Blog — time management tips

Katya Seberson is a results-oriented SAT and ACT tutor. After struggling through school with dyslexia and a learning disability, Katya taught herself new learning techniques that allowed her to succeed. The company she started, ExecutiveMind, Inc., has helped students commonly gain 190+ on the SAT and 4+ points on the ACT. 

By Katya Seberson

As far as we know, human beings are the only mammals who can tell time.

Since the clock has become a permanent fixture our homes ONLY around the 16th century, telling time is a relatively new feature in our evolution, and we (humans) are horrible at time perception. Let me explain.

Time perception is your ability to sense how much time has passed since you started doing something. Let’s say you are writing an essay on a piece of paper (weird, I know), and tell yourself, “let me spend 10 minutes on this paragraph.” How likely is it that you will put your pen down in exactly 10 minutes? Unless you have a clock in sight, there is an almost 100% guarantee you won’t stop after exactly 10 minutes. If you are engaged in a task, you will likely spend more time (time flies when you are having fun), and if you are stuck, you will likely spend less then 10 minutes... “a watched pot never boils.”

We are lousy at telling time because our brain is NOT designed to sense time well. We have areas in our brain dedicated to sight, hearing, smelling, etc. that have been perfected through evolution, but there is NO distinct area in the brain exclusively devoted to sensing time.

What about the biological clock, you ask?

Yes, our biological clock relies on messages from our vital systems to compose a prediction about how much time has passed. Scientists agree that the brain may have several different clocks working together, but independently, the brain selects a “winner” from these different possible timings depending on the context.

Why should I care about telling time if I can always look at the clock?

Developing a good sense of time is a valuable skill in many areas of personal development. Many of you know that the time management industry (teaching people how to manage their schedules) has exploded in the last few years. Many people feel inadequate when they are unable to tell how much time has passed since the meeting, the exam, or the call has started. In my work as a tutor, I see students continuously run out of time on a test as they lack knowing how much time they’ve spent so far on a problem and how much time is left.

The Time Timer has been a magical tool for my students and myself to develop the time perception skill. Because it’s visual, the brain can now lean on the visual cortex (one of the largest areas in the brain) to help itself develop a good sense of how much time has passed and how much time is left. As you are working, the red circle keeps disappearing, letting you know that the time is ticking away, setting the rhythm.

Because the circle is large and very vivid, you can sense how much time is left with your peripheral vision without even looking at the clock directly — no need to stop your task and switch your attention to the clock. I have my Time Timer right next to me as I am typing this article. It shows that I have 15 minutes left of the time I planned to spend on writing this short article for you.

Notice, my eyes are glued to the screen, and I keep my focus on the task, and I am not checking my phone and getting distracted. The Time Timer is a great tool to develop an invaluable sense of time, focus and perfect your time management at work or school.

I have created a video dedicated to using the Pomodoro Method along with The Time Timer. Hope you enjoy it!

While most kids face difficulties preparing for tests at one time or another, children with ADHD can face special challenges routinely. Thankfully, there are many ways you can help your child cope. Try these tips to help improve time management and sleep habits so your youngster can perform her best from Mark Connor, director of DriveSafely.Info, a resource for parents of children with ADHD.

My family recently traveled out west for 2.5 weeks, enjoying AAA baseball, science and natural history museums, national parks and historic landmarks. We also enjoyed forgetting a sentimental Curious George stuffie in the Mesa Verde National Park lodge (thanks for sending it back, Janice!), complaints about not wanting to look out the window at any more scenery and dodged a few forest fires.

But we did have a great time! And I thought I’d share five things that helped (or would have helped and will help next time) just in time for your Labor Day Weekend travels.

There are many digital apps to choose from to help us manage our schedules, plans, and tasks, but how do you filter through all of them and find one that works? We reviewed some of the top apps for helping productivity, listed below. All of the apps are also compatible with our Time Timer app ® (more on that later). 

The new year is almost here, and that means it’s time for an updated planner. I live and die by my Google Calendar; in fact, right out of college I moved straight to a Palm Pilot device (it was like an electronic planner that synched with Outlook), and I was smug when a colleague lost her planner and she lost all track of her meetings and appointments.

But the reality is, there’s something about writing down goals, appointments and tasks that helps me filter and prioritize. The essentials will always live on Google, but my planner is the go-to source.

The new Time Timer ®  20 MIN has generated a lot of buzz since its release—it even won a Mom’s Choice Award ®! Parents, teachers, and business professionals are loving this easy-to-read visual timer that keeps everyone on track and on time. Here are 20 ways to use your Time Timer 20 MIN:

Time Timer ® spoke with Beth Robeson, The Picky Eater Coach, who offers 3 Ways to Have More Fun with Less Sugar this Halloween:

We recently returned from MOMCON in Milwaukee, where we shared the Time Timer ® with moms from the MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) International.

Jan Rogers struggled to help her daughter, Loran, keep track of time. She wasn’t old enough to read clocks and often missed the bus. So, mom Jan invented Time Timer, which features a patented red disk that shows elapsed time.

If you already have an awesome bedtime routine for your preschooler, congrats!  You can skip this article, and just share your tips with us.

For the rest of us, whether it was the start of school for our older kids or a change in sleep habits for our infant, it never hurts to consider a bedtime routine that works to get our preschoolers to sleep on time, and maybe even get time for ourselves.

The right time to toilet train varies based on your child and your own circumstances. Some moms really want that first child out of diapers before his sister arrives, and other moms want to wait because they don’t want to clean soiled underwear and spit up.

At some point, it’s time. And we’ve found that using a timer (our favorite for this is the Time Timer® PLUS) can give you the routine, expectation setting and sanity you need to move onto big girl panties (or training pants as the case may be).  Here are some of our favorite time and schedule tips:

Consider your Schedule

Headed out of town for a long weekend soon? Planning a vacation, new baby, new job, new school or major holiday? These are probably not the times to begin toilet training. The excitement of going potty is enough excitement by itself. Really, trust us. Don’t try it before a road trip or her big sister’s first day of kindergarten.

Decide on a number of days.

Tackle it on a weekend, or over a week. Set a number of days to try toilet training. You might find she’s too young, or there’s too much going with her siblings, and another time is better. But set expectations, and keep them, and give yourself a break to reassess if you or she aren’t ready.

Start with 20 minutes.

Going diaper free (however that looks for you), set the timer for 20 minutes, and then take her to the potty when time elapses.

Allow 3-5 minutes each trip.

Re-set the timer (or keep a separate one by the potty), and tell her you’ll sit until the timer goes off. She can watch time run out on the red disk, or you can read her one of her favorite stories (Everyone Poops is never a bad choice.).

Expand your time in between trips.

If she’s dry at 20 minutes, slowly increase to 30, then 45 minutes.  If she has an accident, you can reduce the amount of time in between trips, and then try increasing again.

Be prepared to try again.

If after three days, she isn’t finding success at the potty, take a break. Try again in a few weeks.

Do you have any tips to share? We’d love to hear them!  Use discount code POTTY25 for 25% off the Time Timer PLUS!  Discount code valid from September 28, 2016 until October 2, 2016.