It is again time for you to decide what you would like to learn more about regarding time management and commitment. Below, we list a set of ten activities which will guide you temporarily away from the shared trail. As you blaze your own trail for a while, please try to choose activities which you believe will help you grow. These may not be the easiest, but they are certainly the most rewarding. If you are taking this course for credit please check your study guide for directions. After exploring these activities you may return to Trail 2.

For those activities requiring an e-mail partner, please please share with someone you know.

1. Search the Internet for more sources of information relevant to the main themes of time management and commitment.

    

2. During the next week, check your perception of the passage of time in one or more of the ways listed below. When you have completed the activity, return and click here to share your insights with the instructor:
   • Take off your wristwatch for a whole day and avoid checking clocks as much as possible. When you do notice the time, is it earlier or later than you think?
   • Allow yourself to wait in the longest line at the grocery store or other location. As time passes, what do you find yourself thinking and feeling?
   • Make a conscious effort to slow down your normal pace by eating very slowly, talking more slowly, and/or walking more slowly. What do you experience?
     
     
3. What is your current understanding of the distinction between what is important and what is urgent? How do the two balance within your life? Click here to share your thoughts with the instructor.

    

4. Click here to share your thoughts with the instructor about the difference between someone who is committed to their profession as compared to someone who is a "workaholic." How do each balance time and commitments? How do the goals and actions of each differ?

    

5. Click here to share some of your best techniques or tips for "saving time" with the instructor.

    

6. Share with one or more of your colleagues any criteria or guidelines you have for when to say "Yes" or "No" when other people ask you for a time commitment. Click here to share your thoughts with the instructor.

    

7. What have you done, or what would you like to do, if you could spend two to three hours for a self-renewing "mini-vacation". Share your ideas with a partner via e-mail then: Click here to share your thoughts with the instructor.

    

8. Take a quick "mini-vacation" by going out and searching for a fun website of your own. (Caution: You may spend more time than you planned! Either give yourself permission to explore as long as you wish or set your alarm clock on your computer or watch to alert you as to when you need to "come back from vacation.") When you have finished. Click here to share your thoughts with the instructor

    

9. Draw a large box divided into 4 equal sections. Label the boxes as follows:

   
   Quadrant I (upper left corner) Important and Urgent
   Quadrant II (upper right corner) Important but Not Urgent
   Quadrant III (lower left corner) Urgent but Not Important
   Quadrant IV (lower right corner) Not Important and Not Urgent

   Now identify and note 3-5 activities that you regularly do in the appropriate Quadrants. In which Quadrant do you spend most of your time? How much time do you spend in Quadrant II? What do you consider to be activities which fall into this second quadrant? Click here to share your thoughts with the instructor.

10. Summarize or highlight some of the most helpful things what you learned from Trail 2. Click here to share your thoughts with the instructor.