I recently met with a student, let’s call her Cindy, who was feeling under a lot of pressure. She had multiple quizzes and tests coming up at school, so she was trying to juggle studying with her regular nightly homework. Plus, she had a few missed assignments she was still trying to complete, and in between all that, she had family obligations that were making her time scarce. 

Cindy had so much swirling around in her mind that she just worked on whatever came to the forefront first. This only relieved her stress for a moment though, before all the other items on her to-do list came flooding back in and increased her stress levels and resistance. 

It’s safe to say she was overwhelmed.

In this week’s installment of our 6-part series: Time Management Skills to Help You & Your Child Today, we’re going to take a look at working memory and time management, and how they helped this stressed out student gain control over her to-do list. 

I like to think of working memory as a whiteboard in the front of your brain where you are holding onto a variety of information, while working through your day. Once you use information in your working memory, you can release it and move onto the next piece of information. However, if your brain is not well-trained to stay focused, i.e. you start and stop a lot of projects, you will be holding in your working memory your’re entire ‘to do’ list for the day.  Not a good use of anyone’s time.  

So the first thing Cindy and I did was use our session time to prioritize all of her tasks and take action on the things she could get done right away. These were tasks that only took about two minutes to complete, like sending an email to a teacher to ask a question about an upcoming assignment or connect with a fellow student about a project.

Once these quick tasks were off her list, she didn’t need to hold them in her memory anymore. 

Next, we took a look at the other tasks that required more time and pulled out a calendar. I asked Cindy, “When are you going to schedule those tasks so you can get them done by their due dates? Where are the holes in your day, free time you can set aside to get these tasks done?”

These questions are the crux of time management. 

For middle school and high school students, their projects are typically due in a relatively short period of time. So this process of scheduling involves thinking through the immediate future to find the times when they can plug in extra tasks around their daily homework schedule. 

Once you have a complete schedule, the next step is to organize it in a visual way. Online calendars are great tools, but if you’re struggling with time management, having your plan open in front of you, as much as possible is a better way to ensure all tasks will get done, on time. 

Time is an abstract, vague concept, so with a planner, you have a tangible record of your time, making it easier to track and manage. In addition, the physical act of writing information down is shown to increase your chances of committing it to memory (and following through) as well. 

Plus, you don’t want to be constantly checking your phone for assignments if you’re someone who is easily distracted while working or studying. 

As you can see, working memory and time management are two critical skills in terms of executive functioning. They keep your student, just like Cindy, on task and able to manage everything and anything that needs to get done each day, without feeling panicked or stressed.