Managing Your Time

Session Outcomes

• Learn more about Business Readiness and what tasks you need to
complete.
• Understand the link between time management, planning and
success
• To begin to understand why time management is challenging
• To understand how habits and tools may be combined to become better
time managers
• Be able to develop and evaluate SMART goals
 Business Readiness

Non-credit bearing module which runs over your entire 3 years

at Roehampton
Tasks associated with the module each year
Work with your AGT each year to complete tasks
You CANNOT graduate unless you have completed the module
‘Assessment’ in final year is a CV and a LinkedIn profile
You may have these already, the module will enable you to
develop and improve the content in your CV and LinkedIn
profile
Helps you to chart your development and evidence
Business Readiness

The introduction to the site begins:

A key aspect of your employability will be your undergraduate

BSc business degree from Roehampton Business School.
Throughout your career you will refer back to your
undergraduate business degree and discuss with future
employers the knowledge and skills you have successfully
developed during degree. It is important for your employability
that are able to recognise your own ‘business readiness’
(employability and added value) from the beginning of your
degree programme.
Business Readiness
Business Readiness is what we want you to
be when go for your first graduate interview

Encourage you to think how you will be

adding value to any organisation for which
you have an interview

When they ask ‘How will you add value?’ –

you respond:

•Because I know this

•I can do this
•I am this kind of person

But how do you evidence that?

Business Readiness

You will be working on this each year with the support from
your Academic Guidance Tutor.
By the end of this year, you need to have completed:
•The EAI assessment (reflecting on the skills you have learnt)
•A progress review of your first year
•A Personal Development Plan (PDP) for the next academic
year
•A personal development diary
First Year Tasks
EAI: complete the assessment.
Progress Review: Rate yourself on a number of competencies. Evidence
progress, and plan what you will do to build on these in your second
year.
Personal Development Plan for the next academic year: Assess and plan
how you will measure your development and formulate three SMART
objectives for the next academic year.
YOU SHOULD DISCUSS THESE WITH YOUR ACADEMIC GUIDANCE TUTOR

Personal Development Diary: Final part requires at least two diary

entries in which you identify activities that help build your business
readiness portfolio.
e.g. Land that Job, participating in CV workshops, gaining practical
experience, volunteering, joining the business society…
These entries will also form the basis of discussion with your tutor.
What should you do now?

• Look at the Business Readiness

module site if you have not
already
• Start thinking about and
preparing material NOW
• Make an appointment to meet
your tutor to discuss progress –
next week is a very good time to
meet us and talk things through
• By the end of this academic year,
your completed Year One work
should be submitted via Turnitin
on the Business Readiness
Moodle site.
SMART Goals
• Do you ever feel like you are working hard but not getting anywhere?
• Do you see little improvement in your skills or achievements when you reflect
on your previous learning?
• Perhaps you cannot identify how you will fulfil your ambitions during the next
three years.
• Many people rush around trying to get more done while actually
accomplishing very little.
• Setting SMART goals means you can:
• Clarify your ideas,
• Focus your efforts,
• Use your time and resources productively,
• Increase your chances of achieving what you want in life.
• “The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up
and down the field and never score”.– Bill Copeland.

IT IS TIME TO PUT YOUR SMART GOALS INTO ACTION!

NOW answer the following questions on the
other side of the handout
• How did your goals and accuracy change with each round? Why?
• What motivated you to do better?
• In which round did you do the best?
• What lessons about goal setting can we draw from this activity?
 What do Great Goals Look Like?

• Goals should be, at a minimum, SMART.

• Goals should be manageable in number.
• Adding too more goals is likely to have a negative
impact on productivity and derail progress toward
achieving any of them.
• Goals should address both results and personal
development.
• Each year, engage in the goal-setting process to
achieve desired results.
• Well-written, regularly reviewed goals ensure
accountability and performance
 Great Goals and Execution

• The GROW model (Goals, Realities, Options and Will)

• Time-tested and effective model about goal setting
and performance.
• Set of probes that can help lead individuals to the
answers they need to write and execute effective
goals.
GROW Model
GOALS
•What is it you would like to focus
on?
•What would you like to achieve?
•What would you like to happen that
is not happening now?
•How would you know you were
being successful if you achieved your
goal?
•How could you break this goal down
into manageable chunks?
•What are all the things that would
need to be done to achieve the goal?
REALITIES
•What is happening at the moment to
derail your progress toward the goal?
•When and how often does this
happen? Be precise if possible.
•What effect does this have?
•What other factors are relevant?
•Who else is relevant?
•What is that person’s perception of
the situation?
•What have you tried so far?
•What else is conflicting with
achieving the goal?
GROW Model
OPTIONS WILL
•What possibilities for action do •What are your next steps?
you see? Don’t worry about how •Precisely when will you take
realistic they are at this stage.
them?
•Who might be able to help?
•What might get in the way?
•Which options do you like the
most? •What support do you need?
•What are the benefits and pitfalls •Can you see some real benefit
of these options? coming from this for yourself?
•Which options are of interest to •Are you excited by the prospect?
you?
•Rate from 1 to 10 your assessment
of the practicality of each of these
options.
•Would you like to choose an
option to act on?
 Grow Model Activity

• Each student should have the handout ‘Grow Model Activity’

• Divide into pairs.
• Individually, spend one minute to identify a goal you would like coaching
on using the GROW model (This can be based on your SMART goal).
• In pairs, one person will ask their partner the questions on the handout
and record the answers given.
• Swap over and complete the same activity.
• Once complete, hand your completed sheet to your partner so they have a
record of their goal using the GROW model.
• This may be useful for your Business Readiness Module.
Time

To sum up one of the themes of the article - Securing a good job means
you will need to manage your time!
•For the past 20 years workers putting in the longest hours and juggling
the most responsibilities at home are among the best educated and best
paid
•60% of those who use smartphones are connected to work 13.5 hours a
day or more
•40% of British managers say they work more than 60 hours a week
The Economist (2014) ‘Why is everyone so busy? http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21636612-time-
poverty-problem-partly-perception-and-partly-distribution-why
Parkinson’s Law

Historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson articulated Parkinson's law which

states that ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available for its
completion’
Or - If you have a month to do an essay you will take a month.
The danger is most of the month is spent doing very little and suddenly,
it’s the night before submission
What we can tell from Marshmallows

Watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz1pnFBLZM4

Stanford University in the 1960s followed kids through school
and into adulthood.
The ones that resisted the marshmallow were more
successful as they had a better grasp on how to make
themselves do what was best for them.
What does this mean?
We are bad at predicting future mental states (tomorrow I
WILL read that journal article and not spend hours on
Facebook)
What can we do? Organisation and discipline
• To get organised you can try:
• To do lists – lists, wall planner but know what is needed
• Organise your study space
• Have the right equipment
• Both of the above get you ready to study and reduce the chance of
displacement activities
• Spend time upfront learning system
• This could be how to operate your editing functions on your computer,
using excel of ….referencing!
• Plan time strategically
• Allow for slippage, allow for a change or plan
• Try to avoid drift and use time even when it doesn’t seem worth it.
• Look for key dates – know what is wanted when
• Your key dates for tasks are on your module moodle site
Be clear about what you need to do!
 Managing Your Time

• A 20 credit module is….200 hours
study
• You have 15 weeks in a semester
(12 taught weeks)
• How many hours a week should
you be spending?
• 200hrs/15 weeks
• = 13…333 hours per week
• But you have three modules – so?
• 40 hours – a full working week
• Of course with this module you
have 4
• AND tasks to complete for Business
Readiness
But EAI is not credit bearing and
has less attached to it
You will not be equally busy in each
week
After Christmas you have an exam,
and other modules you will be
receiving marks and feedback.
Before Christmas you will have
submissions in the last week
You need to manage your time!
 Time is precious

Each week has 168 hours that you spend on

various activities.
The use of the verb spend in relation to time is significant.
Time is like money in that what is spent on one activity cannot be
used on another.
If you spend £20 on clothes you cannot spend the same £20 on food.
If you spend 6 hours socialising you cannot spend the same 6 hours working.
Time is Precious Activity
• Individual task
• Complete the handout ‘24 hour week time tracker’
• Be as honest and accurate as you can
• Look at your totals which show how much time you spend
on what.
• Then analyse those in terms of whether the activities are
things you:
• Have to do
• Should do
• Like to do
• Reflect on this: How can you adjust your time to reach your
potential here at Roehampton?
Useful links and resources on Moodle

• Try this scheduler from the University of Kent

• https://www.kent.ac.uk/ai/ask/
• Follow the links on this - some very useful tips

• Look at the Barabara Allan Study Skills hand book – the PDF is on
moodle
• University of Hull study skills help – very, very helpful
• http://www2.hull.ac.uk/lli/skillsteam/essentials.aspx

• Plus the Kent scheduler

• https://www.kent.ac.uk/ai/ask/
Before you go

• Complete the time is precious activity if you have not done so

already
• Next week is reading week. You have two tasks to complete for EAI:
• To meet with you AGT
• Complete the plagiarism quiz. The quiz will be open from Monday
16th October at 9am and will close on Friday 20th October at 5pm.