Time Management & Clock System

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I am an organized person who loves schedules but I’m married to someone who has no sense of time. Well, I can’t let my kids fall victim to a lack of time management so I created this clock. I have not decided if it will stay in our room or in the family room where they spend most of their time but it will definitely be somewhere that they see it often.

The clock has different time blocks of different things that need to be done organized by different colors that are associated with the small hand on the clock. I have created a key so that the children know what pattern means what. As my children are young, I realize that I might have to read it to them often but once they get the hang of it, I know that they will just know the pattern to the time schedule.

The stripes are during our lunch and learning time. Like I mentioned, my children are young and their school gets out in the morning. That means we get to have lunch at home and work on skills or do homework that was sent home while at school in the afternoon.

The flowers represent quiet time. In our household, we have quiet time daily. Quiet time is time spent in the children’s separate rooms reading books, looking at books, or just sitting quietly. Sometimes they take naps and sometimes they don’t. But it is a good time for all of us to rest and be able to regroup for the rest of the day after we spend some time away from each other being quiet.

The purple chevron stripes represent bath and bed time. During this time the kids take showers and get ready for the following day. This also includes being together as a family and story time. We talk about the upcoming day and get the kids ready to settle down for the evening.

The polka dots represent quiet time and lights out. We like to give them a little bit of time with their books before they need to go to sleep. But once that little section of time is over, lights are turned out and we expect them to be quiet to go to sleep. School starts at 8 a.m. in the morning so they really need to go to bed without getting to stay up to chat and play.

Although my children can’t quite tell time yet, or even have a sense of what time really is, this clock helps for them to understand how much time they have for each thing and what will be happening next.

Create your own clock

To create your own time management clock, get a clock with hands. I went to our local Target and bought a new one for $6.

Once you get it home, separate the front from the back. Then there are two options. You can either take a marker and color in sections directly on the clock or you can cut out different colors of paper and glue or tape them to the clock like I did.

Then create a key for your colors so your kids know what is what. And that’s it! You are on your way to helping your kids better manage their time.