Dr Laura Giurge

This course is available on the Executive MSc in Behavioural Science. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

Time is arguably the fabric of our lives, but its value often goes unnoticed. Every day we make decisions (or decisions are made for us) about how and with whom to spend our finite temporal resources. But what is time? How should we think about the value of an hour, or a decade? What does it mean to optimally allocate our time? Does time shape motivation, productivity, and well-being? What can leaders do to enhance team collaboration, address gendered time inequality, and protect desired work-life boundaries? How does AI change the way we think and use time? And if time is our most precious resource, why is time theft not a crime?

This course seeks to address such questions by drawing primarily from the management literature and featuring real-life examples across industries and cultures. Students taking this course will gain a multidisciplinary perspective on understanding and managing time at work and in life; will learn to think critically about their own experiences and uses 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 and their community; will gain knowledge about how innovations and work has changed the way we think about time; and will learn how to integrate time across all aspects of their lives so they can enact positive change for themselves and their community.

Course objectives:

• To discover time research and why it matters for productivity and well-being.
• To get insights into one’s own perceptions and (mis)uses of time.
• To explore new team dynamins and leadership that centre around time.
• To gain a better understanding of the role of work and motivation in our lives.
• To identify solutions that turn innovations from threats to opportunities.

8 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Winter break.

There are two formative components. First, you will engage in a group project where you will analyse and address a personal time-related challenge from Monday to Thursday, culminating in a presentation on Friday. Second, you will write an individual 250-word pitch outlining your chosen article and approach for the summative essay.

• Csillag, B., Campbell, E. M., & Zhou, L. (2025). Is time the great equalizer? How interpersonal time request processes are shaped by and reproduce disparities. Academy of Management Review.
• Blagoev, B., & Schreyögg, G. (2019). Why do extreme work hours persist? Temporal uncoupling as a new way of seeing. Academy of Management Journal, 62(6), 1818-1847.
• Feldman, E., Reid, E. M., & Mazmanian, M. (2020). Signs of our time: Time-use as dedication, performance, identity, and power in contemporary workplaces. Academy of Management Annals, 14(2), 598-626.
• Giurge, L. M., Whillans, A. V., & West, C. (2020). Why time poverty matters for individuals, organisations and nations. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(10), 993-1003.
• Shipp, A. J. (2021). My fixation on time management almost broke me. Harvard Business Review.
• Bednarski, M. (2025). How is your team spending the time saved by GenAI? Harvard Business Review.

Problem sets (10%).

Essay (90%, 1500 words).

Exercises (10%): To really understand the science of time, you need to apply it. For that reason, one part of the assessment comprises several exercises (both in and outside class). After each exercise, you will need to submit a max 250-word reflection on how the exercise affected you via an online survey. The exercises will be debriefed in-class. Please note that two of the exercises will need to be completed before the course starts (information will be provided via email mid to end November).

Essay + Annotated bibliography (90%): You will write an essay (max 1.500 words, excluding the bibliography) that follows the structure of an op-ed article (e.g., Harvard Business Review style). You will be provided with three academic articles, and you will have to choose which article you want to write an op-ed on. Along the op-ed, you will need to submit a 500-word annotated bibliography.