Anne Fox has submitted this straight-forward exercise which helps delegates separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to their workloads.

I run loads of time management courses and the exercise that I get most comments on is this:
Ask the delegates to jot down 10 things they did at work yesterday (no order, no prompts, no comments). On a separate sheet of paper, they should jot down the five topics that they expect to discuss at their next appraisal/performance review. Look at the two lists together and mark in some way on the first list all the things that have a direct link to the second list. (Delegates may try to make indirect links to justify why they did certain things!)

The 'light bulb' moment is the recognition that we spend time on things that have little or no consequence to our performance. I usually ask them to plot the list of 10 things on an 'importance/ urgency' grid. They need to concentrate on the important and urgent (therefore, planned) activities.

I like this activity as it clearly links performance with activity.