All too often, many students and adults have a distinct lack of understanding about how long a certain task will take them to complete, or even to do a "rough draft" of the task. Why is this important? It gets back to being able to master the variable elements of a schedule, having increased self-awareness and self-understanding, and lessening the stress and tension that naturally come along with something that we totally cannot grasp the time needs of. Lacking this understanding, every night and weekend is without a possible predictable structure, every task might take 15 minutes or all night, and other tasks may or may not get the time and attention they might need..."and the planes back up on the runway," a term I use with clients in describing how other needed tasks don't get the attention they deserve.
One basic thing that helps with this skill get established is a person writing down how much time a task, be it English homework, searching Craigslist for a job, or writing an email to a mentor asking for a letter of recommendation, takes them. This memorialization should list what the task involved was as well as the time used, and extra credit for listing the resources that helped the task (i.e. "Defined 20 vocabulary words from first two chapters of "The Great Gatsby," then used them in original sentences. Took 45 minutes, used dictionary.com, Wikipedia, and PinkMonkey.com.") Then, at least there is a recorded, certain list of how much time a task took in the past, and in the future the new task can be compared to the old one and at least there is a guesstimate that is based in previous experience available. Of course, English homework on one night might be vastly different from that of another night, and looking for a part-time job casually might be worlds away from carefully scrutinizing options for full-time employment when wanting to switch jobs. That said, the more that tasks are defined and made granular (into smaller details), the better the application to future efforts and the more that can be gotten out of the effort, which is always a goal.
It is critical that outside distractions be kept to an absolute minimum during time of applied work. Some people need silence in order to do their best work, others need music or a TV murmuring in the background, some benefit from being in a cafe setting, etc, but digital distractions like IM's, Facebook, chat rooms, and other social media HAVE to be controlled, or else the time that a task took will be grossly inaccurate...take the last ten minutes of an hour to engage in this activity as a reward for staying on task the other fifty minutes if being without it cannot be tolerated, or get to the social media when done with the needed work, but trying to divide attentions is only something that mostly results in doing multiple things poorly.
Getting back to the value of being able to predict how long a task will take someone, as a longer list of precise tasks and the time they took develops, people quickly get better at comparing what the task they are dealing with is in comparison to older ones is like and how much time the new task will take. Thus, they can decide what work to do in what order (Do the hardest, most time-consuming stuff first? Or save it for when you are really warmed up?), how to chop up a larger effort into smaller parts and how to build towards a comprehensive finish, and how much time to allow this task. It may seem like a small thing, being able to accurately predict how much time a certain bit of work will take, but in my experience it's a skill that students and adults alike MUST develop in order to take real control of their time management needs. It's also a skill that involves many smaller things, all of which, when mastered, lead to a more resilient, responsive, and responsible individual.
Lose the guesswork! Work towards a time diet that is predictable and fulfilling!
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