Innovative curriculum designing for work - based learning

Ineffective working methods require a lot of time and energy. Most often you do not even recognize what is going wrong. These learning materials shall motivate the students to reflect their own ways of planning, organization and time management. They shall become aware of their own behavior patterns and how they might be an obstacle to achieve the goals.

Multitasking is understood as the attempt to work on several tasks at the same time, that all require attention as well as concentration for a limited period of time. Multitasking is when you try to do more than one thing simultaneously.

Follow this link to know about time thieves/ time-consumers: http://facilethings.com/blog/en/thieves

All according to plan – situation with proper time management:

• To clean up frequently
• To have a proper desk/ workplace/ office
• To plan, structure and schedule tasks and duties
• Plan breaks for recreation and relaxation
• Plan buffer times
• Control afterwards your schedule/ plan
• Formulate targets and objectives
• Plan “undisturbed” times (not to be available and reachable)
• To do tasks according to importance and urgency (prioritize)
• To make daily and weekly plans
• To say “No” sometimes

Time management techniques and systems:

• http://www.businessballs.com/timemanagement.htm
• http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2012/06/12/4-tried-and-true-time-management-techniques

Eisenhower method: (Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233054)

Eisenhower method. Eisenhower classifies tasks according to priorities or “optimal rank orders”. The classification of tasks is done by the criteria “urgency” and “importance”

A/ I:     Urgent tasks that have to be done by oneself are done first

B / II:    Schedule it for a later time and do it yourself (or delegate it)

C / III:   Tasks of low value – delegate it if possible

D/ IV:    These tasks are unimportant! Put it to the rubbish bin!

Nowadays this method is criticized because important tasks are most often not urgent and urgent tasks are most often not important. Plus: a good time management should usually prevent tasks to become too urgen.

Planning: Knowledge about how to plan; to plan the different activities and to map the tasks in order to the workflow/ process and identify possible flexibilities. Scheduling: to plan the different tasks in a timeline; to map them with timeframes in a clear presentation making the possible flexibilities visible and including appropriate buffers. Here you will find plan and schedule techniques and systems: (Source: http://www.projectmanagementguru.com/scheduleplan.html, Accessed 2015)

The A-L-P-E-N method: the A-L-P-E-N method is a method to plan your daily/ weekly tasks. Using this method, complex tasks are split into parts. Intentions become more manageable and controllable when the tasks are classified, the necessary times are arranged and buffer times are kept in mind.

• A      Write down assignments, activities and appointments
• L      Estimate the Length and duration of activities
• P      Plan buffer times
• E      Make decisions
• N     Recheck: control of the checklist

LEARNING ACTIVITY 4: TIME MANAGEMENT - DEFINITIONS AND OVERVIEW 

LEARNING ACTIVITY 5: TIME MANAGEMENT - PLANNING AND SCHEDULING