Flip Chart to #1 Basic Time Management Stage Left Chart

46 TIME MANAGEMENT Session Length: 50 Minutes Learning objectives:! Give lodge and chapter leaders, and those aspiring to such roles, an introduction to basic time management techniques.! Help youth leaders control the time requirements of a project rather than letting time pressures control them.! Reduce the stress of leadership responsibilities by helping leaders prepare for programs and assemble resources in a timely manner. Required Materials:! Flipcharts (with markers and tape)! Optional Power Point presentation file, laptop, projector and screen! Samples of calendars and lists! Copies of blank calendars and project calendars as handouts! Portable stereo and compact disc of Pink Floyd s Time (from Dark Side of the Moon CD) TRAINER PREPARATION Before the Session: 30 Minutes Be completely familiar with the syllabus. Prior to the arrival of the participants, prepare pre-written flipchart pages and pre-draw calendar grids on flipchart pages 7 and 8. Print on page 1 of the flipchart (and project the first slide of the Power Point presentation file, if desired): Flip Chart to #1 Basic Time Management Stage Left Chart PP Slide #1 Basic Time Management! The session name: Basic Time Management! Your name! Contact information Trainer Tip: Throughout the rest of the presentation, elicit responses from the group and write them on the flip chart, but make sure that essential points are included. Power Point slides, if used, should be advanced when indicated. Cue up the Pink Floyd compact disc to the correct track, Time. At the start of the session, start the song without announcing or speaking. The alarms and bells at the beginning of the song will command the attention of the group. SESSION NARRATIVE Order of the Arrow 46 1 Boy Scouts of America

Introduction: 10 Minutes Trainer should play the following opening verse of Pink Floyd s Time. The lyrics should be pre-written on the flip chart, which should be flipped when the lyrics begin, or, if used, Power Point slide #2 should be projected during the song: Flip Chart to #2 Time Pink Floyd Stage Left Chart Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day. You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town. Waiting for someone or something to show you the way. Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. Pink Floyd PP Slide #2 Time Pink Floyd Stop the compact disc after this first verse. My name is, from Lodge in Council. Time is the topic we re here to discuss. The message of that old Pink Floyd song is that time is your master, but time can be a disaster. Time can be a tool that you use to accomplish your goals and objectives, or time can be a relentless adversary, a crushing army that never stops advancing. In order to avoid disaster, we need to be the masters of time. And in order to master time, we need to know when to begin, and how to proceed though time, so that we can reach each of our many appointed deadlines successfully. The song said, You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Maybe back in the seventies, when that was written, young people frittered and wasted their hours away, but we all know that is not the way things are today. Young people have numerous commitments and enormous pressures in their lives. What are some of the things that you are expected to do in your lives? What tasks and expectations demand your time? Flip Chart to #3 Time Demands Stage Left Chart Elicit responses from the group, such as the following, and write them on the flip chart. Invite participants to share the stories about the pressures that they face. At the end, if Power Point is used, advance to the next slide:! School projects! Exams, term papers, SAT s! Band, clubs, sports! Troop commitments! Order of the Arrow responsibilities! Family commitments! Jobs! Relationships PP Slide #3 Effects of Stress: Time Demands 3 Minutes Managing the expectations and commitments that bear down on all of us is essential to our well being. That s not an exaggeration; it s a medical fact. That overwhelming, out of control feeling we all feel when it seems like our responsibilities are too much for us is called stress, and, in case you haven t heard, Order of the Arrow 46 2 Boy Scouts of America

stress is not good for us. Another line in that Pink Floyd song goes like this So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it s sinking; racing around to come up behind you again. Have you had that feeling the feeling that there aren t enough hours in the day to do all the things that need to be done? The feeling that you are a juggler, trying to keep too many balls in the air, or that you re chasing something that you can never seem to catch? That s stress. These are just some of the negative effects of excessive stress: (List should be pre-written on flip chart and/or Power Point slide should be advanced. Explain or discuss each point.) Flip Chart to #4 Effects of Stress Stage Left Chart PP Slide #4 Effects of Stress! Sleeplessness! Indigestion! Overeating! Irritability (being a jerk)! Damage to relationships! Ulcers! High blood pressure! Heart disease! Lots of other health problems leading to an early death So, managing stress by managing time commitments is not only necessary for achieving success in all of the activities that we pursue, it is essential to living a long, happy, healthy life. The earlier in life that we start to manage time, the better off we will be in the long run, and the more successful we will be in accomplishing all of the tasks and goals in our lives. We re going to discuss some tools that we can all use to help us manage time. Taking Control: 15 Minutes One of the most basic ways to take control of time and time demands is the simple practice of making lists. The to do list can help us ensure that our time is organized and that we meet our most important responsibilities. It forces us to think, in advance, about the tasks ahead of us. Some people use the to do list function of software calendar programs like Microsoft s Outlook, but a pencil and paper can work just as well. Our first exercise is to develop a useful to do list for the coming week. Let s take a look at a short list of things that we might have on our list. Flip Chart to #5 Weekly Tasks Stage Left Chart PP Slide #5 Weekly Tasks! Wash car! Study for history test! Band practice! Troop meeting! Football game! Book report! Movie with girlfriend! Lodge Executive Committee While it s helpful to have a list like this, it could be more helpful. What could we do to this list to make it more useful? (Wait for the correct response, hopefully.) That s right, a to do list is more beneficial if it is prioritized. Priorities take more than one form importance, firm deadlines, soft deadlines, or a combination of factors. You should consider the things that must be done by a certain time, the things Order of the Arrow 46 3 Boy Scouts of America

that should be done by a certain time, and the things that we would like to accomplish, but are not necessarily essential. Perhaps a more useful list would look like this: Flip Chart to #6 Weekly Tasks Prioritized Stage Left Chart PP Slide #6 Weekly Tasks Prioritized! Study for history test (test is on Tuesday)! Band practice (Tuesday afternoon)! Book report (due Wednesday)! Troop meeting (Tuesday night)! Lodge Executive Committee (Wednesday night)! Wash car (parents expect it done by Friday)! Football game! Movie with girlfriend (sometime this week, but could attend game together instead) You may notice that the troop meeting occurs before the book report, but you may have to miss the troop meeting to complete the book report. The movie with the girlfriend should, perhaps, be higher on the list, but you may have some flexibility to substitute the football game as an acceptable date. The point is that you should consider which of your tasks absolutely, positively must be done before other tasks. You should also include ongoing, long-term tasks that you could start on if you find extra time during the week. Now, we re going to take a few minutes to write our own to do lists for the coming week, and it should probably be quite a bit longer than our example. Think about everything ahead of you in the next seven days, and write it all down. Don t try to prioritize the list at first, just put down as many tasks as you can think of. Then, once you have a list, turn the page over and put the list in priority, considering which ones involve an absolute deadline, which ones absolutely cannot slip past a deadline, and which ones could wait until you have the time. Be sure to include things that you might want to get started on, but which could wait until next week if you do not find the time. Take five minutes, then I will ask a few of you to volunteer to share your lists with the group. After five minutes, ask one or two of the participants to share their lists. Explore their reasons for their priorities. Keeping a prioritized to do list is the first step to taking control of your time. Effective list keepers update their lists every day. You would be surprised at how satisfying it can be to draw lines through tasks as you complete them. Even if you don t update your list every day, you definitely should make a new list at the end of each week. Those tasks that were not accomplished can be moved onto the new list, especially those that fell into the could wait until next week category. Those tasks should remain on your list as a reminder of the long-term projects ahead. Eventually, they will become higher priorities. The Calendar: 20 Minutes Lists are very helpful for each of us, personally. However, they are not as much help when tasks involve a group effort. Calendars are the next step in mastering time. How many of you keep a personal calendar with dates of events and tasks written on it? Again, some people use computer software programs to keep their calendars, but paper planners and calendars, which can be carried around with you, are often more convenient and effective. Personal data assistants, like Palm Pilots and similar products, serve the same purpose, but they are more expensive. Your personal calendar should contain all of the tasks on your to do list that involve deadlines. Other tasks from your list can be written in the margin, or just stuck in the calendar or taped to the page. The added benefit of a calendar is that you can more easily keep track of tasks and projects that extend farther into to the future. But calendarizing is not just about looking forward, the real usefulness of a calendar is that it allows you to take a task, break it into steps, then work backward to organize the steps and consider milestones for completion of the tasks. Order of the Arrow 46 4 Boy Scouts of America

Calendarizing and backdating are easier to do than to explain. So we re going to do it now. Let s start with a project that we all might have on our to do lists a lodge service project. Assume that your lodge has decided to have a service day at your council camp where you will build an equipment shed. Not glamorous, but certainly necessary. We will be the lodge service committee, and we will plan the project together. The first step is to make a list of tasks that must be completed in order to successfully complete the project during the one day that you will be at camp. Flip Chart to #7 Lodge Service Day Stage Left Chart Elicit responses from the group, hopefully including at least the following, and write them on the flip chart. At the end, if Power Point is used, advance to the next slide:! Obtain council permission! Obtain necessary permits! Notify lodge members! Have plans drawn! Develop list of needed construction materials! Obtain materials! Develop list of tools needed! Obtain necessary tools! Identify specific expertise required! Secure the necessary expertise! Arrange for lunch PP Slide #7 Lodge Service Day Obviously, there is a particular order in which the tasks must be completed. We re going to assume that our committee has made the decision to proceed with the project and that the service day will take place in only two months. That may be a little unreasonable, but we ll try. Let s take the tasks on our list and decide when, on our two-month calendar, each task should be completed in order to have a successful service day. Tear off two pages of the flip chart, with calendar grids pre-drawn, and tape them up at the front of the room. With the group s input, place deadlines for each task on the calendar. Tear Off and Post Flip Chart #8 and #9 Calendar Posted at Front of Room Now that we have our master project calendar, we ll divide up into groups of seven. One member of each group will take responsibility for one or two specific tasks, serving as the subcommittee chairman for that task. So, each of us will have at least one responsibility. You should then make a list of tasks that you think will be necessary in order to complete your responsibility. Then, you should place the tasks on your handout with the blank, two-page calendar. Be sure to give yourself, or your subcommittee, enough time to complete your assigned responsibility by the deadline on the master project calendar. Also, be sure to consider any other events and activities taking place during the next two months, and feel free to consult with the others in your group. Take a few minutes to complete your calendars, then I ll ask one of the groups to share their results. Divide the groups according to the number of participants in the session. Monitor their progress, and do not let them take too long. After a few minutes, ask the members of one of the groups to share their lists of tasks and when they placed the tasks on their calendars. Conclusion: 3 Minutes When I gave you instructions for completing your calendars for your subcommittee s tasks, I asked you to keep in mind other events and activities that might be occurring during the two-month period. No project Order of the Arrow 46 5 Boy Scouts of America

exists in a vacuum. Your council might have events planned that would prevent you from reaching milestones. That is the reason that our lodges are expected to coordinate their program calendars with their councils. Community events and troop activities should also be considered. The tasks that appear on your subcommittee s calendar should also appear on the personal calendars of those involved. You should place such tasks on your calendar, along with your other personal activities and events, so you can have a complete roadmap of the months ahead. Calendars and to do lists are interrelated. We use our to do lists to develop our calendars, and our calendars, along with school, troop, lodge, club and other calendars, will help us keep our personal to do lists current and useful. So, using these two tools together can provide enormous help in organizing our lives. Not everyone will use them in the same way, and you may develop your own system for keeping track of your commitments. Does anyone have another system that they use to stay organized? Elicit responses from the group, perhaps including the following:! Project planning software! Day planner! Week-at-a-glance! Outlook Don t let calendarizing and list making add to your stress. Use them in a way that makes you comfortable. If you miss a week or two, that s okay. Pick up where you left off. Whatever system works for you, try it out, and stick with it long enough to make it a routine. I think you will discover that using time management techniques will help you achieve your goals and meet your responsibilities with less stress and more enjoyment. They will also help you become a more effective leader. Most important of all, mastering time, instead of making it your master, will help you lead a happier, healthier life. Good luck! PP Slide #8 Time End Order of the Arrow 46 6 Boy Scouts of America

APPENDIX: FLIPCHART SUGGESTIONS The following is a recommended list of flip chart pages that can be used for visual presentation. 1 BASIC TIME MANAGEMENT Your Name Your Contact Information Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day. You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town. Waiting for someone or something to show you the way. Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. Pink Floyd 2 3 Time Demands Effects of Stress - Sleeplessness - Indigestion - Overeating - Irritability (being a jerk) - Damage to relationships - Ulcers - High blood pressure - Heart disease - Lots of other health problems leading to an early death 4 Weekly Tasks Wash car Study for history test Band practice Troop meeting Football game Book report Movie with girlfriend Lodge Executive Committee 5 Weekly Tasks (Prioritized) Study for history test (test is on Tuesday) Band practice (Tues afternoon Book report (due Wed.) Troop meeting (Tues. night) Lodge Executive Committee (Wed. night) Wash car (parents want it done by Friday) Football game (Friday night) Movie with girlfriend (sometime during week, but could substitute football game) 6 Lodge Service Day Order of the Arrow 46 7 Boy Scouts of America

Samples of various calendars and planners APPENDIX: SOURCE MATERIALS AND RESOUCES Outlook or other calendar software loaded on laptop for demonstration Order of the Arrow 46 8 Boy Scouts of America