This weekend I sat with one of my high school client's, who has a crazy schedule for the next month involving a week of baseball games, drivers ed, tutoring, and the usual rigors of 11th grade homework. The poor kid walked into my office, head hanging low, looking completely exhausted and distraught.
We quickly addressed the issue. Instead of creating a monthly calendar of events, we broke the month into weekly calendars. These 5 sheets of weekly calendars made for a visual of tasks he could handle. Looking at a sheet listing a months worth of activities can be exasperating for the overwhelmed child. Next we, inserted after school time lines and the priority activities that he know of- games, tutoring, drivers ed, Dr's appointments and such. We also factored in time to eat and travel from one location to another. People always seem to forget to include this task.
Tell your child that the time management schedule you just made is not edged in stone but to be used as a guide to what assignments /tasks need to be accomplished. For those of you who don't want to hear me say "post it's", cover your eyes....and ears for those of you who are having this read to you. Write each task on a small post it and place it in the time slot you want to finish the task. If you decide not to complete the task in that indicated time, for whatever reason, take the post it off and place it in another time slot that you'll be able to complete the task. When the task has been completed, throw away the post it.