Investigating Temporal Structure Usage in Individual Time Management Practices

2010 ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
Dezhi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Time Management ◽  
Research University ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Use Of Time ◽  
Time Usage ◽  
Individual Productivity ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
Academic Professionals

Researchers in management and organizational behavior have shown that temporal rhythms and norms exist and that they collectively impact multiple aspects of an organization. They have also shown that individual productivity is hampered if temporal cycles clash. This suggests that individual time management is related to the temporal structures that govern and constrain an individual’s life. At its simplest form, individuals use external records to capture explicit temporal structures that allow them to view this constraint. This external record then allows individuals to view the relationships between the temporal structures affecting their lives and the relationships between the different temporal structures. Thus, knowing these relationships can help an individual build a personal schedule in a calendar tool that optimizes his or her use of time while still abiding by the temporal structures that cannot be controlled. It is expected that people who are very busy or very interested in personal advancement want to optimize their time usage and, therefore, spend time learning about the myriad of temporal structures that affect their lives so that they can best control them. It follows that people who are effective time managers are likely to use and understand temporal structures in a more sophisticated fashion than people who are not. This research investigates this possibility through two sets of intensive field interviews with a group of academic professionals at a U.S. public research university. The focus of this work is on investigating types of temporal structures being used in individual time management with calendar tools.

What are Temporal Structures?

2010 ◽  
pp. 12-25
Author(s):  
Dezhi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Time Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Personal Time ◽  
Use Of Time ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
Personal Productivity ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Theoretical Overview

Temporal structure, a key notion in this book, is defined as a patterned organization of time, used by humans to help them manage, comprehend or coordinate their use of time. The objective of this chapter is to provide a theoretical overview for understanding the role temporal structures play in personal time management practices. This chapter discusses how temporal structures are aligned with personal temporal constraints and how to understand the impact of these structures on personal productivity. This chapter first introduces the concept of temporal structure and its relationship to individual time management practices. Individual temporal experiences contain many different forms of temporal structures, which can be either explicit or implicit. A good example of explicit temporal structures is a deadline, which most individuals write on their personal calendar tools. An example of implicit temporal structure is an informal project meeting with a small group, which is not publically announced and is only known internally.

How Academics Exhibit their Time Management Behaviors through Various Temporal Structure Usage

2010 ◽  
pp. 95-115
Author(s):  
Dezhi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Time Management ◽  
Research University ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
Time Requirements ◽  
Faculty And Staff ◽  
Large Survey

Following the survey study proposed in Chapter 7, a large data set was collected from academics including faculty, staff, and students at a U.S. public research university. This chapter primarily reports descriptive data analyses, constructs independence and univariate analyses for this large survey. The survey respondents from the researched university included over seven hundred students, faculty, and staff. The survey was designed respectively for the three different groups of people, since they experienced different time requirements based upon their different roles at this academic research site. Their temporal requirements are referred to various types of temporal structures in this research. A number of comparison figures were drawn to compare the time management and different temporal structure usage behaviors among students, faculty, and staff based on the univariate data analysis results. This chapter also describes the process of normality tests, skewness and kurtosis analyses.

Identifying what Constitutes the Quality of Individual Time Management and How Individuals Process Temporal Structure Information

2010 ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Dezhi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Time Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
User Study ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Structure Information ◽  
Personal Time ◽  
Management Quality ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Temporal Structures

The purpose of this book is to provide useful user requirements for capturing and designing more extensive temporal structures within the current electronic calendar systems through a series of in-depth user studies. Chapter 5 presents the study results of two in-depth interviews with twenty professionals for identifying what types of temporal structures are being used in personal time management practices and possible design implications to further design the current electronic calendar tools. In order to deepen our understanding of how individual time management quality is related to the various temporal structures, it is necessary to conduct a much larger scale user study to further support the findings reported in Chapter 5. If we could possibly obtain solid support from a larger user study, we would be more confident to state that we need to enhance the design of the current electronic calendar systems through incorporating more extensive temporal structure features.

Calendar Tools

2010 ◽  
pp. 38-50
Author(s):  
Dezhi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Primary Structure ◽  
Time Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Subsequent Time ◽  
Time Usage ◽  
Temporal Structures

The focus of this chapter is to review electronic time management or calendar tools. This review is presented to support the underlying motivation for this book, which is to improve time management by providing better electronic time management or calendar tools that incorporate more types of temporal structures than those being managed with existing tools. The chapter begins with a discussion of paper-based calendars, which have served as the primary structure for representing time usage for all subsequent time management aids. This discussion relates time management practices to the types of temporal structures the paper calendar manipulates and to the paper calendar successor, the electronic calendar. A comparison is made between the advantages of paper-based tools and electronic tools to illustrate the types of advantages that were moving to electronic means. This comparison is also made to illustrate that the advantages developed for the electronic time manager are simplistic and somewhat obvious, such as simplifying repeated entries and announcing time-based events.

scholarly journals Socio Economic Status and Time Management Skill of Women Teachers in Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (02) ◽  
pp. 37-40
Author(s):  
Indira A. ◽  
V. Bala Chandra Maree
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Time Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Women Teachers ◽  
Good Time ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Dual Roles ◽  
Use Of Time ◽  
Wage Earning

The modern woman is toiling hard to prove her worth on the fronts, her household and her place of employment. Taking up careers creates the need for the homemakers to fulfill dual roles – homemaking and wage earning. Homemaking itself is a full time job, over which the career demands another eight to ten hours of homemaker’s time daily. Good time management provided the ability to keep a balance in our lives, or to recognize where the imbalance is. For instance, is all our focus on work rather than on leisure and social activities good? What about our family and those near and dear to us-are they allowed to play an important role in our lives, or are they constantly brushed to one side? The overall objective of the study is to analyze the socio economic conditions of women married teachers in Higher Education in Dindigul and to examine their time management practices and skill. The nature of adjustments made by the respondents to solve the problems mainly includes help from family members and friends, postponement of less important activity and use of leave. The study observed that for majority of the respondents, achieving of goals related to use of time is mainly due to proper use of available time and efficiency in attaining responsibilities in limited time. This again reflects how the women teachers are successful in meeting their responsibilities.

Input from Users

2010 ◽  
pp. 163-175
Author(s):  
Dezhi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Time Management ◽  
Research University ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Public Research ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Effective Time ◽  
Public Research University ◽  
Dynamic Time ◽  
Large Survey

The main objectives of this chapter are to present useful and practical time management hints from users that were surveyed and to identify user difficulties with the current electronic time management or calendar tools and users’ desired calendar features. Consistent with the main findings from our large survey with students, faculty, and staff members in a U.S. public research university (see Chapter 10), additional data collected from open-ended questions with the same user population also reflect the reality that users are experiencing dynamic time management demands, and demonstrate how they respond to these demands and problems of meeting deadlines. Users’ input on time management hints indicate again that an effective time manager is also a good temporal structure manipulator. The key strategies offered by the users for effective time management are (1) plan in advance, (2) prioritize tasks, (3) control time, (4) stop procrastination, (5) understand temporal structure relationships, and (6) communicate and coordinate time with others. These strategies are interpreted from a temporal structure point of view respectively in this chapter.

What is the Relationship between the Quality of Individual Time Management and Temporal Structure Usage? Building and Testing a Research Model

2010 ◽  
pp. 139-162
Author(s):  
Dezhi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Time Management ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Measurement Model ◽  
Least Square ◽  
Research Model ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
Faculty And Staff ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter introduces the research model designed for this study. A test of the measurement model is presented in detail. The software utilized in this research is the PLS-Graph version 3.0. A partial least square (PLS) data analysis was run on students, faculty, and staff datasets respectively. This chapter also reports all results on the building of the structural model that represents the relationship between time management quality and understanding of temporal structures. PLS results for students, faculty, and staff members are reported respectively. This chapter also summarizes the differences among students, faculty, and staff in their capture, use and understanding of different types of temporal structures.

Relationship between Calendar Tool Design and Temporal Structure Usage

2010 ◽  
pp. 176-186
Author(s):  
Dezhi Wu
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Time Management ◽  
Temporal Structure ◽  
Tool Design ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Management Tools ◽  
Management Quality ◽  
Temporal Structures

This chapter supports the argument that began in Chapter 4 for the need to design and implement electronic time management/calendar tools that incorporate more temporal structures than the limited ones that are now being used. The support is based upon the survey data analysis, upon the pilot interviews, and upon a small longitudinal study that was conducted. This chapter first describes the correlations between perceived time management tool usefulness and individual time management quality. It also documents a few significant correlations that occurred between perceived time management tool usefulness and the four temporal structure constructs investigated in this research. The longitudinal study is presented in this chapter. It examines whether capturing and utilizing temporal structures in an electronic time management tool improves individual time management quality. This chapter also summarizes and extrapolates the results presented and combines this data with salient results from the interviews presented in this book. The results that are used and summarized are those that apply to the arguments being made that designing better electronic time management tools that make it easier for people to capture a wider range of temporal structures will lead to better time management. Explicit suggestions are made for design opportunities that would capture currently unavailable or difficult to capture temporal structures.

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