Have you ever looked at your kid’s schedule and thought, “How are we supposed to fit all of this in?”
School. Sports. Music practice. Homework. Clubs. Family stuff. That giant project they somehow remember at the most inconvenient possible moment.
And then we wonder why our kids feel stressed…while we’re over here acting as the family calendar, reminder system, transportation coordinator, and human push notification.
In part one of my conversation with productivity expert Megan Sumrell, we talked about time debt and why so many of us keep carrying unfinished tasks from one day into the next.
But this time I wanted to ask a different question:
Can we teach our kids to avoid that mess before they become adults?
Because I did NOT start life with excellent planning habits. Megan didn’t either. So if we can give our tweens and teens some of these skills at 12, 15, or 18 instead of making them figure it out at 35 while juggling work and kids…yes, please.
Megan shares a very practical system for helping kids actually see their time, instead of treating everything that isn’t happening right this second as some vague place called “later.”
And parents, there are some really good ideas in here for us too.
In this interview, we dig into:
- Why Megan says most kids basically have two categories of time: “now” and “not now”
- The four levels of planning that can help students manage a whole semester without Mom becoming the Chief Information Officer
- Why writing tasks in a little box labeled “Monday” might still be nothing more than a glorified to-do list
- How one teen used her calendar to make a completely logical case for getting out of family yard work (and yes, it worked!)
- What kids should do when a teacher assigns a five-week project so it doesn’t magically become a five-hour panic session the night before
- Megan’s surprisingly helpful strategy for procrastinators who look at the thing they planned to do and think, “Nope. Don’t wanna.”
- Why you may need an actual uncertainty budget for your time, just like an emergency fund for your money
- How teaching kids these skills can eventually free parents from remembering every exam, practice, deadline, and assignment for them
One idea especially made me stop and think: Megan intentionally blocks time on her calendar for problems she doesn’t even know about yet.
Because something always comes up, right?
The internet dies. A teacher assigns something unexpected. A project takes twice as long as you thought. Somebody needs a form filled out by tomorrow morning. (Naturally.)
Instead of pretending those surprises won’t happen, Megan plans for them.
And that may be one of the most practical ways I’ve ever heard to get out of the constant cycle of, “I’ll just squeeze it in somewhere.”
If you want your kids to head toward high school, college, and adulthood knowing how to manage their own responsibilities without you constantly chasing behind them, this conversation is packed with skills worth teaching now.
Because the goal isn’t to raise kids who can cram more into every day.
It’s to raise capable humans who can look at their time, make good decisions, and know when the answer needs to be, “I actually don’t have room for that.”
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Key Takeaways about Time Management for Teens and Tweens
- Tweens and teens often think about time as either “now” or “not now,” so a visual calendar can help them understand what is coming and how today’s choices affect the rest of the week or month.
- Families can build stronger planning habits by looking at the semester and upcoming month together, adding major school dates, activities, travel, family commitments, and other events everyone needs to know about.
- Weekly planning helps kids see how much time they actually have by placing school, practices, homework, projects, and other responsibilities into specific time blocks instead of keeping everything on a general task list.
Keep the Life Skills Going All Year Round!
Missing #LifeSkillsNow? You can keep doing workshops! Get one from each season of #LifeSkillsNow for free to do while you’re waiting for the next season.
These workshops include Making Homemade Gellies with Leah; Turning Big Ideas Into a Real Business with Billy Brady, the CEO of Troomi Phones; How to Make a Phone Call with Katie and kids; Checking Fluid Levels in Your Auto with Sam Tillema; and Making Your Home Sensory Smart with Greg Santucci.
And if you missed this year’s camp, it’s a fun taste of what we do each year in our free life skills camp for kids and teens.
Show Me the Life Skills!- A quick daily check can help students stay ahead by asking what was assigned today that is due tomorrow and what was assigned today that has a future due date.
- Large projects become more manageable when kids work backward from the due date, break the project into smaller steps, and schedule those steps into open spaces on their calendars.
- Because unexpected tasks and inaccurate time estimates are inevitable, families can protect “uncertainty time” on the calendar so there is somewhere for surprise responsibilities to go without throwing the entire week off course.
Action Steps from This Episode
- Sit down with your child at the beginning of each semester and add major school dates, activities, family events, travel, and other important commitments to a shared calendar.
- Review the upcoming month together so everyone can see busy weeks, major assignments, schedule conflicts, and responsibilities that may have been added since the semester began.
- Encourage your tween or teen to use a weekly calendar with actual times so they can see when they will study, practice, work on projects, and participate in activities.
- Have your child spend five minutes after school checking what is due tomorrow and identifying any new assignments or projects with future deadlines.
- When a large assignment comes home, help your child break it into smaller steps and schedule those steps across the available days instead of waiting until the deadline is close.
- Track how much unexpected work tends to appear during a typical week, then intentionally leave some protected “uncertainty time” in the family schedule to handle it.
Resources We Mention for Time Management for Kids
- Check out Megan’s TOP Program and the TOP Program for Students
- Get her free training here to start figuring out that time debt situation!
- Watch my first interview with Megan on to-do lists
- Workshops with Megan are available in #LifeSkillsNow Seasons Two and Three
- Denise Albright has some really fun and colorful planners and visual planning products! (Use code Katie for a discount)
Megan Sumrell is a Time Management Expert and creator of the TOP Program who helps overwhelmed women create harmony through planning systems built specifically for how women’s brains work. With over 20 years of corporate process improvement experience, she teaches women to turn their unrealistic to-do lists into realistic, flexible plans that actually work with their lives, not against them.
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