Time on Task will teach you how to start an assignment right away and keep your attention on that assignment until completion. Ten minute assignments can now actually take ten minutes and not 3 hours!
The exercise begins with a warehouse scene, not unlike one might see at the back of any large grocery or department store. In the foreground there's a truck, a stack of twelve wooden crates, and a man on a yellow forklift. Once the student is focused, the man on the forklift will drive over to the stack of crates and pick one of them up. As long as attention remains consistent, the man on the forklift will then carry the crate over to the truck and lay it down on the truck bed. The objective of Time on Task Beginner is to be able to load all twelve crates onto the truck bed in five minutes or less. Here's the catch, though. If the student gets distracted or starts day dreaming, the man on the forklift will stop his work until focus is regained. As such, the only way to complete this task in the allotted amount of time is to stay focused the whole time. That's Time on Task!
Unlike most Play Attention exercises that end after a certain amount of time, (5 minutes, for example), Time on Task is unique in that it will continue to run until the task is complete. So, in Time on Task Beginner, a very focused student might be able to load all 12 crates in less than five minute. On the other hand, a distracted student may require six or seven minutes to load all 12 crates.
Time on Task Intermediate opens on a vast gray parking lot with a road and several green hills in the background. There is also a yellow crane that can be moved from point to point with attention. And finally, there is a truck that will drive by periodically to drop off components of a building. When the student is focused, the yellow crane retrieves a part of the building and moves it into position. Piece by piece a library is constructed in this manner, until a brand new building is finished. As was true in Time on Task Beginner, work only proceeds if the student is mentally attentive. If the student is distracted, or starts daydreaming, the crane will stop moving until focus is regained.
Similar to Time on Task Intermediate, Time on Task Advanced also requires the student to construct a building piece by piece with attention. This time, however, the building is a skyscraper, components are brought via helicopter, and there's a lot more going on in the background. Where before there was just a parking lot with rolling hills, now there's an entire cityscape to see!