Balancing The Scales: Prioritizing for Student

Affairs Graduate Students

Pongpunya Jack Korpob Graduate Student, College Student Development & Counseling, Northeastern University

Alumni Chair, College Student Development Association Vice President of Media and Membership, Graduate Student Government

NASPA Graduate Associate Program Representative NASPA Men and Masculinities Knowledge Community Newsletter Editor

Bay State College, Career Services Graduate Assistant Brandeis University, Higher Education Intern

MIT, Phi Delta Theta Resident Advisor

Agenda

• Warm Up • Objectives/Goals • Time Flies Activity & Reflection • Time Management Defined & False Choices • Success in Time Management • Time Management Matrix • Tools to Use • Rocks, Pebbles, and Sands • Success in Time Management Revisited

Questions For You!

• Do you study/read when you say you will?

• Do you exercise when you say you will?

• Do you manage to catch most or all of your favorite TV shows?

• Do you feel you have enough time to hang out with friends?

• When was the last time you pulled an all-nighter?

• Do you actually get all your reading done before class (don’t answer this one out loud)?

Objectives/Goals

• To think and reflect on how time is used in academics, work, and school life.

• To gain and use important prioritizing and time management skills to create a more healthy work life balance.

• Identify the things that prevent us from being truly effective with our time.

Time Flies Activity

1. Get into groups. We will count off 1st years and 2nd years separately. Then, we will match up these groups so there is close to equal numbers of 1st and 2nd years in each group.

2. You will work in teams to create a short presentation/demonstration of a new airline company. All teammates must participate!

3. Each team will only be able to use the materials provided. – Materials Include: 1 Piece of Paper, 2 Markers, 1 Pen – Each team will have 9 minutes and will be judged on

completion of the following tasks: • Name of New Airline Company • Creation of a Paper Airplane (that will go on a test flight) • Airline Company Logo • Airline Company Mission Statement • 3 Unique Benefits/Selling Points to Flying on Your Airline • Short Jingle/Song about your Airline

Time Flies Activity Tasks

– Name of New Airline Company

– Creation of a Paper Airplane (that will go on a test flight)

– Airline Company Logo

– Airline Company Mission Statement

– 3 Unique Benefits/Selling Points to Flying on Your Airline

– Short Jingle/Song about your Airline

– 9 Minutes

– GOOD LUCK!

Group Presentations

Time Flies Activity Reflection

• Was this hard? Why?

• What was your team’s strategy? Did anyone keep time?

• How much of the time was spent planning vs. doing?

• How did you feel when you realized you could not accomplish everything? If you did accomplish it fully, was it the best final product?

• Was there anything ineffective about your group’s approach?

• How does this relate to your daily experience? What types of activities do we do that are time ineffective or “Time Eaters?”

Time Management: Defined

We are not managing time, we’re managing ourselves, our choices, and our actions

Instead of TIME MANAGEMENT…

It’s really TI(ME MANAGEMENT)!

False Choices

• Learn to Recognize and Resolve “False Choices”:

– One of the hallmarks of good leaders (in this case, good student affairs professionals/graduate students) is that they easily recognize and resolve “false choices.” A choice is a “false” one if, in fact, we do not have to choose at all, or if there is a totally different way of looking at the situation.

Success in Time Management

Time Management Matrix

Urgency vs. Importance

• Important activities have an outcome that leads to the achievement of your goals.

• Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are usually associated with the achievement of someone else’s goals, or with an uncomfortable problem or situation that needs to be resolved.

4 Quadrants of Tasks and Activities

2nd Years Prioritizing (in action)

•Do a presentation on Time Management! •Ready Chapter 1-2 of Our Sexuality text (we had reading due the first day of class) •Fill out the MATRIX for Practicum •Buy books (finally!)

•Review reading for Law & Ethics in Higher Ed class •Attend the PDT House Meeting tonight •Review CORE Questions for Practicum •Review Reading Assignment for Practicum •Call my Mom •Register for Region 1 Conf •Read Newsletter Articles •Last minute prep for Vol Fair

•Do laundry •Find a time for a MIT FSILG RA Social •Pay Nate Back

•Catching up on missed TV episodes from the week! •Go get a haircut

YOU TRY!

Tools to Use

• Email (read it, everyday, seriously!)

• Google Calendar (or some electronic calendar)

• Paper Calendar/Planner you actually update

• What other tools have you found very helpful for you to share with others?

Rocks, Pebbles, and Sands • A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items in

front of him. When class began, he wordlessly picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks about two inches in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

• The professor then picked up a box of pebbles, poured them into the jar and lightly shook it. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students laughed. He asked his students again if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

• The professor then picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

Rocks, Pebbles, and Sand (Continued)

• “Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this is your life. The rocks are the important things—your family, your partner, your health, your children—anything that is so important to you that if it were lost, you would be nearly destroyed. The pebbles are the other things in life that matter, but on a smaller scale. The pebbles represent things like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else—the small stuff.“

• If you put the sand or the pebbles into the jar first, there is no room for the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff, material things, you will never have room for the things that are truly most important. Pay attention to the things that are critical in your life. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.”

• Wise words. In your own life, be sure to take care of the rocks first—the things that really matter. Remember, the rest is only pebbles and sand.

Success in Time Management

Thanks for listening!

I’ll email this out!