Timing can make the difference between a great workshop and a grating workshop.

You may be the best facilitator there is however, if you have told participants that they will be finished by 5pm and you’re still talking at 5.15pm then there may be a problem.

This situation can arise without you realising it and the good thing is that there are some simple tricks to have up your sleeve to ensure it doesn’t happen to you.

 
Here are some of my favourites:

• Always start your session on time. This sets the expectation that time is important. So, if you said the session begins at 9am, then start at 9am sharp. If someone is missing or is running late you can still start the session. You may start by covering things such as housekeeping and paperwork which is easier to catch up on later. The important thing is that you are courteous and rewarding to the participants who came on time and observed the standard. 

• Use odd amounts of time. For example, have an 11 minute break, or tell people to be back at 12.38pm. This novelty throws people off the usual 5, 10, 15 minute intervals which they are so tuned into.

• Do fun activities or energisers right after break. Show people that they may miss out on something memorable if they return to your workshop late after a break. 

• Catch the last person with a task. A nice way to motivate people to come back from break on time is to assign a task to the last person. So, before you go to a break tell your learners that the last person who comes back into the workshop has to tell a story or share an experience. Be as specific or general as you like. There is one exception for this however. If everyone in your workshop has a clear preference for extroversion this may not work as well, it could even have the opposite effect.

Have you got any other favourite timing tricks which help keep your workshops on track? If you do, add them to the list by posting a comment!

Sarah Eqbal