How much time do you spend each day managing your tasks and projects?
If you don’t have enough time to manage your life, then you might want to take some time off from working and focus on other things.
Time management is important because it helps us achieve our goals and live better lives.
The problem is that most people waste their time on unimportant things instead of focusing on the important ones. That’s why they get stressed out and frustrated.
In this ultimate list, you can find numerous time management games, activities, and exercises that will help you save time and increase productivity.
Also, there is step-by-step gameplay or instructions to play or conduct these activities as well.
Table of Contents
In this game, you need to guess what’s going to happen in a certain picture. You can use your mouse or touch screen to click on different parts of the image and see if they match up with the answer. It’s fun and easy to play!
A team must adopt a big-picture approach to ensure that their final product is a success. This creative team bonding activity requires effective color coordination and collaboration among the group members.
You start off in Farmerama by growing your own crops and taking care of the animals. Then, you come under attack from aliens that appear out of nowhere. There are many ways for you to earn money and buy equipment and upgrades.
Skills That Get Developed :
What to discuss with your team:
Working in pairs, the group explores the topic together. Each person writes down what they think stops them from managing their own time more effectively.
Then the two work in tandem to come up with solutions for the problem. You can then present it to the group in turns.
The first person talks about his or her habit, and then the second person presents a solution.
The group votes on whether they agree with the solution. If there is no consensus, the facilitator decides.
Here are some examples of things that might stop people from being more effective managers of their time:
To help your colleagues improve their delegation skills, teach them the Delegation Skill Practice exercise.
Points to discuss:
Delegating tasks is an essential skill that every manager needs to know. It optimizes the time and ensures the task’s best person is assigned whenever possible.
Here are some techniques and strategies we’ve come up with to help you better manage your team, allocate time more efficiently, and get more done in less time.
It is great for understanding the importance of time management and proper organization.
The organized deck represents organizing your time so that you can focus on your most important tasks.
The other deck represents doing things in random order without any specific time allocated. It’s obvious that you’ll get better results if you do things in a structured way.
Use the “What I Did Yesterday” game to help teach your team how to identify patterns in everyday working activities.
It’s one of those short time-management training activities that give participants the opportunity to think about how they use their time and whether they could be doing things differently.
This task is best done individually at first and then discussed in pairs.
This time management training is very easy to organize because there are no steps involved.
You won’t need to provide any equipment, except for pen and paper, unless participants bring their own.
Talking about their accomplishments will make people feel good because it allows them to focus on what was accomplished rather than what wasn’t done.
We often beat ourselves up thinking that there is something wrong with us when in fact, we are doing more than we give ourselves any credit for!
If you focus on just one wasteful task, you’ll start to understand what a wasteful activity is, and how to avoid them.
Time is important, but you can’t control how you spend it. You must be willing to spend it wisely. Make the right choices, and time will take care of itself.
Imagine that every day you receive an additional $86,400 in your bank account. It doesn’t carry over any balance from one day to another.
Every night the bank removes any money you didn’t spend during the day. What would you do if you were in my position? You mean to draw out every last penny, of course?
We each have our own personal bank account. It’s called Time because it takes time to grow. It counts every day from midnight to midnight as one day.
Every night it writes down as lost whatever of your investments you haven’t yet made. It doesn’t carry over any balance from the previous day.
It allows no overdrafts. Each day it creates a new account for you to use. Each night it burns up what remains of the day’s calories.
You’ll learn: The $86,400 you’re given to spend is actually 84,600 seconds that you have per day. So, instead of money, it’s time that you won‘t be able to retrieve it if you lose it today!
This game will help your team understand how well they’re spending their time now (in relation to how they’d spend the amount of $ 84,000 and whether they’d waste any of it)and how they can best take back control of their time in the future.
This activity is not an actual game, but rather it’s a discussion to be done by small groups before each group describes the outcome to the rest.
One of these time management training activities helps people learn how to prioritize their tasks.
You will need to bring to your session a flip chart and colored markers.
The following discussion will focus on what important tasks are and why we think they’re important.
You’re given a list of tasks, each of which has a different point value.
You split the group up into teams and give them 10 minutes to complete their tasks. Afterward, you add up the points. After you’ve discussed with them how they prioritize their tasks, you ask them for feedback.
Each person or group must gather as many blocks as they possibly can in one minute using their non-dominant hand. They get the point every time they answer correctly.
You then play it again with different point values for different colors. The purpose of this exercise is to help students understand how to prioritize their tasks.
All you need for this activity is a box of colored blocks. The number of blocks you need depends on how many people are playing.
Step 1: Place the colored blocks on a flat surface and tell the participants that they must take as many blocks as they possibly can in one minute. They may start at any time.
Step 2: Participants can only use their non-dominant hand, and they may not pick up more than one block at a time
Step 3: Once the time is up, ask everyone to give points for every block they’ve completed. Write down the results.
Step 4: After step 3, spread the blocks on the table once more, now assigning a point value to every block, and repeat the exercise.
Step 5: Employees will have to consider the number of blocks they’re able to collect and the number of point values associated with each block.
To complete this time-management exercise, first, you’ll need to get a ribbon that’s 1 meter long and a pair of scissors.
It’s great for making sure everyone knows how much time they have to get things done.
Time is precious, and you have a finite number of years to succeed in what you’re pursuing, so put those years to good use.
Overcooked! is an online restaurant time management game. The idea behind the app is to serve different foods to your customers, try not to let them get upset, and cook everything in absurd conditions – like a hot-air balloon or in the middle of the street.
Sounds like a normal working day at the office, doesn’t it? The game offers lots and lots of obstacles to overcome. It has a variety of cooking recipes, and it’s really fun in multiplayer mode.
Time management skills trained:
What to discuss with your team:
You’ll play for the team of diseases and viruses in this popular strategy game, where you’ll try to infect as much territory as possible by spreading disease.
The world scientific community would oppose you if you were to develop an effective medicine against them. Will you succeed in accomplishing your evil deed?
Time management skills trained:
What to discuss with your team:
Remember! Don’t spend too much time playing games.
This is one of my favorite time management training activities because it’s so simple yet so effective. It is particularly useful for starting a training session, and for getting participants to think about time.
You will just need a time-keeping device for this activity, so you know when a minute has passed.
Participants will be seated at different times. You could point out to them that they might think that time depends on perception.
By asking participants when they feel time goes faster for them, and when they don’t, you can introduce the idea that passion, productivity, and time are related.
You’re a video game developer who makes hit video games and new consoles for start-up companies. To succeed, you need to hire your own team, control your own process of game development, deal with the critics, and maintain your own reputation.
Time management skills trained:
What to discuss with your team:
Teach your team to sync their work with their body clocks by playing the “Circadian Rhythms” game.
Points to discuss:
If the participants share the rhythm of their work with each other, they can build an efficient working schedule.
It’s a good chance to get to know your team members better and improve your communication skills at the same.
Another effective way for colleagues to control their working hours and breaks is to use the Pomodoro technique.
It’ll allow you to avoid overloading yourself with too much work during busy times and taking too long to relax when you need it.
Jigsaw puzzles are a good way for people to learn how to manage their time by understanding the importance of having a clear idea of what they want before deciding how to use their time.
As a trainer, it is easy to organize this time management activity but you will need to buy some jigsaw puzzles, which are at the same difficulty level for training purposes.
The point of this time management training game is that it is very hard to work efficiently and in a timely manner, without knowing the ultimate goal we are aiming towards.
The aim of this game is to discuss the benefits of organization and prioritization when managing your time.
To complete this time management training activity you will need a set of different colored items.
You can use any kind of item for the activity. For example, you can use colored blocks, crayon boxes, playing cards, sweets, etc. You don’t need to have a specific number of items in each category.
You can start the discussion after the game, by asking groups: ‘What was your strategy for playing the game the second time around?’
The discussion should highlight that good organizational skills, planning, and coordination are essential to achieve more in the shortest amount of time.
This time management training program helps participants understand the importance of planning, delegating, and prioritizing tasks in order to accomplish them in the shortest amount of time.
For this time management activity, use as many decks of playing cards as there are groups and an electronic timer or another time-keeping device.
At the end of the game, start a discussion by asking participants: ‘What strategy did you use to complete the task?’
You need to plan, strategize, and delegate effectively to manage your time successfully.
Time wasters are all the things that prevent people from getting things done (or at the very least, slow them down).
It’s important for you, as an instructor, to cover this topic during your time management training session so that your students know how to manage their time effectively.
This activity not just introduces the concept of time-wasters but also gives your participants the chance to think about how to overcome them themselves.
You will need as few envelopes as there are team members and inside of each one, you will put as many blank index cards (or whatever else you want to use) as there are team members.
You can ask each group to share their thoughts on the items on the index card inside the last envelope that was handed out.
Instead of presenting their ideas for each item separately, each group can present their ideas for each item together.
You could also ask them to vote on which strategies they think are best for dealing with different time-wasters.
Step 1: Assemble the following items: a large jar, like a jam jar, some large rocks, gravel, sand
Step 2: Fill the jar with the rocks before filling it with sand.
Step 3: Ask the group if the jar has been filled to capacity. They’ll likely say “yes.”
Step 4: Fill the jar with gravel, sand, and water.
The jar represents your entire life, and the rocks represent your most important things — your family, health, etc. Your house and car represent the gravel, and everything else represents the sand.
You can choose which objects to put into your basket first to determine how many of the other objects you can add.
It emphasizes the importance of prioritizing your tasks and getting them done first. If you don’t get them done first, you won’t have time for the smaller ones.
For this time management activity, imagine that you have a new personal assistant who can help you out with some of your tasks.
The group is divided up into three roles: a delegator, who delegates tasks; an employee, who performs the task; and an observer, who watches the performance.
The delegator practices delegation and the observer has an evaluation sheet that helps give feedback about how well the delegator performed and what they need to improve. Each person gets a turn.
The goal of this exercise is to learn how to identify time wasters.
There are four groups, each consisting of four people. Each team gets an envelope containing four index cards, and they’re told to use their time-wasting skills to distract themselves from the task at hand.
The team has three minutes to write as much as they can about overcoming that time waste and writing it on one index card They then pass the envelope to the following group, and so on until everyone has received an invitation.
Afterward, each team can present its results, and everyone can vote on the best one.
You’ll be able to understand better how you could overcome specific time-wasting activities, and save more time in the future for priority tasks.
You’ll be playing Hercules, who must complete his 12 Labours to rescue his wife from the Underworld. The game has a limited time frame, so you’re going to have to find ways to end it while completing various tasks within that time frame.
Time management skills trained:
What to discuss with your team:
Divide your group into teams and assign each team a puzzle to solve.
However, you don’t tell them what the picture looks likes, the “big picture”. After a few minutes of chatting, you ask them what they think is missing and what makes it difficult.
They may not have a picture of what the finished product should look like. Then you hand it over to them.
The purpose of this activity is to show the importance in seeing the big picture when making plans and choosing our activities.
Finding the Ace of Hearts is a time management activity best done in a small group. Three people, two leaders, and some playing cards are needed for this activity.
Step 1: Shuffle one deck of cards so they’re random, and arrange the other in ascending order
Step 2: Give each player a deck of cards.
Step 3: Players must try to find the ace of spades in the deck as fast as possible.
Step 4: The player with the organized deck has an advantage over the player with the mixed decks.
This activity highlights the need for:
Show your colleagues how they allocate their time throughout the day by playing the “Time Squared” game.
The task can be done throughout the day so that your co-workers have more precise results on their papers, allowing them to evaluate time efficiently.
What Points To Discuss:
It’s a convenient way to actually track how time is spent throughout the day.
Afterward, ask your colleagues to come up with new ways to improve their own time management. One great place to begin is with some time management literature.
The Blind Polygon is an excellent icebreaker for helping your team members cope when working in new teams or projects. It requires one leader who leads several smaller groups.
Step 1: Blindfold each player and give them a length of rope.
Step 2: Groups fold or adjust the rope so that it forms a specific shape, like a rectangle.
Step 3: The team leader should set a deadline.
Step 4: You cannot remove the blindfold, nor can anyone else. Everyone must be touching the rope all the time.
Step 5: Give the groups some time to form their shapes.
After the timer has run out, let the groups look back at their shapes before tackling them again.
It’s an excellent way to help teams get to know each other better and learn how they work together.
Initially, employees may perform poorly. However, once they develop the required skills for critical thinking and analysis, their performance will gradually increase.
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