Time Management

This is a somewhat touchy but important area of discussion.  Most people struggle with time management, no matter the age or topic.  We have so many other things on our minds.  Students have regular homework, tests, sports practice, music lessons, play dates.  Parents have work, getting dinner on the table, and driving students to sports practice, music lessons, and play dates.  Now you have to fit in a science fair project too?  It can be a lot to juggle.

My recommendation for time management in regards to the science fair is this: think of the science fair as just one more of those regularly scheduled activities.  Now bear with me, don’t click off just yet.  Yes, this sounds incredibly simple and you are probably thinking that this is so obvious, but most of us (yours truly at times too) fall prey to procrastination and push off non scheduled activity.  Think of a task with a firm due date and one with a more flexible due date.  Taxes, holiday gifts, music recitals; these are all have set deadlines beyond your control.  Dental checkups, vacuuming, changing the water filter; these are items that you SHOULD do regularly, but don’t have firm deadlines.  Which tasks do you consistently complete at or before deadline?  Which tasks never seem to get done? My taxes are always filed on time, but we never seem to get around to vacuuming until company is due to arrive any minutes.  It comes down to firm due dates and consequences.

Having an eventual due date is not quite enough.  Your science fair project does have a due date; one day before you know it you will be standing in front of a (hopefully) not blank poster board talking to judges.  When a due date is more than six months away, it becomes less firm in our mind and we fall back into pushing it off just one more day.  It can also seem daunting when you look at the project as a whole; you aren’t sure where to start so you procrastinate out of fear. To overcome this fear, break the project down into manageable tasks, usually taking one to two weeks each, and set firm deadlines for each.  Different people can manage to plan out at different lengths of time. I can usually manage with weekly task lists; I’ve worked with people who need daily to-do lists.  You need to determine what works for you.  As you cross each task off the list, you will feel like you made a great accomplishment and get more excited about your project.

Use some sort of chart or calendar to mark your goals and important due dates.  Shown here is an example of an interactive task list I made using Excel (become a fan on the Facebook page and you can download the file).  Simply plug in the science fair date at the top, and the spreadsheet will automatically calculate the due date for each task.  Keep the chart visible; hang it on the refrigerator or above your desk to constantly remind you.

The unpleasant part will be to set consequences.  It may be better to introduce a new reward for completing tasks on time: a new book if all tasks that month are on time, extra video game time, a fun family activity; then if a deadline is not met losing that reward for that week or month.  Each parent needs to determine what will work with his or her personal parenting style and their child’s learning style.  If my parents had used this technique, my consequence would have probably been lima beans with dinner for every night a task was late – my project would have been done three months early in that case!

Time management is not easy for most of us, but with the right mindset and some carefully structured due dates and consequences, you can complete your project on schedule, with fewer fights!