Insights from teaching a time management workshop

Recently, I taught a four-hour workshop on time management. In a previous post, I already shared the contents of the workshop and my best tips on time management, so today I want to take a different angle: what it was like to prepare and teach this session.

Time management is one of those topics that seems universal at first glance. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, we all have deadlines, meetings, emails, and responsibilities, and we all sometimes feel that we are not making the progress we would like to make. At the same time, time management is deeply personal. What works for one person may feel restrictive, unrealistic, or simply irrelevant to another person. Our roles, energy levels, family situations, personalities, and work environments all shape how we manage our time.

That personal aspect was very much on my mind while preparing the workshop. The audience consisted of people in different profiles, with different responsibilities, and different types of daily work.

Here are some reflections on the teaching and preparation side of the workshop:

• Preparing a four-hour workshop takes time. Even when you have taught a topic before, a four-hour session requires more than pulling together a few slides. I had to think about the rhythm of the session, the balance between explanation and reflection, and the amount of material that would be useful without becoming overwhelming.
• I started from my existing material. I did not begin with a blank page. I took my past presentations on time management and used them as the foundation. That approach helped me see what I already had, what still felt relevant, and what needed to be adapted for this specific audience.
• I used Claude as a preparation partner. I uploaded my past presentations into Claude and used it to help me set up the overall schedule for the workshop. This was useful because a four-hour workshop needs structure. It cannot be one long lecture. It needs blocks, transitions, time for exercises and breathing room.
• Claude also helped me make the slides. One part I appreciated was that the slides had a more uniform look than when I quickly combine older slide decks myself. Having a consistent visual style helped the presentation feel more polished and coherent.
• The first version was not the final version. The slides that Claude generated were not exactly what I wanted at first. Some parts did not fully reflect what I wanted to say, and some elements needed more nuance. I went through a few iterations to improve the slides and make sure the workshop still sounded like me.
• AI helped with structure, but not with judgment. The experience reminded me that AI can be helpful for organizing material, suggesting flow, and creating a first version. But the judgment about what belongs in the workshop, what needs more explanation, and what should be removed still had to come from me.
• I wanted to offer options, not one perfect system. Since time management is so personal, I did not want to present one method as the solution. Instead, I focused on showing different planning methods, tools, and approaches. My hope was that each participant could take away at least one idea that fits their own work and life.
• The diversity of the audience mattered. Teaching time management to a mixed group is different from teaching it to a very specific group, such as PhD students or early-career researchers. The examples need to be broad enough to be recognizable, but still concrete enough to be useful.
• A workshop is not only about content. The teaching itself is about creating space for people to think about their own habits. In a topic like time management, the most useful moment may not be a slide or a tool, but the moment when someone realizes why their current system is not working.
• I hope it served. As with many workshops, you do not always know immediately what people take away from it. My hope is that the session gave participants a useful overview of what is out there, and perhaps encouraged them to experiment with one small change.

Overall, I would say that I have taught this topic a number of times before, mostly for PhD candidates, and it required a bit of adjustments to tailor it to a broader group. I hope that my main messages on priorities based on values came through well and that everyone found at least one good idea to implement in their planning.