Plan
Parents or guardians can help their young learners to plan. Use a monthly planner to schedule those tasks that you already know about at the beginning of the term or month. Add extra murals, events like birthday parties or sports matches, concerts, and family gatherings. Also note down other important dates like tests, exams, or project deadlines as they come up.
Most importantly: Put these somewhere easily accessible, like a schedule on the fridge where everyone can see it. Papers and diaries are too easy to misplace!
Now you are ready to help them plan their days of the week. It is helpful to set up routines for different times of the day. A morning routine would start with the time they get up, which during the week should be the same time to help them get into the habit. Next is a set amount of time for everything that needs to happen before school, like getting dressed, having breakfast, brushing their teeth, packing their schoolbag and travelling to school. Keeping to set times for breakfast and travelling helps them stick to the schedule and avoid feeling rushed and stressed at the start of their day.
The same can be done for the afternoon and evening routine. Working around extra-murals and other necessary tasks like chores, you can help your child work out set times for homework, revision, playtime and meals. Also plan out a bedtime routine and ensure they go to bed early enough, at the same time every night. This aids good quality sleep and sets them up to wake up refreshed every morning.
Typically, we underestimate how long it takes to do tasks. Suggest that the young learner time themselves doing different tasks or homework activities to establish a baseline of how long each item on their to-do list takes. Include everyday activities like getting dressed, eating breakfast, lunch and dinner (which all take different amounts of time!), getting to school, packing their schoolbag, and preparing to study or do homework. Visual timers like this one, or these, are a great aid to help keep activities on track!
Tip: An easy alternative is to build in an extra 5-10 minutes for each task. For example, it may not take 10 minutes to brush their teeth, but if they suddenly have to hunt for toothpaste or a hairbrush, the extra few minutes help them stay on track without stressing that they are running late. Also schedule in a block of time, maybe once a week, for catching up on school tasks they didn’t manage to finish.
Prioritise
Teens and tweens will likely need help prioritising their tasks. Parents or guardians can help by sitting down with them and looking at everything they have to accomplish in a given time period.
For example, they may have homework every day of the week from Monday to Thursday, extra-murals three days a week, a test coming up in two weeks and a big project due in a month. Taking an overview of their schedule for the term and what they have to accomplish every day will help them to prioritise when to do what, and how much time to allocate to each task.
Once they have a clear and realistic idea of how long each activity is likely to take, you can help them prioritise. If your child has processing issues or takes a bit longer to do things, help them to consider that when planning. Consider leaving 5 minutes between tasks so they don’t feel too rushed.
Procrastination
Procrastination is a very complex topic that really deserves its own blog post! The tendency to procrastinate has nothing to do with laziness and is often a coping mechanism for feeling overwhelmed. Learners have so much on their plates every day that it is easy to get overwhelmed. This feeling can paralyse them, meaning nothing gets done. This becomes a vicious circle while their overall well-being and self-confidence plummet.
People living with ADHD might procrastinate because the stress of rushing to finish provides the task novelty they feel they need to be motivated. This can cause a spiral of always leaving things to the last minute, causing more stress and overwhelm. To help your young learner avoid procrastination, start by talking to them about why they procrastinate and how it makes them feel. Take care not to appear judgmental, the idea is just to find out their motivation for doing it. Some people procrastinate to delay or avoid judgment of their abilities, even by themselves. Students are subjected to constant evaluation, which can bring up a lot of complex and uncomfortable feelings and may lead to putting off challenging tasks.
Parents and guardians can help by guiding their learners through breaking tasks down into smaller, more manageable chunks. Then, encourage them to reward themselves for every part they complete. They might write these down in a to-do list they can check off, for example. But teach them to only write down what they feel they can realistically accomplish to help them feel successful. Being able to check tasks off will motivate them to continue.
Productivity
At EduHelp we encourage realistic productivity. In other words, help your child to set achievable productivity goals. If it took a week to summarise a textbook chapter, it is not realistic to think they will do it in a day or two the next time. By helping them break tasks up into manageable chunks, and checking them off as they go along, young students will feel accomplished and motivated.
Another helpful hint is to set a timer and find out how long each section takes. That way, they can plan more effectively in the future.
In the end, it is about the quality of time spent, not the quantity. Once your learner can focus their attention on the task at hand, they will be able to accomplish it in much less time than if they are just sitting staring at their books without taking anything in. Scheduling regular breaks and allowing themselves to rest or do something fun after checking off a task will increase their motivation and self-confidence.
Positivity
Simply telling an overwhelmed and stressed child to be positive may feel like yet another thing they have to do and fall short on.
Instead, try to encourage them to be proactive.
Taking those small steps explained above will help young learners develop a more positive outlook on their work as well as their own ability to accomplish it. The positive reinforcement from being able to check off a task, and enjoying the reward for doing it helps to foster healthy habits for the future. Taking small, measurable and achievable steps toward a goal provides plenty of opportunities for praise (from parents or guardians), self-satisfaction, and feeling successful.
All these positive reinforcements will motivate them to approach tasks in a new, more manageable way and avoid the unnecessary stress and negative feelings of not getting important tasks done on time.
Contact us today to coach your young learner through the intricacies of time management. This truly is one of the most essential executive functioning skills to learn, and mastering this early on in their academic career sets your child up for success.