Engineering Leadership Program

Foundations Tier Session 4 – Time Management

Self-Directed Module Assignment

Instructions: Foundations Tier Session 4 on Time Management is being offered in a self-directed format
and replaces a scheduled workshop for the month. You can work on this at your own pace and schedule;
however, it is recommended that you find a 1-hour time slot to complete this assignment!

1) Self-Reflection: Do you feel like you manage your time well? Do you think you can do better?

I think I’m doing 70% fine. Most of the time I plan for my whole day but I don’t make them
rigid and if there are not related to a specific time, I am flexible to do them any time within that
day. But sometimes some unpredicted incident will happen that will change my plan. Yes, I can
do it better if I don’t focus to make everything done ideal.

2) Mark Wahlberg Schedule:

a. How many hours does Mark Wahlberg spend working out?

He works out twice and totally for 2.5 hr.
b. What are your own impressions of Mark Wahlberg based on his schedule? Please
describe.
He has a fixed schedule with only 2.5hr of work out. I though he might spend
more time on his workout.

3) Dai Lama Schedule:

a. What does Dai Lama do at 10:15am? Feed the pigeons

b. What are your own impressions of Dai Lama based on their schedule? Please describe.
His schedule more focused on enjoying the present moments, being happy and
satisfying the other livings including people and animals.

4) Schedule Reflection: Your schedule can say a lot about who you are and your character:
Agree/disagree? Please explain.
Yes, it can. I completely agree. I think Organized, serious people have more
detailed schedule and it is routine in most of the days while, easy going people
have flexible schedule that varies based on the situations.

5) Concepts from Steven Covey’s 7 Habits Book:

According to Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book…

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a) What is considered to be a ‘non-negotiable’? Everything which is fixed and rehappen

every time and must be done like: classes, volunteer works,…

b) What is considered to be a ‘first thing’? T he things which are our priority to do and we
like to do them first. What we personally find worth doing.

6) Distractions/Interruptions: What typically distracts/interrupts you in the following settings below?

Please list.

Setting Distractions/Interruptions/Time Wasters

Class Phone and focusing to sometimes translate what have heard to

my native language for better understanding.
Home Sleeping and watching TV.
Work/Co-Curricular Activity Talking too much without considering the time.

7) Time blocking exercise: Use the weekly schedule template below and fill out all of the boxes to
capture your:
a) ‘Non-negotiables’
b) ‘First things’
c) Distractions/time wasters

Most of our scheduling is automatic – we use google calendar or outlook or other apps that can
recognize patterns and auto-fill things for you. And while these tools are useful, studies continue to
argue for the effectiveness of paper planners and writing things out, and in our case, using a word
document to type in our schedule. Some reasons for this are that:
 It forces you to slow down and approach your planning with more mindfulness,
 Writing things down help us retain information better

Time Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

6:00am sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep
7:00am sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep
8:00am sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep
9:00am Preparing Preparing Preparing Preparing Preparing Preparing Preparing
breakfast breakfast breakfast breakfast breakfast breakfast breakfast
and and and eating and and and and
eating eating eating eating eating eating
10:00am Going to Going to Going to Going to Going to study study
the the the the the
university university university university university
11:00am study study study study class study study
12:00pm study study study study class study study
1:00pm study study study study class study study

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2:00pm Launch Launch Launch and Launch class Preparing Preparing

and Office and rest rest and rest launch launch
hour and and
eating eating
3:00pm Office study study class class sleep sleep
hour
4:00pm class study study class class study sleep
5:00pm class study study class Eating study Preparing
launch food for
the week
6:00pm class study study class shopping study Preparing
food for
the week
7:00pm class study study Coffee shopping study Doing
time laundry
8:00pm Preparing Preparing Preparing Preparing Preparing study Cleaning
dinner dinner dinner dinner dinner the house
9:00pm Preparing Preparing
Family Family Family time Family Family dinner dinner
10:00pm time and time and and time and time and
11:00pm watching watching watching watching watching Family Family
12:00am movie movie movie movie movie time and time and
watching watching
1:00am
movie movie
2:00am Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep
3:00am Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep
4:00am Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep
5:00am Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep Sleep

b. Did anything stand out to you about your schedule? Did you find it surprising, accurate, etc.?

it was completely accurate. Always studying and doing research!

8) Time Matrix: The Covey urgent/important time management matrix tool represents how the
importance and urgency of our tasks and activities fall into four different boxes/categories: Crisis,
Goals/Balance, Interruptions, and Distractions.
a. According to this time matrix tool, which box do we ideally want to be in all the time? Goal
and balance
b. Which box are you in when you are putting out “fires”? crisis
c. Which box are you in when you are experiencing a lack of awareness of how you are spending
your time? distractions
d. Which box are you in when things feel urgent, and you find yourself doing “anything, but what
you need to do”? interruptions
e. True or False: Any 1 task or activity can fall into ANY of the 4 categories. False, based on the
importance and the necessity of doing a task it might fall into a specific category.

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Engineering Leadership Program

9) Staying balanced: “How can you stay balanced, accountable, and on track with your goals? What
works and what is practical for you?”

Write your answer here:

When I wrote my goals and set a deadline for reaching them, it makes me more motivated to
go step by step to achieve the goal. Having a plan that is realistic and can be conduct easily is
practical for me.

10) Switch tasking is a thief video & writing exercise:

a. How was the writing experience for you? It was ok, but the second one is a little bit
challenging.
b. What did you notice between the two different writing exercises? My brain automatically
writes the text and the numbers in part one but in part two I needed to focus more and
after a while it became automatically written.
c. How does this activity relate to multi-tasking and efficiency?
It shows that if we focus at one thing at a time our efficiency would be higher than doing
multi tasking.

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11) Time management strategy research: Perform a google search on only 3 of the following 6-time
management strategies to learn more about what they are, include bullet point notes on those 3
strategies, and paste the link to the information you found for each time management strategy.

Strategy Notes Website

Pomodoro Technique  25-minute stretches of What is Pomodoro Technique
focused work time management?
 five-minute breaks (techtarget.com)
 work interval
SMART goals
Vision boards
Bullet journaling
4 D’s of Time Delete  The 4 Ds of time management:
Management Delegate when and how to use - Timeular
Defer 
Do 

define and prioritize the status of
certain tasks
Using a time Name of app? How does it help you Focus to do, it works based
management app manage time? Focus to do, it works on the pomodoro techniques.
based on the pomodoro techniques. I I can focus more without
can focus more without being to tired being to tired of doing the
of doing the tasks. tasks.

12) Self-Reflection: The following formula is an equation describing how time management contributes
to effective leadership:

Time/Project Management + Team Cohesion

= Effective Leadership
In your own words, how do you think time management contributes to your leadership?

It might not directly contribute but sure, it has indirect impact. By taking charge of my time, I
can improve the quality and quantity of the tasks that I am doing. I feel more relaxed and
without stress that makes my efficiency became better in my workplace. I can plan out for
new tasks in advance, so I have enough time to evaluate the others performance for assigning
the new tasks which is the leaders responsibility.

Any questions about this self-directed assignment? E-mail [email protected] before the deadline.