2. b. self-management skills

3. c. social skills

● M 2. Self-confidence in ability to succeed

● M 6. Positive attitude toward work and learning

● B-SMS 8. Demonstrate the ability to balance school, home,

and community activities

● B-LS 3. Use time-management, organizational, and study

skills

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 ● B-SS 2. Create positive and supportive relationships with

other students

● B-SS 6. Use effective collaboration and cooperation skills

Purpose:

The pursuit of academic success may contribute to students’

burgeoning feelings of stress and anxiety. By utilizing appropriate

methods and techniques, students can more effectively manage

or diminish maladaptive behaviors associated with stress and

mismanaging time.

Learning Objectives:

1. Students will identify how stress affects us when we have

poor time management skills (our interactions with others,

physiological state, motivation/work habits).

2. Students will examine preemptive measures for

avoiding/minimizing stress (i.e., time management skills).

3. Students will learn the importance of establishing effective

time management skills.

4. Students will learn how to balance their time more

effectively.

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 5. Analyze strategies for reducing or controlling stress (Lesson

3)

Materials:

● Poster paper

● Construction Paper

● Blank sheets of paper

● Pens

● Markers

● Crayons

● Prizes

Procedures:

1.Review small group expectations:

a. Must maintain confidentiality.

b. Be respectful

c. Promote a safe & non-judgmental environment

d. No cellphones

e. No speaking when someone else is sharing

f. Allow others the opportunity to share

g. Have an open mind, positive attitude, collaborate with

other

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2. Introduce the topic, then do a Think-Pair-Share: How does

stress affect us and how can we prevent/diminish that stress with

proper time management?

3. Distribute and complete time management pre-test

4. Time Management Group Activity – Lists & Priorities (10

minutes)

● Divide participants into groups of four or five. Unveil the

numbered list of tasks (found in the online resources section

at the bottom). Explain that they have ten minutes to collect

as many points as possible.

● After ten minutes, add up their points and announce the

winner

5. Address questions #2-7 from ‘Questions for Discussion Section’

6. Introduce individual weekly scheduling activity to class and

have students create a weekly schedule that meets their needs

7. Distribute and complete post-test activity

Questions for Discussion:

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 1. How does stress affect us and how can we prevent/diminish

that stress?

2. What are the benefits of practicing time management skills?

Reaching your goals, finding stability in life,

improving relationships, diminishing procrastination

and wasted time, increasing productivity, finding

more free time, reducing frustration, advancing your

career, getting more satisfaction from life, improving

your health

3. What strategies did your team utilize to accomplish the tasks

in a timely manner? A. Identify values: What is
most important to you (top 3).

B. Prioritize: instead of focusing on things that leave

you feeling like you haven’t made any real headway,
focus first on those three most important things – the
rest will hopefully fall into place.

C. Chunking: break the to-do list down into discrete

steps.

D. Practice organization: “Have a place for everything

and everything in its place.” Eliminate clutter, avoid
being scattered, develop your own system for being

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 organized and remembering where things are.

E. Allow for allotted breaks when needed. Avoid

distractions, but give yourself ten-minute breaks
after completing various tasks or after extended
durations of working.

F. Plan ahead, take into account how much time you

have to accomplish your tasks, and arrange a
schedule that works for you. By being prepared one
can foster confidence in their ability to complete
assignments.

G. Remember your goals. Why are you doing what you

are doing? Let your goals serve as motivation.

H. Reward yourself. Practice your self-discipline & and

reward yourself with a treat when you have practiced
good time management as an extra bit of motivation.

4. How did teams decide what tasks they wanted to do?

Groups analyzed the time

the task would take and/or the difficulty level,

compared it with the value (possible number of

points), and prioritized as a result. We do this when

managing our time, too: we often choose the high-

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 yield, low-effort tasks over the low-yield, high-effort

tasks.

5. Are any decisions based on task dependencies?

For the name card & nickname

tasks, performing these two tasks together would

triple the points received, while efficiently utilizing

time. This often happens in life, too – batching tasks

increases your results exponentially.

6. 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.

7. What time management strategies do you intend to start

practicing? What will that look like for you?

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 Identify values, prioritizing, chunking, taking

intermittent breaks, Plan ahead, organize yourself,

focus on goals, reward yourself.

Process Data:

#__ of students at-risk of being retained will meet for the

first of four lessons for a duration of thirty to thirty-five

minutes, engaging in activity to demonstrate time

management practices, then completing the related

worksheet.

Perception Data:

100 percent of students will report benefitting from the

lesson/activity on time management skills. Students will

complete a pre- and post-test, as well as a worksheet on

scheduling to evaluate their attitude and practices regarding

time management.

Outcome Data:

Students will ideally increase the completion rate of their

class assignments, in turn improving their academic grades

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 enough to pass the school year and be better prepared for

the subsequent grade level.

Follow up:

Check-in with teachers to see if students are making

improvements with their time management skills, review
students’ grades to see if they are making progress, conduct
a follow-up lesson to review material, if necessary.

Online Resources

Alshafie, R. (2017, July 11). Time Management Activities &

Exercises - WorkSMART. Retrieved October 22, 2018, from
http://blog.trainerswarehouse.com/time-management-activities/

Cox, J. (n.d.). Time Management Tips for Teachers. Retrieved

October 22, 2018, from http://www.teachhub.com/time-
management-tips-teachers

Developing Time Management Skills. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understand-other-
people/201507/developing-time-management-skills

Activity List:

1. Do a lap around the room (5 points)

2. Create something for the instructor to wear, such as a hat or tie (10 points;
bonus 5 points if the instructor actually wears it)
3. Find out something unique about each person on the team (5 points)
4. Sing a song together (15 points)
5. Make a paper airplane and throw it from one end of the room to another (10
points)
6. Get everyone in the room to sign a single piece of paper (5 points)

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 7. Count the number of pets owned by your group (20 points)
8. Assign a nickname to each member of the team (5 points)
9. Create name cards for each team member (5 points; bonus 5 points if you use
your team nicknames)
10. Make a tower out of the materials owned by your group (10 points)
11. Convince a member of another team to join you (20 points)
12. Name your team and come up with a slogan (5 points for the name, 5 points for
the slogan)
13. Re-create the sounds of the Amazon rainforest with the sounds of your voices
(10 points)
14. Make a list of what your team wants out of the workshop (15 points)
15. Form a conga line and conga from one end of the room to another (5 points;
bonus 10 points if anyone joins you)

Time Management Self-Assessment

Directions: Are you a good time manager? Respond to the

following inventory. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being that

the statement applies more often than not, and a 1 being

that the statement does not apply most of the time

1. I make lists to help organize things that I have to do. __________

2. I often procrastinate when faced with tasks. __________

3. I make good use of small blocks of time. __________

4. I seldom prioritize among tasks. __________

5. I use my time wisely. __________

6. I find it difficult to resist pressure from others for my time.

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__________

7. I plan how my goals will be reached. __________

8. I lack balance in my life. __________

9. I can motivate myself to complete even boring tasks. __________

10. I have trouble concentrating on a task. __________

Add these together: __________

How did you do?

41 - 50

Congratulations! You have strong time management skills.

26 - 40

You have time management skills that you can build upon.

10 - 25

You can benefit from strengthening your time management skills.

0-9

What’s time management?

Time Management Post Self-Assessment

Directions: After today’s lesson, do you believe that you will

make helpful adjustments to better manage your time? Respond

to the following inventory. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being that

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the statement applies more often than not, and a 1 being that the

statement does not apply most of the time.

1. I make lists to help organize things that I have to do. __________

2. I often procrastinate when faced with tasks. __________

3. I make good use of small blocks of time. __________

4. I seldom prioritize among tasks. __________

5. I use my time wisely. __________

6. I find it difficult to resist pressure from others for my time.

__________

7. I plan how my goals will be reached. __________

8. I lack balance in my life. __________

9. I can motivate myself to complete even boring tasks. __________

10. I have trouble concentrating on a task. __________

Add these together: __________

How did you do?

40 - 50

Congratulations! You have strong time management skills.

25 - 39

You have time management skills that you can build upon.

12
10 - 24

You can benefit from strengthening your time management skills

0-9

What’s time management?

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