Time management

Today, I received a phone call from a student's parent. She told me on the phone that she was very worried about her daughter's health because her daughter hasn't had a good night sleep since she entered senior high school. Every day, she seems to have endless homework and tests to prepare for. She has to stay late almost every day. The mother was so worried that she herself couldn't sleep well. From the tone she used when talking to me, I could sense that she was so helpless that she was nearly blaming us(school teachers) for giving students too much homework. However, she was trying hard to hold back her anger because she knew it was not us to blame but the whole education system. Anyway, I can empathize with the parent's worry because I've heard so many students complaining about the heavy load of schoolwork. I have already tried hard to support them and help them deal with pressure. But since there has been a parent calling me to ask for help, I thought I should do more to help students with this problem. After I hung up the phone, I tried to think up some practical advice I could give to my students. In just a few minutes, Professor Randy Pausch's theory about time management came into my mind. Randy Pausch's idea about time management is an easy and effective method to help you classify the tasks you have to do. All your work can be classified into four groups--important and urgent, unimportant and urgent, important and not urgent, unimportant and not urgent. I shared this idea with my students in my English class.(I often use my own English class time to deal with my homeroom class's problem. That's why I may risk failing to teach all the assigned lessons before next mid-term exam.) I wanted my students to classify all their homework and tests into these four groups and put these groups in an order--which group of tasks they should do first and which is the last. Almost all the students put the group of "unimportant but urgent" in the second place, which is what most people do according to Randy Pausch. I told them, if they do the "unimportant but urgent" before the "important and not urgent", once they finish doing the former, the later will soon turn into an "important and urgent", which means they will be always urged by time. Thus, they will always do everything hastily to meet the due date. In this way, their life will become a vicious circle. So, I asked them to reconsider how they should arrange their jobs. There is no definite answer. The order in which they put their work depends on their own habits and situations. I just wanted them to think about it. I don't know how many students really understand this concept of time management, but after all, I have grown a seed in their mind. I hope one day this idea can really work for them.