Objective:

How much time do you spend at school and work doing things that don't contribute to your success? At

first, you may say "not much." But - especially if you haven't used Activity Logs before - you may be

surprised by how much more time you can find.

When you properly understand how you use your time, you can minimize or eliminate low value activities.

This means that you can do more high value work, while still being able to balance school, work, and life.

About Activity Logs:

1. An Activity Log (also known as an Activity Diary or a Job Activity Log) is a written record of how you

spend your time.

2. By keeping an Activity Log for five days, you can build up an accurate picture of what you do during

the day, and how you invest your time. You'll find that memory is quite a poor guide, and that keeping

the Log is an eye-opening experience!

3. Your Activity Log will also help you understand whether you're doing your most important work

during the right time of day. For instance, if you're more energetic and creative in the morning, you'd

be better off doing your most important work during this time. You can then focus on lower energy

tasks, such as responding to emails in the afternoon.

4. Activity Logs are also useful for helping you identify non-core activities that don't help you meet

important objectives. For example, you might spend far more time than you think surfing the Internet

or getting coffee each afternoon. When you see how much time you're wasting on such activities, you

can then change the way that you work to eliminate them.

Assignment Details:

1. Keep a record of your activities over a 5 day period.

2. To keep an Activity Log, download an app for your phone, use the provided template, or design a

spreadsheet of your own with the headers below:

Date/Time.

Activity description.

How I feel.

Duration.

Value (high, medium, low, none).

3. Then, without changing your behavior any more than you have to, note down everything that you

do at school and work, as you do it.

HOSM 3200

Managing Teams & Leadership

4. Every time you change activities, whether replying to email, working on a(n) assignment/report,

making coffee, or gossiping with colleagues, note down what the activity is, the time of the change,

and how you feel (alert, flat, tired, energetic, and so on).

5. Then, at a convenient time, go back through your Activity Log and write down the duration of each

activity, and whether it was a high, medium, low, or no value task. (Evaluate this based on how far it

contributed to achieving your goals.)

Learning from your Activity Log:

1. Once you've logged your time for five days, analyze your Activity Log. You may be alarmed to see

how much time you spend doing low value tasks!

2. You may also see that you are energetic in some parts of the day, and flat in other parts. A lot of

this can depend on how you are, the rest breaks you take, when and what you eat, and the work

that you're doing.

3. Once you've analyzed your Activity Log, you should be able to boost your productivity by applying

one of the following actions to various activities:

a. Eliminate or reduce time on tasks that don't help you meet your objectives.

b. Schedule your most challenging tasks for the times of day when your energy levels are

highest. That way, your work will be of better quality, and it should take you less time to

do.

c. Minimize the number of times you switch between types of tasks. For example, could

you check and reply to e-mails, monitor social media, etc. only a few times of the day?

Report Format:

Once you have completed the Activity Log for 5 days and invested some time in analyzing the data you have

captured, prepare a one to two page reflection on your findings. This could include the following:

What surprised you most about your findings? (2 marks)

How much discretionary time is in your schedule? (2 marks - .5 time/ 1.5 comments detail)

Think about your major goals and objectives this semester (and in life). How much time are you

spending in activities DIRECTLY related to these goals? (3 marks - outline goals and evaluate

time spent)

Can you identify low priority tasks that are limiting your productivity? (2 marks - Identify .5

marks-Reasoning 1.5 marks)

Do you have time periods in your day that your energy level is lower than others? How does

this impact your work? (3 marks - Identify 1 mark- Reasoning 2 marks)

What specific self-management strategies could you implement to improve your productivity?

(3 marks - Identify 1 mark- Plans to improve - 2 marks)

Evaluation:

Total 15 marks

Please refer to the assignment report form above and Rubric for specifics on what is expected to be included in

each element.

Format:

Your assignment will be completed and uploaded to the dropbox. it can be submitted anytime up until the

due date