PB436 Half Unit
The Science of Time at Work and Beyond
This information is for the 2023/24 session.
Teacher responsible
Dr. Laura M Giurge
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in Behavioural Science, MSc in Organisational and Social Psychology, MSc in Psychology of Economic Life, MSc in Social and Cultural Psychology and MSc in Social and Public Communication. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.
Course content
Time is the most pervasive aspect of our lives. Every day we make decisions (or decisions are made for us) about how or with whom to spend our finite time in our personal and professional life. But what is time and how do we calculate its value? Why do we fail to optimally allocate our time? How does time affect our motivation, productivity, and well-being? Why is it so difficult to eradicate inequality in time-use at work and at home? What can leaders and employees do to protect desired work-life boundaries? And if time is our most precious resource, why is time theft not a crime?
This course seeks to address these questions and more by drawing primarily from management research and featuring real-life examples across industries and cultures. Students taking this course will gain a multidisciplinary perspective on managing time at work and beyond; will learn to think critically about their own experience and use of time, and how this shapes their expectations and behaviours in their personal life, at work, and in society; they will be able to recognize the barriers that prevent them from pursuing activities that are beneficial for them; will gain knowledge about how innovations and the growing knowledge economy has changed the way we think about time; and will learn how to formulate solutions that enable positive behavioural change in the way they use and experience time across all aspects of their lives.
Given that how we spend our time is how we live our life, this course is set up to be highly interactive and experiential. Students taking this course will not only learn about the theoretical insights on time but will also get to apply the science on time by engaging in various evidence-based exercises.
Below is an indicative schedule of the topics you can expect in this course. All changes to the content will be announced in class and/or on Moodle.
Time and the Person: Sessions 1-3 will focus on time at the individual level and will cover topics such as the difference between subjective and objective time, the psychological biases that lead people to misuse