Plan Your Time: A Powerful Time Management Activity

Author: Anna McGhee, Join Consulting

Time Management Activity In Action

Plan Your Time, or Your Time Will Plan You: An Activity That Changes How People Think About Time Management

In our workshops, we don’t teach time management through slides or checklists—we let people experience the consequences of their planning habits. This Time Management Activity, Plan Your Time, or Your Time Will Plan You, is a hands-on, discussion-driven simulation that brings to life the impact of proactive versus reactive working. It uses the same principles that underpin all our learning design: self-discovery, problem-solving, collaboration and behavioural insight.

A Practical Activity With Real Emotional Impact

Participants work in two teams, each acting as a different colleague with a full week to plan. Using a visual diary board, they must schedule customer calls, appointments, follow-ups and essential admin. There’s no “right way” offered up front—teams are encouraged to use their natural habits and assumptions as they plan each day.

At the end of each simulated day, groups score both customer experience and colleague experience, forcing a moment of reflection:

• Did customers get timely updates and confident follow-through?

• Did the colleague stay in control or feel overwhelmed?

• Where did delays creep in?

• What patterns emerged?

Very quickly, the comparison becomes obvious—and often quite emotional. Teams who plan proactively experience control, momentum and reduced stress. Those who plan reactively experience pressure, delays, bottlenecks and disappointment, even with the same workload.

Why This Exercise Works

The activity is rooted in behavioural learning science: we learn more deeply when we work out the answer ourselves, not when someone presents it to us. By physically organising their week—and feeling the consequences—participants create the essential insight:

Time isn’t a resource. Time is a behaviour.The way you behave with your time determines your outcomes.

Small habits such as realistic scheduling, logging notes promptly and protecting focussed “doing time” transform both colleague wellbeing and customer consistency. And because the insight is earned through the activity—not told—it sticks.

The Takeaway

This activity consistently sparks powerful conversation and action. Delegates leave with a clearer understanding that:

• Proactive planning improves customer experience

• Reactive working compounds stress and inconsistency

• Structure isn’t restrictive—it creates space, confidence and quality

• Better habits produce better days

It’s a simple but transformative truth: plan your time, or your time really will plan you.

For more information on activities and workshops contact thebigteam