Time Inheritance Mapping: Discover How Time Shapes Your Choices

Time Inheritance Mapping: Discover How Time Shapes Your Choices is an interactive online workshop designed for sixth formers, university students, early-career professionals, and the educators and advisors who support them in navigating complex decisions about education and work.

Whether choosing a university, pursuing an apprenticeship, changing jobs, or taking time out, these decisions are shaped by many pressures—financial constraints, family expectations, geographic limitations, and personal interests. One factor that’s rarely considered is time: how much of it we have, how we’ve inherited it, and how it shapes our choices.

This workshop introduces the concept of time inheritance—a fresh and overlooked lens that bridges personal reflection and institutional insight. It begins with a short 2–3 minute animated video, followed by a 15-minute TED-talk-style presentation that draws on research and vivid real-life examples of how students from different backgrounds make life-shaping decisions. The heart of the event is a time inheritance mapping exercise, using a pre-designed worksheet to help participants reflect on their own time resources and develop an action plan with two practical takeaways—tools to support their next steps, whether choosing a university, exploring career options, or rethinking priorities.

The session concludes with a whole-group discussion, where participants are invited (if comfortable) to share their reflections and digital time inheritance maps. The event will be hosted on online, and materials will be shared during the session to support participation.

This online interactive workshop will change your mind about how you perceive your time use and your time resources—offering a fresh and overlooked lens for making life-changing decisions, such as choosing a university, apprenticeship, or career path. In a landscape filled with mentoring platforms, career webinars, and policy-driven framings of “disadvantage” or “privilege,” time inheritance introduces a third path: a participatory, research-informed tool that helps individuals and institutions alike understand how inherited time structures shape life choices.

Through animation, a TED-talk-style presentation, and a hands-on mapping exercise, participants will gain a new language to reflect on their own time contexts and develop an action plan with two practical takeaways. The workshop is designed to be both reflective and empowering—supporting sixth formers, educators, career advisors, and admissions staff in making sense of choices that are often emotionally charged and structurally constrained. It also offers policy makers and institutional decision-makers a new way to engage with the lived realities behind educational and career transitions.

Dr Cora Lingling Xu, Associate Professor at Durham University’s School of Education

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This event will be of particular interest to sixth form students and secondary school teachers supporting young people as they make decisions about university, apprenticeships, and future careers. It will also appeal to career support staff, admissions professionals, and educators in higher education who are seeking new tools to engage with the lived realities of those they advise.