CMU School of Drama


Monday, March 03, 2014

How To Use LEGOs To Manage Your Time Better

www.makeuseof.com: I think I’ve found the ultimate productivity tool: LEGOs. Don’t leave! Let me explain.
At the beginning of the day, it’s easy to look at your to-do list and feel overwhelmed. Every item on that list represents something you need to do, and you’re not sure you can get through it all.
But you have a resource for dealing with your tasks: time. And a to-do list does a really crappy job of representing that. Sure, you have a clock. And a calendar. But neither of those give you a tangible sense of how much time you’ve got for accomplishing things – how much time you have left today.
You know what does? LEGOs.

6 comments:

Jess Bergson said...

I think this sounds generally like a good idea. As someone who has never really been into LEGOs, I don't know if this method would really work for me. However, I think the idea of making a "to do list" more tangible is a fantastic plan for people who have trouble with completing tasks. This sounds like a technique that would be especially useful for younger people who can be motivated with this sort of incentive. While I do think this method would be successful for some people, I can also see it being potentially counterproductive for others simply because it is possible that the presence of LEGOs would distract people who have a hard time keeping focus. People who have a hard time completing tasks most likely also have a hard time keeping focus, so this is definitely something to consider.

Olivia LoVerde said...

I think this is a really interesting way to keep track of your time and keep yourself on a schedule. Personally, I do not think that LEGOs would be my way of handling it but the idea is great. Break up all the work you have to do into time frames and give your self something to do in that time. I like they idea of seeing how much time I have left and not panicking that I do not have enough time. That is probably my biggest weakness when planning time. I forget how much time I have a freak out to finish it all too fast.

Sarah Keller said...

I love this! I'm seriously considering trying out some kind of a technique like this. I'm generally pretty good at to-do lists, and when I have a lot of time and a lot of things that need to get done, I write out schedules for the day broken up into usually 2-hour chunks. This usually works to get my mind out of "oh my god i have so much work" freak-out mode, but it doesn't help motivate me to be as productive as possible within those chunks of time. I think that breaking it into smaller chunks and having a physical representation of how much time I have left and how much time I've already worked would probably be really helpful for me. I'm definitely going to try this out.

Unknown said...

THIS IS PERFECT! Legos are a perfect way to unleash creativity. They allow you to build a whole new world full of colors and adventures. This idea will allow people to stay organized and creative. I would like to see some of my peers try this out and see how it works.

Lindsay Child said...

This is a pretty sweet system. I would probably add some kind of "stick" aspect, where if you weren't working for the whole 25 minutes, you'd have to put a Lego in a penalty box of some kind. I'm guilty of not seeing time as a tangible commodity, and I think having something like a Lego that depended on a smaller chunk of time being productive would be a neat way to keep me on task.

Katie Pyne said...

Wow I've never thought of this before! Why I don't think that I would personally use this technique all the time, I'm really interested in trying it out and seeing, for myself, how it actually functions. I think the most important part of this article is that you're putting time into something tangible. While I do budget my homework time out, it's much easier to do it using something like this. Furthermore, I think Legos are a great thing to work with. They're perfect for kids and adults and playing with something like this can relieve a lot of stress. Great article!