Everything takes time. Homework, grading papers, eating an apple and sleeping all take time. Time is such a part of our lives that often we go about our days without even thinking of it. On the other hand, we may be so busy, with every minute planned out and conscious of every bit of time, that we forget where it went. Days, even weeks, can slip by in a flash and we may not remember what happened.

The following activity will allow you to see "where the time goes" and become aware of how you spend your time.

Materials

pen/ pencil
paper
notebook or journal
ruler

Activity

1) For one week, record, in a notebook, the events of your days and how long each takes. You can be as detailed as you choose. For example:

Monday

Sleep – 8 hours
Brush teeth – 5 minutes
Shower – 10 minutes
Do hair – 20 minutes
Dress – 10 minutes
Eat breakfast – 10 minutes
Etc.

2) After one week, group events together and add up their times.

3) On a piece of paper, make a bar graph that illustrates how you spend your time in a week. The vertical axis of the graph should show time spent and the horizontal axis should show the events of the week.



Questions:

What percentage of your week do you spend sleeping? Eating? In school? Etc.
(Hint – to find a percentage, use the following formula: time of an event ÷ total time in the week x 100)
Does anything that you see in the graph surprise you?
What do you do most of the week?
On what do you spend the least amount of time?
Do you like your schedule?
If you could, how would you change it?

How do you compare to other animals?

Monkeys in the wild spend 65 – 70% of their day walking and feeding
Monkeys in captivity spend 10-20% of their day feeding
Bats spend 82.9% of their day sleeping
Cats spend about 50.6% of their day sleeping
Human Babies spend 66.7% of their day sleeping
Dogs spend 44.3% of their day sleeping
Horses spend 12.0% of their day sleeping

For a more complete list of animal sleeping habits see "Neuroscience for Kids" .

Look at the Bat statistic. How would you feel if you spent over 80% of your time sleeping?