Turn a busy week into a set of manageable workflows. Organize one class, identify your decision points and choose how to use any time you get back.
Video · 2:44Activity time is additionalStudent course
Your next moves
Make the lesson yours.
Before watching, write your first answer: What would you do with five extra hours a week?
Watch the story. Pause when a choice or claim needs checking.
Open the Think First activity below and complete it before any AI use.
Revise your answer in your own words. Explain what you changed and why.
Your activity / Right here
Bring a notebook. Begin below.
The activity is included on this page. Work on paper or in your own document; keep your first attempt and the evidence you checked.
Warm-up: Dr. Q's Question
What would you do with five extra hours a week?
My first answer: ________________________________________________
Mike's Mix-Up: The Schedule Nobody Could Live
Made-Up Example.
Go back to Sunday night. Here is what Mike did:
1. He typed "Make me a schedule for this week" and nothing else.
2. He never told the AI about his shift, his club, or his real deadlines.
3. He accepted the AI's time estimates without checking them against his past.
4. He kept his files scattered across a phone, an inbox, and 43 chats.
5. He planned no time for sleep, meals, or getting from place to place.
What went wrong? Talk it through with a partner, then write your answers.
• Which step skipped purpose before process?
• Where did the planning fallacy sneak in?
• What context did the AI need that only Mike could give?
• How would a folder map and one class project have changed Sunday night?
Here is how the story ends. Mike mapped last week on paper, built one project for chemistry, renamed his files, and wrote three if-then plans. His new schedule had fewer study hours in it and more sleep. It was also the first schedule he actually followed.
Think First: My Time Audit
No devices. Pen and paper. About 20 minutes.
1. Draw seven columns, one for each day of last week. Split each column into morning, afternoon, and evening.
2. Fill in what actually happened: classes, homework by class, activities, work, family, meals, screens, and sleep. Estimates are fine. Honest estimates are better.
3. In a different color, mark lost time: searching for files, re-explaining assignments, waiting, and "just checking" your phone.
4. Pick one assignment from last week. Write how long you expected it to take and how long it really took. That gap is your own planning fallacy data.
5. Finish this sentence: "If I had five extra hours a week, I would use them for ______ because ______."
Pause & reflect
What changed in your thinking?
Write one sentence in your notebook. Name what you checked, what you chose, or what you want to explore next.
Read the video transcript
Read along, pause, or return to an idea. This transcript follows the selected lesson video.
Hi, I'm Carla, an AI avatar.
This week is about something every student wants more of: time.
Let's start with a question.
What would you do with five extra hours a week?
Sunday night.
Mike has a lab report due Tuesday,
an English draft due Wednesday, a work shift,
and robotics club.
He can't find his lab data.
He has forty-three chats with names like "quick question."
So he types: make me a schedule.
The AI gives him a beautiful schedule.
It has him studying during his work shift and writing at
six in the morning.
I asked Mike one question before we opened the AI.
What do you want?
He said, a schedule.
I said, that's a tool.
What do you want the schedule for?
I want to stop feeling behind.
And finish the lab without staying up until two.
Wait.
I lost about five hours last week just looking for stuff
and re-explaining things.
Here's the fix.
Your week is a set of workflows.
Each one has a trigger, steps, people and tools,
decisions, evidence, and a finish.
See the work first.
Then bring in the AI.
Rob, who wrote this book, put it this way in the first edition.
Rob's teaching slides put getting organized before
prompting, and they sketch the parts:
a project, its files, its chats,
assets, and context.
For this course, try one project per class,
files that stay all semester, and one chat per task.
Then your context is already waiting,
and future you can find every file in five seconds.
Then plan like a scientist.
In a 1994 study, honors students predicted they'd finish
their theses in about 34 days.
They actually took about fifty-five and a half.
So plan from your past, not your hopes.
Add a buffer.
And use if-then plans: if it's four o'clock Tuesday,
then I open my chemistry notes.
Now, where does saved time go?
Rob's answer is short.
You decide.
Start with sleep.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine says teens should
sleep eight to ten hours per twenty-four hours on a
regular basis.
And here's the catch.
In 2023, CDC survey data showed that only about one in
four U.S. high school students got at least eight hours of
sleep on an average school night.
If your schedule only works on six hours of sleep,
fix the schedule.
This week, you'll audit last week on paper,
set up one class project, and build a schedule you'll
actually follow.
Grab a pen.
Before you use an AI tool
Follow your course or institution's rules. Use an instructor-approved tool that permits your age, and meet any required consent conditions. Keep names, contact details, school records, and other private information out of prompts. Use fictional examples when you can.
Learning without an AI account
Follow the demonstration, pause before each answer, and do the reasoning on paper. Discuss what you would ask, how you would check it, and which decisions would remain yours.
About the characters and voices
This course uses AI-created characters and synthetic voices. Carla is an AI avatar. They help tell the story; they are not real students sharing testimonials.
Designed for high-school and community-college learners. Choose examples from your classes, work, and everyday life. Keep your completed work in your course portfolio.
