Input from Users: Personal Time Management Hints, Current Electronic Calendar Tool Difficulties and Desired Features

Abstract

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.