Life Skills & Leadership: Unit 3, Session 4: Setting Priorities, Managing Time | Page 57 of 68
- Distribute Handout 2: A Full Cup for Tomorrow and ask participants to focus only on the top half of the
page. Ask them to write a list of all the things they will be doing until they go to sleep tomorrow night.
Give them about 5 minutes to make a list of activities. Then say:
“When we talked about ‘Need to,’ ‘Have to,’ and ‘Want to’ activities, we noticed that there often are
some choices we can make – even if they are small choices. I’d like you to look over the things you plan
to do tomorrow and make some choices about them.
“You can refer to Flip chart 1 as a reminder. Remember that when we talked about making choices we
learned that some of our decisions were made by using our Head (thinking and analyzing the choice
logically). Other decisions we made using our Heart (relying upon our feelings and emotions).
Sometimes we relied upon social relationships and interactions to make decisions, which we
represented with our Hands. And in other situations, we were guided in our decision making by our
Hopes (our dreams for the future).
“I’d like to encourage you to use your Head, Heart, Hands, and Hopes as you follow the directions on
the bottom half of your handout. Please choose a partner and help each other to think critically and
creatively about how to ‘fill your cup’ for tomorrow.
- Give the partners about 10 minutes to work. Then have a discussion with the whole group:
Note: Among the discussion questions, those in BOLD are the most important.
What are some ways to use your time more effectively?
What are some of the activities you’ll do that might be a waste of time?
What activities would you like to do more of?
What is a ‘Rock’ you will try to do? (Possible answers: Attend the next session of this series of
classes. Review my handouts from today’s class. Study for a test in school.)
What are some activities you will have some choice about?
How will you handle the activities you cannot control or don’t have a choice about?
How did you use your Head, Heart, Hands, or Hopes to make choices about your activities?
What are some strategies you can use to make sure you have Rocks, Sand, and Water in your
container but that it does not overflow? (Possible answers: Do more of something positive. Do
fewer things that waste time. Make sure at least one Rock is included during the day. Find the
activities you can control and use your Head, Heart, Hands, and Hopes to choose when to do
them or how much time to use doing them.)
Note: You can refer to Flip chart 2: Using Time Effectively and point out that these strategies are summarized on the
bottom half of Handout 2: A Full Cup for Tomorrow.
Note: The final discussion question in “Get Organized” is an assessment of Learning Objective 2.
