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Time and Task Management
Half a day on getting the important work done rather than the loud work. Not a productivity system to adopt: a set of decisions about priority, interruption and saying no that survive contact with a real week.
About this course
Most people do not have a time problem. They have a priority problem, an interruption problem and a difficulty saying no, and a new app fixes none of the three.
This half day works on what actually eats a week: reactive work crowding out planned work, meetings that exist because they always have, a task list with forty items and no order, and the assumption that being busy and being effective are the same thing.
It is practical rather than theoretical. People bring their own workload, work through their own week, and leave with a plan for the next one rather than a folder of models.
It suits supervisors and managers particularly, because their week is the most interrupted and because the way they handle priority sets the tone for everybody reporting to them.
We run it at our centres, live online and onsite. For a team it works best delivered together, because half the improvements involve two people agreeing how they will work rather than one person trying harder.
- Separating urgent from important, and noticing which one is actually driving your day
- Prioritising a real task list rather than a tidy one
- Planning a week that survives the first interruption
- Managing interruption: batching, boundaries and the cost of switching
- Delegating properly, including the part where you let go of how it gets done
- Saying no, and the ways of saying it that keep the relationship intact
- Meetings: which ones need to exist, who needs to be there, and how long they really need
- Email and messaging habits that stop the inbox setting the agenda
- Procrastination, and why it is usually about the task rather than the person
- Building the routine that keeps it going after the enthusiasm wears off
How completing this course helps you
- An Acadame certificate in Time and Task Management
- A prioritised plan for your own next week, made during the session
- Fewer meetings, shorter ones, and fewer people sat in them
- A team that has agreed how it will handle interruption rather than each person guessing
Who should attend?
Supervisors, team leaders, managers, administrators and anybody whose week is busier than it is productive. It works particularly well for a whole team, because many of the improvements are agreements between people rather than individual habits.
Entry requirements. None. It assumes no previous training and it is written for the people doing the work rather than the people writing the policy.
Ready to take the next step?
Choose a delivery option, compare dates and book with confidence, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
Where it fits
This is not a software course
We do not teach a particular app, and we do not think your problem is which one you use. People with immaculate task management systems still work on the wrong things.
What changes outcomes is deciding what matters, protecting the time to do it, and having the conversation with the people who interrupt you. Those are decisions and agreements, not features.
If you already use a system and it is not working, bring it. Half the time the system is fine and the priorities going into it are not.
Individuals
Half a day, with your own workload, producing a plan for next week.
A whole team
The better option. Many of the fixes are agreements between people rather than personal habits.
Managers with wider duties
Worth pairing with IOSH Managing Safely or leadership training, because priority setting and safety leadership are the same muscle.
Course content
What you will cover
Where the time actually goes
- Urgent against important
- Auditing a real week
- Reactive work crowding out planned work
- The cost of switching between tasks
- Being busy against being effective
Deciding and planning
- Prioritising a real task list
- Planning a week with slack in it
- Breaking large work into things that can actually start
- Delegating, and letting go of the method
- Saying no without damaging the relationship
Protecting it
- Managing interruption: batching and boundaries
- Email and messaging habits
- Meetings: necessity, attendance and length
- Procrastination and what it is telling you
- Building a routine that survives a bad week
Method of assessment
How Time and Task Management is assessed
Practical work throughout. There is no examination.
Your own week
You work on your own task list and your own diary during the session, so what you leave with is a plan rather than a model.
Team agreements
Delivered to a team, the session produces a short set of agreements about interruption, meetings and priority. Those are worth more than any individual technique.
Certificate
An Acadame certificate on completion.
Ways to learn
How you can take this course
Every route covers the same accredited syllabus and the same support. Pick the one that fits how your people work.
Classroom
Tutor-led at one of our centres, with everything provided.
Ask us to open a classroom date →or ask MB nowLive online
The same tutor and the same timetable, joined from anywhere.
Ask us to open a live online date →or ask MB nowDates and locations
Arrange this course
There are no scheduled dates for this course at the moment. It is normally arranged around you.
Tell us roughly when you need it and how many people are going, and we will come back with dates and a price.
Also available
In-company training
We run this one to order, at your place or ours.
Onsite / in-company
Run Time and Task Management at your site
We deliver anywhere in the UK, on your dates and around your shift patterns. For six or more people it is usually cheaper per head than sending everyone to a centre, and nobody loses a day travelling.
Tell us roughly how many people and when, and we will come back with options and a price, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
What onsite includes
- The same tutor, materials and certification as our centres
- Your venue or one we arrange near you
- Dates and start times built around your operation
- One invoice and one point of contact for the whole group
- Content examples drawn from your own workplace
Time and Task Management FAQs
No. We are not selling a methodology or an app. The session works on priority, interruption and delegation, which are the things that actually determine whether the important work gets done.
Better than for individuals, usually. A lot of what eats a week is the interface between people: interruptions, unclear handovers, meetings nobody needed. Those get fixed by agreement rather than by one person trying harder.
Half a day. Longer would be ironic.
Yes, and it works well that way for a dispersed team. People still work on their own diary and their own task list during the session.
Acadame. It is general awareness training rather than a regulated qualification, which is the right shape for this subject: it is built around what your people actually do and it can be adapted to your own equipment, substances and procedures. Where a regulated qualification is what you need instead, we will say so and point you at it.
Yes, anywhere in the UK, and it is usually the better option. Training on your own equipment, in your own building, with your own procedures in front of people, transfers to the job in a way a generic venue does not.
Up to twelve on a standard session. For practical subjects we will talk through numbers with you, because a room of twenty watching two people practise is not training.
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