Time management is an important skill to be learned. It comes more naturally to some (my firstborn, I’m looking at you :)), but luckily it is a skill that can be learned by all and strengthened with practice. Developing time management skills early in life gives our kids a head start that’ll help them avoid so many procrastination pitfalls in the future.
Proper time management skills are a gift we can give our kids. Thankfully, although it’s important to learn, I’ve found it’s also easy to teach, especially if you start while your kids are young. I’ve pulled together some of my favorite tips to teach time management to kids so you can set your kids up for a life of success.
How to Teach Time Management
Set a Visual Timer
The concept of time can be pretty vague, especially if your kids are young. It’s tough to learn how to manage your time if you’re not quite sure as to how much time has actually passed. This is where visual timers can be such helpful tools. Visual timers show your kid how much time has passed, but also how much time is left to go. This can also be helpful if you’re wondering how to help kids focus.
To make use of a visual timer, set your kids up in a distraction-free zone and set goals as to how long they can work without needing a break. For young kids, working for 15 minutes and then taking a 5-minute break is a good place to start. So, you’d set the timer for 15 minutes, and they can easily see how much time they have left to work. This encourages students and young kids to really focus on the time that they’re in “work mode” because they know a break is coming soon.
Set Small, Realistic Goals
During the school year, kids can get overwhelmed with the number of projects they need to work on. When a project feels like it’s too big to tackle, procrastination pops up because your kids may not know where to start. To prevent this from happening, help them set aside time to set goals that are attainable and realistic.
For example, for a really big project, it’s a good idea to spend time figuring out how long the total project will take, and break that into smaller chunks. In the case of a research project or essay, they could say that they’ll need X amount of hours to research, X amount of hours to write or complete the project and X amount of hours to edit and finalize it. Then, you can further break it down into the number of hours you can fit into a day. All of a sudden, this large overwhelming project has been broken into manageable chunks and your kids now know that they’ll only have to work on their project for an hour a day to get it done by the due date.
Prioritizing Tasks
Teaching our kids to prioritize tasks is a great step developing in good time management skills. Not every task is urgent and important, and shifting their focus to the tasks that take top priority will help them avoid spending time on things that don’t really need to be done. A practical way to approach this is to use a simple chart to divide daily or weekly tasks into four categories: Important and Urgent, Important but not Urgent, Not Important but Urgent, and Not Important and Not Urgent.
Obviously, the focus for the day would be on Important and Urgent Tasks, followed by either Important but not Urgent, or Not Important but Urgent. You don’t have to do this for long before your kids will learn which tasks are urgent and important and which ones can wait a bit but it’s a great way to visually get them to see what they should focus on first.
Take Breaks
One of my favorite time management tips involves free time. Free time is just as important for kids as the time they spend working on chores, assignments, and schoolwork. Long term, if our kids don’t have dedicated free time into their day, they’ll become overwhelmed and burnt out. If you can, try to make the free time something that gets their blood pumping like exercise, or something that helps them relax like listening to music or reading a book. A TV show or movie can be relaxing downtime, but other screen stuff, like games or apps, aren’t shown to be the best thing to fill their free time with because it doesn’t feel like taking a break when it comes to their brains.
Identify Prime Working Times
We all have times of the day when we feel full of energy and the ability to focus, just like we all have times when it feels like our brains want to be doing anything other than what we’re currently working on. Our little humans are no different. Some are night owls, while others rise and shine with the sun ready to start their days. Remember that tip on identifying what’s a priority? Make use of the effective times that your kids are on their A-game. This is the perfect time to tackle those urgent and important tasks. On their lower-energy time slots, you can fit in the things that don’t require as much brain power or might not be as high on the importance scale.
Make a Schedule
Since kids tend to respond well to visual learning, creating a schedule can really help them manage their time. Check out my free resources for a printable “My Day” planner for your kids.
Whether it’s a list, an hourly view, or a calendar with blank boxes, find the type of schedule your kids work best with and use it! Seeing everything they need to do on paper right in front of them really helps cut down on procrastination. As an added bonus, if you’re trying to learn how to teach intrinsic motivation, making a schedule might help. If your children complete a task, they get to cross it off which leads to a feeling of accomplishment. Then, at the end of the day, they’ll be able to see just how productive their day was, which also helps with intrinsic motivation.
Time management is a valuable skill for kids to learn as it’ll set them up for success when they reach adulthood. What’s your favorite time management tool? Let me know in the comments below!
