time duration problem solving

20 Elapsed Time Word Problems

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Elapsed time is the amount of time that passes between the beginning and the end of an event. The concept of elapsed time fits nicely in the elementary school curriculum. Beginning in third grade, students should be able to tell and write time to the nearest minute and solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of time. Reinforce these essential skills with the following elapsed time word problems and games.

Elapsed Time Word Problems

These quick and easy elapsed time word problems are perfect for parents and teachers who want to help students practice elapsed time to the nearest minute with simple mental math problems. Answers are listed below.

• Sam and his mom arrive at the doctor’s office at 2:30 p.m. They see the doctor at 3:10 p.m. How long was their wait?
• Dad says dinner will be ready in 35 minutes. It’s 5:30 p.m. now. What time will dinner be ready?
• Becky is meeting her friend at the library at 12:45 p.m. It takes her 25 minutes to get to the library. What time will she need to leave her house to arrive on time?
• Ethan’s birthday party started at 4:30 p.m. The last guest left at 6:32 p.m. How long did Ethan’s party last?
• Kayla put cupcakes in the oven at 3:41 p.m. The directions say that the cupcakes need to bake for 38 minutes. What time will Kayla need to take them out of the oven?
• Dakota arrived at school at 7:59 a.m. He left at 2:33 p.m. How long was Dakota at school?
• Dylan started working on homework at 5:45 p.m. It took him 1 hour and 57 minutes to complete it. What time did Dylan complete his homework?
• Dad arrives home at 4:50 p.m. He left work 40 minutes ago. What time did Dad get off work? 
• Jessica’s family is traveling from Atlanta, Georgia to New York by plane. Their flight leaves at 11:15 a.m. and should take 2 hours and 15 minutes. What time will their plane arrive in New York?
• Jordan got to football practice at 7:05 p.m. Steve showed up 11 minutes later. What time did Steve get to practice?
• Jack ran a marathon in 2 hours and 17 minutes. He crossed the finish line at 10:33 a.m. What time did the race start?
• Marci was babysitting for her cousin. Her cousin was gone for 3 hours and 40 minutes. Marci left at 9:57 p.m. What time did she start babysitting? 
• Caleb and his friends went to see a movie at 7:35 p.m. They left at 10:05 p.m. How long was the movie?
• Francine got to work at 8:10 a.m. She left at 3:45 p.m. How long did Francine work?
• Brandon went to bed at 9:15 p.m. It took him 23 minutes to fall asleep. What time did Brandon fall asleep?
• Kelli had to wait in a long, slow-moving line to purchase a popular new video game that was just released. She got in line at 9:15 a.m. She left with the game at 11:07 a.m. How long did Kelli wait in line?
• Jaydon went to batting practice Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. He left at 11:42 a.m. How long was he at batting practice?
• Ashton got behind on her reading assignment, so she had to read four chapters last night. She started at 8:05 p.m. and finished at 9:15 p.m. How long did it take Ashton to catch up on her assignment?
• Natasha has a dentist appointment at 10:40 a.m. It should last 35 minutes. What time will she finish?
• Mrs. Kennedy’s 3rd-grade class is going to the aquarium on a field trip. They are scheduled to arrive at 9:10 a.m. and leave at 1:40 p.m. How long will they spend at the aquarium?

Elapsed Time Games

Try these games and activities at home to help your children practice elapsed time.

Daily Schedule

Let your children keep track of their schedule and ask them to figure the elapsed time for each activity. For example, how long did your child spend eating breakfast, reading, taking a bath, or playing video games?

How Long Will It Take?

Give your kids practice with elapsed time by encouraging them to figure out how long daily activities take. For example, the next time you order a pizza online or by phone, you'll probably be given an estimated delivery time. Use that information to create a word problem that's relevant to your child's life, such as, "It's 5:40 p.m. now and the pizza shop says the pizza will be here at 6:20 p.m. How long will it take for the pizza to arrive?"

Order a set of time dice from online retailers or teacher supply stores. The set contains two twelve-sided dice, one with numbers representing the hours and the other with numbers representing minutes. Take turns rolling the time dice with your child. Each player should roll twice, then calculate the elapsed time between the two resulting dice times. (A pencil and paper will come in handy, as you'll want to jot down the time of the first roll.)

Elapsed Time Word Problem Answers

•  2 hours and 2 minutes
• 6 hours and 34 minutes
• 2 hours and 30 minutes
• 7 hours and 35 minutes
• 1 hour and 52 minutes
• 3 hours and 12 minutes
• 1 hour and 10 minutes
• 4 hours and 30 minutes
• 10 Math Tricks That Will Blow Your Mind
• How To Tell Time in Spanish
• A Timeline of the Sinking of the Titanic
• Sinking of the RMS Titanic
• What Time Is the SAT Test?
• When Is the Spring Equinox?
• How to Tell Time in Italian
• Free Math Word Problem Worksheets for Fifth-Graders
• World War II: Operation Ten-Go
• Proportions Word Problems Worksheet: Answers and Explanations
• Telling Time in French
• Building an Effective Plan of Improvement for Teachers
• Practice Multiplication Skills With Times Tables Worksheets
• Learn About the Munich Olympic Massacre
• Fundamental Lessons for Telling the Time
• Julissa Brisman: Victim of the Craigslist Killer

How to Calculate Elapsed Time

Elapsed time and time duration formula, techniques, and practice

Author Tess Loucka

Published October 11, 2023

Published Oct 11, 2023

• Key takeaways
• Elapsed time is the time that exists between the start and end of an event
• Calculating elapsed time is one of the most common types of mathematics that we use in our daily lives
• The formula for elapsed time is Elapsed Time = End Time – Start Time

Table of contents

• What is elapsed time?
• How to calculate elapsed time
• Practice problems

Picture this: it’s 3:15 and you’re at home getting ready for a birthday party. You have to leave at 5:45 but you still need to pick out your outfit and wrap your present! 

How much time do you have to finish getting ready? 

Calculating elapsed time is one of the most common forms of mathematics we use in our daily lives, but what is it? 

What is Elapsed Time?

The word “elapse” means to pass by. When used to talk about time, it means the amount of time that has passed between the start and end of an event. E.g., the time between now (3:15) and when you have to leave to get to the birthday party on time (5:45). 

Said another way, elapsed time is  the difference between two times. 

Elapsed time is sometimes called time duration . Duration is the amount of time it takes for something to take place or how long an event continues. To calculate duration time would be the same as calculating elapsed time . 

Real-World Examples of Elapsed Time

How often do you look at the clock to figure out how many hours are left until school is over, how many episodes of your favorite show you can watch until dinner, or how much time you have to study before a test?

You use elapsed time in each of those examples. The ability to calculate time duration also comes in handy when figuring out how long it will take to follow a recipe, finish a movie, or drive to school.

Elapsed time can be used to calculate the time between dates on a calendar, too.

When calculating elapsed time in terms of days or months, knowing the number of days in each month of the year, including leap years, will come in handy!

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Select a year group

• Kindergarten

Measurement and data

Sample questions.

Before you can calculate elapsed time , you must know how to tell time and how to subtract. These are the foundation of time duration. Once you have a strong foundation, you can use the following techniques for calculating elapsed time: the elapsed time formula, the “counting-up” technique or a number line.

Formula to Calculate Time Duration

Using the elapsed time formula below, let’s revisit our birthday party example. If it’s 3:15 PM and the party starts at 5:45 PM, how much time do you have to get ready for the birthday party?.

Elapsed Time = End Time – Start Time

To solve the problem, we need to subtract the start time from the end time. By plugging our start and end time into the equation we can solve for elapsed time. 

5:45 – 3:15 = 2 hours and 30 minutes

This means there are 2 hours and 30 minutes between 3:15 and 5:45. So, you have 2 hours and 30 minutes to finish getting ready before you have to leave for the birthday party!

The 'Counting-Up' Technique

Another technique that makes calculating time duration easier is the “counting-up” technique. Count up from the starting time by hours. Once you get to the same hour as the end time, either add or subtract the start time’s minutes to equal the end time’s minutes. 

Take 6:20 PM and 9:00 PM, for example. Count up from the start time (6:20) by hours until you reach the end time (9:00) — 7:20, 8:20, 9:20. That’s 3 hours. However, 9:20 is 20 minutes past our end time of 9:00. Therefore, we need to subtract 20 minutes from 3 hours to get our answer. 

3 hours – 20 minutes = 2 hours and 40 minutes. That’s the elapsed time from 6:20 to 9:00.

Practice Telling Time with DoodleMath

Want to learn more about elapsed time? DoodleMath is an award-winning math app that’s proven to double a child’s rate of progression with just 10 minutes of use a day!

Filled with fun, interactive questions aligned to state standards, Doodle creates a unique work program tailored to each child’s needs, boosting their confidence and skills in math. Try it free  today!

Calculate Duration of Time on a Number Line

To calculate the duration of time , you can draw a line with the start time at one end and the end time at the other. 

If the start time is not directly on the hour, add up the minutes to the next greatest hour. Do the same with the end time but to the next smallest hour. Add up the hours in between. Then, add the minutes. 

Let’s try this out using the times 3:48 and 8:19.

The start time of 3:48 is not directly on an hour, so we’ll add up the minutes to the next greatest hour, which is 4:00. 

3:48 + 12 minutes = 4:00

The end time of 8:19 is also not directly on an hour, so we’ll subtract the minutes to the previous hour, which is 8:00. 

8:19 – 19 minutes = 8:00. 

To get from 4:00 to 8:00, we count 4 hours on the number line. Next, we add the additional minutes we calculated together.

12 + 19 = 31

Finally, we add the hours to the minutes to get the total elapsed time.

4 hours + 31 minutes = 4 hours and 31 minutes

So, the elapsed time between 3:48 and 8:19 is 4 hours and 31 minutes. 

For more practice on calculating time duration , pay attention to the times things take place in your day-to-day life. Figure out how long your classes are, how long a show is, or how much time there is between when you go to bed and when you wake up. 

For additional support with clock reading and time calculations, you can use a math website or math app . 

Time Duration Practice problems

Answer: 3 hours and 45 minutes

Answer: 5 hours and 49 minutes

Answer: 1 hour and 5 minutes

FAQs about Elapsed Time

Elapsed time is the amount of time that has passed between the start and end of an event or given time frame.

There are 3 hours in between 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. Three hours is an example of elapsed time.

You can count elapsed time using the elapsed time formula, a number line, or the counting-up technique.

Lesson credits

Tess Loucka

Tess Loucka discovered her passion for writing in high school and has not stopped writing since. Combined with her love of numbers, she became a math and English tutor, focusing on middle- and high-school-level topics. Since graduating from Hunter College, her goal has been to use her writing to spread knowledge and the joy of learning to readers of all ages.

Parents, sign up for a DoodleMath subscription and see your child become a math wizard!

Answers sheet

Use the counting-up technique. From 11 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. is 3 hours. Add the 45 minutes to that to get 3 hours and 45 minutes. You can use the elapsed time formula or a number line to solve this problem too. Make sure your child knows the difference between AM and PM when calculating the elapsed time.

Use the number line technique. Calculate the minutes between 3:19 and the next greatest hour (4:00) to get 41 minutes. Calculate the minutes between 9:08 and the previous hour (9:00) to get 8 minutes. To get from 4:00 to 9:00, you count 5 hours. Next, add your minutes together (41 + 8 = 49) and then add 49 minutes to 5 hours to get the final answer of 5 hours and 49 minutes. 

Plug the start time and end time into the elapsed time formula to solve for elapsed time. 

6:20 – 5:15 = 1 hour and 5 minutes. 

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25 Time Word Problems for Year 2 to Year 6 With Tips On Supporting Pupils’ Progress

Emma Johnson

Time word problems are an important element of teaching children how to tell the time. Children are introduced to the concept of time in Year 1. At this early stage, they learn the basics of analogue time; reading to the hour and half past and learn how to draw hands on the clocks to show these times.

As they move through primary school, pupils progress onto reading the time in analogue, digital and 24 hour clocks and being able to compare the duration of events. By the time children reach upper Key Stage 2, they should be confident in reading the time in all formats and solving problems involving converting between units of time.

Time in Year 1

Time in year 2, time in year 3, time in year 4, time in year 5 & 6.

• Why are word problems important for children’s understanding of time

How to teach time word problem solving in primary school

Time word problems for year 2, time word problems for year 3, time word problems for year 4, time word problems for year 5, time word problems for year 6, more time and word problems resources.

Let's Practice Telling The Time

Download this free printable worksheet to let your students practice telling the time.

When students are first introduced to time and time word problems , it is important for them to have physical clocks, to hold and manipulate the hands. Pictures on worksheets are helpful, but physical clocks enable them to work out what is happening with the hands and to solve word problems involving addition word problems and subtraction word problems .

Time word problems are important for helping children to understand how time is used in the real-world. We have put together a collection of 25 time word problems, which can be used with pupils from Year 2 to Year 6.

Time word problems in the National Curriculum  

In Year 1, students are introduced to the basics of time. They learn to recognise the hour and minute hand and use this to help read the time to the hour and half past the hour. They also draw hands on clock faces to represent these times. 

By the end of Year 2, pupils should be able to tell the time to five minutes, including quarter past/to the hour and draw the hands on a clock face to show these times. They should also know the number of minutes in an hour and the number of hours in a day.

In Year 3, children read the time in analogue (including using Roman Numerals). By this stage they are also learning to read digital time in 12 and 24 hour clock, using the AM and PM suffixes. Pupils record and compare time in terms of seconds, minutes and hours; know the number of seconds in a minute, days in a month and year and compare durations of events.

By Year 4, pupils should be confident telling the time in analogue to the nearest minute, digital and 24 hour clock. They also need to be able to read, write and convert time between analogue and digital 12 and 24 hour clocks and solve problems involving converting from hours to minutes; minutes to seconds; years to months and weeks to days. 

By Year 5 and 6, there is only limited mention of time in the curriculum. Pupils continue to build on the knowledge they have picked up so far and should be confident telling the time and solving a range of problems, including: converting units of time; elapsed time word problems, working with timetables and tackling multi-step word problems .

Time word problems have been known to appear on Year 6 SATs tests. Third Space Learning’s online one-to-one SATs revision programme incorporates a wide range of word problems to develop students’ problem solving skills and prepare them the SATs tests. Available for all primary year groups as well as Year 7 and GCSE, our online tuition programmes are personalised to suit the needs of each individual student, fill learning gaps and build confidence in maths.

Why are word problems important for children’s understanding of time

Word problems are important for helping children to develop their understanding of time and the different ways time is used on an every-day basis. Confidence in telling the time and solving a range of time problems is a key life skill. Time word problems provide children with the opportunity to build on the skills they have picked up and apply them to real-world situations.

It’s important children learn the skills needed to solve word problems. Key things they need to remember are: to make sure they read the question carefully; to think whether they have fully understood what is being asked and then identify what they will need to do to solve the problem and whether there are any concrete resources or pictorial representations which will help them.

Here is an example:

Mr Arrowsmith drives to Birmingham. He sets off at 3:15pm. He stops for a break of 15 minutes at 4:50 and arrives in Birmingham at 6:15pm.

How long did Mr Arrowsmith spend driving?

How to solve:

What do you already know?

• We know that he set off at 3:15pm and stopped for a break at 4:50. We can calculate how long the first part of his journey was, by counting on from 3:15 to 4:50.
• He had a break at 4:50pm for 15 minutes, so we won’t include that in our driving time calculation.
• He then must have set off again at 5:05pm, before arriving at 6:15pm. We can use this information to work out the length of the second part of his journey.
• We can then add the 2 journey times together, to calculate the total amount of time spent driving. 

How can this be represented pictorially?

•  We can use a number line to calculate the length of time each journey takes.
• If we start by adding on an hour, we can then calculate how many more minutes for each section of the journey.
• Once we have calculated the journey time for each part of the journey, we can add these together to calculate the total journey time.

Time word problems in Year 2 require students to read the time to o’clock and half past the hour and compare and sequence time intervals. 

Oliver went for a bike ride with his friend. 

He left home at 2 o’clock and came home at 4 o’clock.

How long was he out on his bike for?

Answer: 2 hours

Count on from 2 o’ clock to 4 o’clock or subtract 2 from 4.

Mum went shopping at 3 o’clock and got home an hour later.

Draw the time she got home on the clock below.

Tom baked a cake.

The cake was in the oven for one hour. 

If he took the cake out at half past 11, what time did he put the cake in?

Answer: Half past 10

Use an hour from half past 11.

Arlo starts school at 9 o’clock and has his first break at half past 10. 

How long does he have to wait for his first break?

Answer: One and a half hours.

(Use a number line to count on from 9 to half past 10)

The Smith family are going to the beach.

They plan to leave home at 10 o’clock and the journey take two hours.

What time will they arrive at the beach?

Answer: 12 o’clock

(Use a number line to count on 2 hours from 10 o’clock)

With time word problems for year 3 , students build on their understanding of analogue time from Year 2 and also begin to  read the time in  digital (12 and 24 hour clock). Children also need to be able to compare time and durations of events.

Chloe is walking to football training.

She sets off at 8:40am and takes 17 minutes to get there.

What time does she arrive?

Answer: 8:57

(Count on 17 minutes from 8:40 – use a number line if needed)

(Picture of analogue clock with 2:30 showing here)

Maisie says that in 1 hour and 48 minutes it will be 4:28.

Do you agree? Explain how you worked out your answer.

Answer: Maisie is wrong. It will be 4:18. 

This can be worked out by counting on an hour from 2:30 to 3:30 and then another 48 minutes to 4:18.

The Baker family are driving to their campsite. 

They set off at 8:30 am, drive for 2 hours and 15 minutes, then had a 30 minute break. 

If they drive for another 1 hour and 45 minutes, what time do they arrive at the campsite?

Answer: 12:45pm

Use a number line to show what time they arrive at the break. From 8:30, count on 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to 10:45. Add on the 30 minute break. It is now 11:15. They count on another hour and a half  to 12:45

Ahmed looks at his watch and says ‘it is half past 4 in the afternoon’

Jude says that it is 17:30 in a 24 hour clock.

Is Jude correct? Explain your answer.

Answer: Jude is not correct. Half past 4 in the afternoon is 16:30 not 17:30

How many minutes are there in 2 hours and 30 minutes?

Answer: 150 minutes

60 + 60 + 30 = 150

When solving time word problems for year 4 , pupils need to be confident telling time in analogue, and digital, as well as converting between analogue, 12 hour and 24 hour clock. They also begin to solve more challenging problems involving duration of time and converting time.

If there are 60 seconds in 1 minute. How many seconds are there in 8 minutes?

Answer: 480 seconds

60 x 8 = 480 seconds (calculate 6 x 8, then multiply by 10)

Mason played on his VR from 3:35 to 5:25.

How long did he play on his VR?

Answer: 1 hour and 50 minutes.

Count on from 3:35 (using a numberline if needed)

Jamie started his homework at 3:45pm. He finished 43 minutes later.

What time did Jamie finish? Give your answer in 24 hour clock.

Answer: 16:28

Count on 43 minutes from 3:45 (use a number line, if needed) = 4:28. Convert to 24 hour clock.

Chloe and Freya went to the cinema to watch a film. The film started at 2:05pm and lasted for 1 hour and 43 minutes. 

What time did the film end?

Answer: 3:48pm

Count on one hour from 2:05 pm to 3:05pm, then add another 43 minutes – 3:48pm

A family is driving on their holiday.

They drive for 2 hours and 28 minutes, stop for 28 minutes and then drive a further 1 hour and 52 minutes.

If they left at 8:30am, what time did they arrive?

Answer: 1:18pm

2 hours and 28 minutes from 8:30am = 10:58am

10:58am with a 28 minute break = 11:26am

1 hour 52 minute drive from 11:26 am = 1:18pm

With word problems for year 5 , pupils should be confident telling the time in analogue and digital and solving a wider range of time problems including: converting units of time; interpreting and answering questions on timetables and elapsed time.

The sun set at 19:31 and rose again at 6:28. 

How many hours passed between the sun setting and rising again?

Answer: 10 hours and 57 minutes

Count on from 19:31 to 5:31 (10 hours)

Then count on from 5:31 to 6:28 (57 minutes)

A play started at 14:45 and finished at 16:58.

How long was the play?

Answer: 2 hours and 13 minutes

Count on 2 hours from 14:45 to 16:45, then add another 13 minutes to get to 16:58

How many seconds are there in 23 minutes?

Answer: 1380 seconds

Show as column method: 60 x 23 = 1380

Max ran a race in 2 minutes 13 seconds, Oscar ran it in 125 seconds. 

What was the difference in time between Max and Oscar?

Answer: Oscar was 8 seconds faster.

Max – 2 minutes 13 seconds, Oscar – 2 minutes 5 seconds (difference of 8 seconds)

4 children take part in a freestyle swimming relay.

There times were: 

Maisie: 42.8 seconds

Amber 36.3 seconds

Megan 48.7 seconds

Zymal 45.6 seconds

What was the final time for the relay in minutes and seconds?

Answer: 2:53.4

(Show as column method) 42.8 + 36.3 + 48.7 + 45.6 = 173.4 seconds

173.4 seconds = 2:53.4

No new time concepts are taught to pupils in word problems for year 6 . By this stage they are continuing to build confidence and develop skills within the concepts already taught.

Chess: 25 minutes

Basketball: 40 minutes.

Trampolining: 30 minutes

Gymnastics: 50 minutes

Tennis 40 minutes

Tri golf – 45 minutes

Hamza is choosing activities to take part in at his holiday club.

The activities can’t add up to more than 2 hours.

Which 3 activities could he do, which add up to exactly 2 hours?

Answer: Trampolining, gymnastics and tennis: Trampolining: 30 minutes, gymnastics: 50 minutes, tennis: 40 minutes.

5 children took part in a sponsored swim. The children swam for the following lengths of time:

Sam: 27 minutes 37 seconds

Jemma: 33 minutes 29 seconds.

Ben: 23 minutes 18 seconds

Lucy: 41 minutes 57 seconds

Oliver: 39 minutes 21 seconds

Answer: 18 minutes 30 seconds

Longest: Lucy: 41 minutes 57 seconds

Shortest: Ben: 23 minutes 18 seconds.

Difference – count up from 23 minutes 18 seconds to 41 minutes 57 seconds = 18 minutes 39 seconds

What is 6 minutes 47 seconds in seconds?

Answer: 407 minutes

60 x 6 = 360

360 + 47 = 407 minutes

Bethany’s goal is to run round her school running track in under 8 minutes.

She runs it in 440 seconds. Does she achieve her goal? How far above or below the target is she?

Answer: Bethany beats her target by 40 seconds

8 minutes = 8 x 60 = 480 minutes

Lucy’s favourite programme is on TV twice a week for 35 minutes. 

In 6 weeks, how many hours does Lucy spend watching her favourite programme?

Answer: 7 hours

420 minutes = 7 hours

(Show as column method) 35 x 12 = 420 minutes

420 ÷ 60 = 7 

For more time resources, take a look at our collection of printable time worksheets. Third Space Learning also offers a wide collection of word problems covering a range of topics such as place value, decimals and fractions word problems , percentages word problems , division word problems , ratio word problems , addition and subtraction word problems , multiplication word problems , money word problems and other word problem challenge cards.

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Course: 4th grade   >   Unit 14

• Finding reasonable unit of measurement example
• Estimating time (seconds, minutes, and hours)
• Time differences example
• Time differences
• Time word problem: puzzle
• Time word problem: travel time

Telling time word problems

• (Choice A)   A
• (Choice B)   B
• (Choice C)   C
• (Choice D)   D

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Time Word Problems

Time word problems interactive.

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Time Word Problems Worksheets

This is one of those math topics that we all will master at one point; I can assure you. Do you know how many jobs that I had as young person that I despised? I would spend all day, when I was not working, calculating how long until I had to go to work. When I was at work, I would spend every free second, I had calculating how long until I could go home. The word problems that we present you with will be fun and engaging, in most cases. You will learn to stretch the concept of time in many different directions. This selection of lessons and worksheets helps students learn how to breakdown and make sense of story-based math problems that include an aspect of time within them.

Aligned Standard: 3.MD.A.1

• Mark's Exercises - Mark starts his exercise at 6:45 p.m. He finished it at 8:25 p.m. How long does he take to exercise?
• Step-by-Step Lesson - How long does Mark do his exercises for?
• Guided Lesson - How long is the wrestling match, cooking and television watching taking?
• Guided Lesson Explanation - See if my explanation of how we circumvent the AM to PM switch works for you.
• Practice Worksheet - These questions took me a whole day. I hope it was well spent.
• Matching Worksheet - Match the event duration and the times in the different columns.
• Time Word Problems 5 Pack - Plenty of worksheets for you to work on this skill with.
• Back In Time Word Problems Five Pack of Worksheets - How long ago was that invented or did that event happen? These are all relative to the time given.
• Answer Keys - These are for all the unlocked materials above.

Homework Sheets

I had to rewrite number 3 several times. The wording was just not there.

• Homework 1 - Jerry has to get the cake from the bakery to the wedding hall. The drive will take him 1 hour and 20 minutes. If the cake needs to be there by 4:15, what time must he leave by?
• Homework 2 - Kyle is able to build a new patio at the rate of 1 square foot per 10 minutes. How long will it take Kyle to finish a 15 x 20 foot patio?
• Homework 3 - Dave is one of the best mechanics in town. Below you will see a time table of how long it takes Dave to make certain repairs. Answer the questions below based on the time table.

Practice Worksheets

The practice problems should be fun for kids, assuming they know their math.

• Practice 1 - Tara goes to the pool at 2 p.m. She swims for an hour and 25 minutes then she walks home. It takes her 10 minutes. What time did she return home?
• Practice 2 - Jerry goes to the beach at 3 o'clock, and he makes 5 sand castles. It took him 25 minutes to create each sand castle. What time was he done?
• Practice 3 - Ned runs the Nerd Hut. They fix all kinds of computer problems. They charge $40 an hour to make repairs or software adjustments. You can see a list of the most common repairs and tweaks they make. It also shows you how long each task takes.

Math Skill Quizzes

See if the timeline in number 1 is helpful.

• Quiz 1 - A workable parachute was invented in 1783 by Jean Pierre Blanchard. If the year is 2015, how old is the invention of the parachute?
• Quiz 2 - Jeff can install 50 shingles every hour. He got to the job site at 7 a.m. this morning and installed 400 shingles. What time was he done?

Things to Consider When Solving Time Word Problems

When you are tackling word problems that have involve measures of time there are some things you should get in the habit of doing to have a greater chance of success. It begins with noting what each time denotes. I often see students write down times and perform operations between those times, but they neglect to indicate what events occurred at those times. This is often why they choose the wrong operation to perform between them. Another major problem that I see when students are performing these types of problems is that they do not clearly separate units of time. For instance, if a time value consist of 4 minutes and 22 seconds, they do not clearly indicate the separation between minutes and seconds. Get in the habit of doing that and it will make these problems much easier to take head on.

What is the Meaning of AM and PM in Time?

Aren't clocks useful? They help you tell time! Whether you need to understand how much time is needed for you to complete your homework, or how much time is needed for you to finish lunch, being able to tell time is very important. When we are talking about what time of the day it is, we usually say its 3 pm or 8 am. But do you ever wonder what this am and pm means? Let's find out!

Today, the clocks that we use divide the day into 12-hour time increments. Why is that? Because the number of hours in a day is 24 and thus, can be divided further into 12 hours. Isn't that odd? Because our clocks show time enough only for one of the 12-hour period. Hence, to solve this problem, two portions of 12 hours are shown on the analog by using the AM and PM suffixes.

The word AM. is Latin for Ante Meridiem, which means before noon. The term PM is Latin for Post Meridiam, which means after noon. This is how the 12-hour increments are displayed in the same analog.

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Time word problems helps kids to understand the time and elapsed time concept. 

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Word problems on time, time – word problems – worksheet #1, time – word problems – worksheet #2, time – word problems – worksheet #3, time – word problems – worksheet #4.

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Time Worksheets Hub Page

Welcome to our Time Worksheets hub page.

Here you will find links to a wide range of free printable worksheets about Time, which will help your child become more confident telling the time, adding and subtracting time amounts, converting time and solving time word problems.

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• This page contains links to other Math webpages where you will find a range of activities and resources.
• If you can't find what you are looking for, try searching the site using the Google search box at the top of each page.

Time Worksheets

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• Telling the Time sheets
• Time Conversion

Time Puzzles

• Time Calculators

Telling the Time Worksheets

Here is our collection of telling the time worksheets for kids.

The following worksheets involve children telling the time with an analogue clock, and matching analogue and digital times.

O'clock and Half-past

Here is our selection of telling the time worksheets for 1st grade.

Using these sheets will help your child to:

• read o'clock and half-past times;
• convert o'clock and half-past times to digital;
• draw clock hands correctly to mark out o'clock and half-past.
• Telling Time Worksheets o'clock and half past

Quarter Past and Quarter To

Here are our collection of clock worksheets for 2nd grade. These sheets cover telling the time for quarter past and quarter to times.

Using these second grade math worksheets will help your child to:

• read quarter past and quarter to times;
• convert analogue to digital times;
• draw clock hands in the correct place for quarter past and quarter to.
• Clock Worksheets - Quarter Past and Quarter To

Telling the Time to 5 minutes

This section contains our 3rd grade time worksheets to help children tell the time in multiples of 5 minutes.

Using the sheets in this section will help your child to:

• tell the time to the nearest 5 minutes;
• become familiar with both digital and analogue times;
• add and subtract time intervals;
• use the words 'past' and 'to' to describe the time correctly.

These 3rd grade time worksheets will help your child become more familiar with telling the time.

• Telling Time to 5 Minutes Worksheets

Telling the Time to 1 minute

This section contains our 4th grade time worksheets to help children tell the time to the nearest minute.

• tell the time to the nearest minute;
• add and subtract time intervals.

These 4th grade time worksheets will help your child become more familiar with telling the time.

• Telling Time Worksheets Grade 4 (1 minute intervals)

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Converting Time

• 24 Hour Clock Conversion Worksheets

On this webpage there is a selection of printable 24 hour (military time) conversion worksheets which will help you learn to convert from 24 hour clock to standard 12 hour time, and from standard time to 24 hour time.

An answer sheet is provided with each sheet and the sheets are graded with the easiest sheets coming with supporting information.

Time Interval Worksheets

These sheets will help you learn to add and subtract hours and minutes from times as well as working out a range of time intervals.

There are also sheets to help you practice adding and subtracting time intervals.

• Add and Subtract Time Worksheets
• Elapsed Time Worksheets

Looking for an extension activity for children who can already tell the time?

Maybe you want an interesting starter activity for your lesson to get the class thinking?

These printable time puzzles will help to get your child thinking about time and solving problems involving time.

They are good at developing an understanding of the language used in time.

• Printable Time Worksheets - Time Puzzles (easier)
• Time Word Problems Worksheets - Harder Riddles

Time Conversion Calculators

Our time calculators will allow you to convert any digital time into a military time, and back.

We also have a decimal time converter which will take a time in hours, minutes and seconds and then convert it to a decimal number which represents that time. This calculator will also take a decimal time and convert it to hours, minutes and seconds.

• Units of Time Converter

• Online Military Time Converter

• Convert Time to Decimal

• Unix Time Stamp Converter

• Elapsed Time Calculator

More Time Calculators

• convert hours to seconds
• hours and minutes calculator

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Time word problems for grade 3

Time and elapsed time worksheets.

In these word problems students determine what time it will be in a certain number of hours, or what time it was, or how much time has elapsed between two events. Some conversion between hours and minutes.

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Explore time, fractions, and more on virtual clocks with geared or free-moving hands. 

App Tutorial

Math Clock helps students become fluent working with time. Learners use analog clocks with geared or free-moving hands to learn how to tell time, explore jumps with count-by numbers, and visualize story problems involving intervals of time. By placing and shading fraction overlays, students use the clock to contextualize fractions with frequently used denominators.

This virtual version of the manipulative is an open-ended educational tool, ideal for elementary classrooms and other learning environments that use laptops, iPads, or Chromebooks.

The clock face is a key model used in  Bridges in Mathematics,  second edition.  Online preview available .

App Features

• Add clocks with geared or free-moving hands.
• Set the time and run a live clock with a second hand.
• Display equivalent digital time.
• Label the hour and minute hands.
• Jump the minute hand on geared clocks by intervals of 1–60.
• Use the Elapsed Time tool to solve problems involving intervals of time.
• Overlay and shade circle fractions to explore fractional parts of an hour and fractions with denominators of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, and 60.
• Resize and duplicate clocks to work with multiple clocks at once.
• Share your work by saving an image or creating an 8-character code and link to send to others.

Technical Support and Feedback

Please contact our team for app support and feedback.

© 2022 The Math Learning Center

This app was crafted by Clarity Innovations: “We improve teaching and learning by creating solutions that match promising technologies with the needs of education.” www.clarity-innovations.com .

Time Duration Calculator

Use the calculator below to find the hours, minutes, and seconds between two times.

Time Between Two Dates

Use this time and date duration calculator to find out the number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds between the times on two different dates. To add or subtract time from a date, use the Time Calculator .

Related Date Calculator | Time Calculator | Age Calculator

Calculate the duration between two times

Calculating the duration between two times can be a little tricky depending on the numbers of minutes and seconds in the two times being compared. As an example, the following are the steps to determine the number of hours and minutes between two chosen times within the same day :

• First, identify the starting and an ending time. The goal is to subtract the starting time from the ending time under the correct conditions.
• If the times are not already in 24-hour time, convert them to 24-hour time. AM hours are the same in both 12-hour and 24-hour time. For PM hours, add 12 to the number to convert it to 24-hour time. For example, 1:00 PM would be 13:00 in 24-hour time.

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Tricky Time Problems Year 4

Subject: Mathematics

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

13 November 2014

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A Better Framework for Solving Tough Problems

Start with trust and end with speed.

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When it comes to solving complicated problems, the default for many organizational leaders is to take their time to work through the issues at hand. Unfortunately, that often leads to patchwork solutions or problems not truly getting resolved.

But Anne Morriss offers a different framework. In this episode, she outlines a five-step process for solving any problem and explains why starting with trust and ending with speed is so important for effective change leadership. As she says, “Let’s get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it.”

Morriss is an entrepreneur and leadership coach. She’s also the coauthor of the book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems .

Key episode topics include: strategy, decision making and problem solving, strategy execution, managing people, collaboration and teams, trustworthiness, organizational culture, change leadership, problem solving, leadership.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: How to Solve Tough Problems Better and Faster (2023)
• Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org .

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR On Strategy , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock new ways of doing business.

When it comes to solving complicated problems, many leaders only focus on the most apparent issues. Unfortunately that often leads to patchwork or partial solutions. But Anne Morriss offers a different framework that aims to truly tackle big problems by first leaning into trust and then focusing on speed.

Morriss is an entrepreneur and leadership coach. She’s also the co-author of the book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems . In this episode, she outlines a five-step process for solving any problem. Some, she says, can be solved in a week, while others take much longer. She also explains why starting with trust and ending with speed is so important for effective change leadership.

This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in October 2023. Here it is.

CURT NICKISCH: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Curt Nickisch.

Problems can be intimidating. Sure, some problems are fun to dig into. You roll up your sleeves, you just take care of them; but others, well, they’re complicated. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your brain around a problem, much less fix it.

And that’s especially true for leaders in organizations where problems are often layered and complex. They sometimes demand technical, financial, or interpersonal knowledge to fix. And whether it’s avoidance on the leaders’ part or just the perception that a problem is systemic or even intractable, problems find a way to endure, to keep going, to keep being a problem that everyone tries to work around or just puts up with.

But today’s guest says that just compounds it and makes the problem harder to fix. Instead, she says, speed and momentum are key to overcoming a problem.

Anne Morriss is an entrepreneur, leadership coach and founder of the Leadership Consortium and with Harvard Business School Professor Francis Frei, she wrote the new book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leaders Guide to Solving Hard Problems . Anne, welcome back to the show.

ANNE MORRISS: Curt, thank you so much for having me.

CURT NICKISCH: So, to generate momentum at an organization, you say that you really need speed and trust. We’ll get into those essential ingredients some more, but why are those two essential?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, the essential pattern that we observed was that the most effective change leaders out there were building trust and speed, and it didn’t seem to be a well-known observation. We all know the phrase, “Move fast and break things,” but the people who were really getting it right were moving fast and fixing things, and that was really our jumping off point. So when we dug into the pattern, what we observed was they were building trust first and then speed. This foundation of trust was what allowed them to fix more things and break fewer.

CURT NICKISCH: Trust sounds like a slow thing, right? If you talk about building trust, that is something that takes interactions, it takes communication, it takes experiences. Does that run counter to the speed idea?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, this issue of trust is something we’ve been looking at for over a decade. One of the headlines in our research is it’s actually something we’re building and rebuilding and breaking all the time. And so instead of being this precious, almost farbege egg, it’s this thing that is constantly in motion and this thing that we can really impact when we’re deliberate about our choices and have some self-awareness around where it’s breaking down and how it’s breaking down.

CURT NICKISCH: You said break trust in there, which is intriguing, right? That you may have to break trust to build trust. Can you explain that a little?

ANNE MORRISS:  Yeah, well, I’ll clarify. It’s not that you have to break it in order to build it. It’s just that we all do it some of the time. Most of us are trusted most of the time. Most of your listeners I imagine are trusted most of the time, but all of us have a pattern where we break trust or where we don’t build as much as could be possible.

CURT NICKISCH: I want to talk about speed, this other essential ingredient that’s so intriguing, right? Because you think about solving hard problems as something that just takes a lot of time and thinking and coordination and planning and designing. Explain what you mean by it? And also, just  how we maybe approach problems wrong by taking them on too slowly?

ANNE MORRISS: Well, Curt, no one has ever said to us, “I wish I had taken longer and done less.” We hear the opposite all the time, by the way. So what we really set out to do was to create a playbook that anyone can use to take less time to do more of the things that are going to make your teams and organizations stronger.

And the way we set up the book is okay, it’s really a five step process. Speed is the last step. It’s the payoff for the hard work you’re going to do to figure out your problem, build or rebuild trust, expand the team in thoughtful and strategic ways, and then tell a real and compelling story about the change you’re leading.

Only then do you get to go fast, but that’s an essential part of the process, and we find that either people under emphasize it or speed has gotten a bad name in this world of moving fast and breaking things. And part of our mission for sure was to rehabilitate speed’s reputation because it is an essential part of the change leader’s equation. It can be the difference between good intentions and getting anything done at all.

CURT NICKISCH: You know, the fact that nobody ever tells you, “I wish we had done less and taken more time.” I think we all feel that, right? Sometimes we do something and then realize, “Oh, that wasn’t that hard and why did it take me so long to do it? And I wish I’d done this a long time ago.” Is it ever possible to solve a problem too quickly?

ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely. And we see that all the time too. What we push people to do in those scenarios is really take a look at the underlying issue because in most cases, the solution is not to take your foot off the accelerator per se and slow down. The solution is to get into the underlying problem. So if it’s burnout or a strategic disconnect between what you’re building and the marketplace you’re serving, what we find is the anxiety that people attach to speed or the frustration people attach to speed is often misplaced.

CURT NICKISCH: What is a good timeline to think about solving a problem then? Because if we by default take too long or else jump ahead and we don’t fix it right, what’s a good target time to have in your mind for how long solving a problem should take?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we’re playful in the book and talking about the idea that many problems can be solved in a week. We set the book up five chapters. They’re titled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and we’re definitely having fun with that. And yet, if you count the hours in a week, there are a lot of them. Many of our problems, if you were to spend a focused 40 hours of effort on a problem, you’re going to get pretty far.

But our main message is, listen, of course it’s going to depend on the nature of the problem, and you’re going to take weeks and maybe even some cases months to get to the other side. What we don’t want you to do is take years, which tends to be our default timeline for solving hard problems.

CURT NICKISCH: So you say to start with identifying the problem that’s holding you back, seems kind of obvious. But where do companies go right and wrong with this first step of just identifying the problem that’s holding you back?

ANNE MORRISS: And our goal is that all of these are going to feel obvious in retrospect. The problem is we skip over a lot of these steps and this is why we wanted to underline them. So this one is really rooted in our observation and I think the pattern of our species that we tend to be overconfident in the quality of our thoughts, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems.

And so we want to invite you to start in a very humble and curious place, which tends not to be our default mode when we’re showing up for work. We convince ourselves that we’re being paid for our judgment. That’s exactly what gets reinforced everywhere. And so we tend to counterintuitively, given what we just talked about, we tend to move too quickly through the diagnostic phase.

CURT NICKISCH: “I know what to do, that’s why you hired me.”

ANNE MORRISS: Exactly. “I know what to do. That’s why you hired me. I’ve seen this before. I have a plan. Follow me.” We get rewarded for the expression of confidence and clarity. And so what we’re inviting people to do here is actually pause and really lean into what are the root causes of the problem you’re seeing? What are some alternative explanations? Let’s get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it.

CURT NICKISCH: So what do you recommend for this step, for getting to the root of the problem? What are questions you should ask? What’s the right thought process? What do you do on Monday of the week?

ANNE MORRISS: In our experience of doing this work, people tend to undervalue the power of conversation, particularly with other people in the organization. So we will often advocate putting together a team of problem solvers, make it a temporary team, really pull in people who have a particular perspective on the problem and create the space, make it as psychologically safe as you can for people to really, as Chris Argyris so beautifully articulated, discuss the undiscussable.

And so the conditions for that are going to look different in every organization depending on the problem, but if you can get a space where smart people who have direct experience of a problem are in a room and talking honestly with each other, you can make an extraordinary amount of progress, certainly in a day.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, that gets back to the trust piece.

ANNE MORRISS: Definitely.

CURT NICKISCH: How do you like to start that meeting, or how do you like to talk about it? I’m just curious what somebody on that team might hear in that meeting, just to get the sense that it’s psychologically safe, you can discuss the undiscussable and you’re also focusing on the identification part. What’s key to communicate there?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we sometimes encourage people to do a little bit of data gathering before those conversations. So the power of a quick anonymous survey around whatever problem you’re solving, but also be really thoughtful about the questions you’re going to ask in the moment. So a little bit of preparation can go a long way and a little bit of thoughtfulness about the power dynamic. So who’s going to walk in there with license to speak and who’s going to hold back? So being thoughtful about the agenda, about the questions you’re asking about the room, about the facilitation, and then courage is a very infectious emotion.

So if you can early on create the conditions for people to show up bravely in that conversation, then the chance that you’re going to get good information and that you’re going to walk out of that room with new insight in the problem that you didn’t have when you walked in is extraordinarily high.

CURT NICKISCH: Now, in those discussions, you may have people who have different perspectives on what the problem really is. They also bear different costs of addressing the problem or solving it. You talked about the power dynamic, but there’s also an unfairness dynamic of who’s going to actually have to do the work to take care of it, and I wonder how you create a culture in that meeting where it’s the most productive?

ANNE MORRISS: For sure, the burden of work is not going to be equitably distributed around the room. But I would say, Curt, the dynamic that we see most often is that people are deeply relieved that hard problems are being addressed. So it really can create, and more often than not in our experience, it does create this beautiful flywheel of action, creativity, optimism. Often when problems haven’t been addressed, there is a fair amount of anxiety in the organization, frustration, stagnation. And so credible movement towards action and progress is often the best antidote. So even if the plan isn’t super clear yet, if it’s credible, given who’s in the room and their decision rights and mandate, if there’s real momentum coming out of that to make progress, then that tends to be deeply energizing to people.

CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if there’s an organization that you’ve worked with that you could talk about how this rolled out and how this took shape?

ANNE MORRISS: When we started working with Uber, that was wrestling with some very public issues of culture and trust with a range of stakeholders internally, the organization, also external, that work really started with a campaign of listening and really trying to understand where trust was breaking down from the perspective of these stakeholders?

So whether it was female employees or regulators or riders who had safety concerns getting into the car with a stranger. This work, it starts with an honest internal dialogue, but often the problem has threads that go external. And so bringing that same commitment to curiosity and humility and dialogue to anyone who’s impacted by the problem is the fastest way to surface what’s really going on.

CURT NICKISCH: There’s a step in this process that you lay out and that’s communicating powerfully as a leader. So we’ve heard about listening and trust building, but now you’re talking about powerful communication. How do you do this and why is it maybe this step in the process rather than the first thing you do or the last thing you do?

ANNE MORRISS: So in our process, again, it’s the days of the week. On Monday you figured out the problem. Tuesday you really got into the sandbox in figuring out what a good enough plan is for building trust. Wednesday, step three, you made it better. You created an even better plan, bringing in new perspectives. Thursday, this fourth step is the day we’re saying you got to go get buy-in. You got to bring other people along. And again, this is a step where we see people often underinvest in the power and payoff of really executing it well.

CURT NICKISCH: How does that go wrong?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, people don’t know the why. Human behavior and the change in human behavior really depends on a strong why. It’s not just a selfish, “What’s in it for me?” Although that’s helpful, but where are we going? I may be invested in a status quo and I need to understand, okay, if you’re going to ask me to change, if you’re going to invite me into this uncomfortable place of doing things differently, why am I here? Help me understand it and articulate the way forward and language that not only I can understand, but also that’s going to be motivating to me.

CURT NICKISCH: And who on my team was part of this process and all that kind of stuff?

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. I may have some really important questions that may be in the way of my buy-in and commitment to this plan. So certainly creating a space where those questions can be addressed is essential. But what we found is that there is an architecture of a great change story, and it starts with honoring the past, honoring the starting place. Sometimes we’re so excited about the change and animated about the change that what has happened before or what is even happening in the present tense is low on our list of priorities.

Or we want to label it bad, because that’s the way we’ve thought about the change, but really pausing and honoring what came before you and all the reasonable decisions that led up to it, I think can be really helpful to getting people emotionally where you want them to be willing to be guided by you. Going back to Uber, when Dara Khosrowshahi came in.

CURT NICKISCH: This is the new CEO.

ANNE MORRISS: The new CEO.

CURT NICKISCH: Replaced Travis Kalanick, the founder and first CEO, yeah.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and had his first all-hands meeting. One of his key messages, and this is a quote, was that he was going to retain the edge that had made Uber, “A force of nature.” And in that meeting, the crowd went wild because this is also a company that had been beaten up publicly for months and months and months, and it was a really powerful choice. And his predecessor, Travis was in the room, and he also honored Travis’ incredible work and investment in bringing the company to the place where it was.

And I would use words like grace to also describe those choices, but there’s also an incredible strategic value to naming the starting place for everybody in the room because in most cases, most people in that room played a role in getting to that starting place, and you’re acknowledging that.

CURT NICKISCH: You can call it grace. Somebody else might call it diplomatic or strategic. But yeah, I guess like it or not, it’s helpful to call out and honor the complexity of the way things have been done and also the change that’s happening.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and the value. Sometimes honoring the past is also owning what didn’t work or what wasn’t working for stakeholders or segments of the employee team, and we see that around culture change. Sometimes you’ve got to acknowledge that it was not an equitable environment, but whatever the worker, everyone in that room is bringing that pass with them. So again, making it discussable and using it as the jumping off place is where we advise people to start.

Then you’ve earned the right to talk about the change mandate, which we suggest using clear and compelling language about the why. “This is what happened, this is where we are, this is the good and the bad of it, and here’s the case for change.”

And then the last part, which is to describe a rigorous and optimistic way forward. It’s a simple past, present, future arc, which will be familiar to human beings. We love stories as human beings. It’s among the most powerful currency we have to make sense of the world.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. Chronological is a pretty powerful order.

ANNE MORRISS: Right. But again, the change leaders we see really get it right, are investing an incredible amount of time into the storytelling part of their job. Ursula Burns, the Head of Xerox is famous for the months and years she spent on the road just telling the story of Xerox’s change, its pivot into services to everyone who would listen, and that was a huge part of her success.

CURT NICKISCH: So Friday or your fifth step, you end with empowering teams and removing roadblocks. That seems obvious, but it’s critical. Can you dig into that a little bit?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Friday is the fun day. Friday’s the release of energy into the system. Again, you’ve now earned the right to go fast. You have a plan, you’re pretty confident it’s going to work. You’ve told the story of change the organization, and now you get to sprint. So this is about really executing with urgency, and it’s about a lot of the tactics of speed is where we focus in the book. So the tactics of empowerment, making tough strategic trade-offs so that your priorities are clear and clearly communicated, creating mechanisms to fast-track progress. At Etsy, CEO Josh Silverman, he labeled these projects ambulances. It’s an unfortunate metaphor, but it’s super memorable. These are the products that get to speed out in front of the other ones because the stakes are high and the clock is sticking.

CURT NICKISCH: You pull over and let it go by.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, exactly. And so we have to agree as an organization on how to do something like that. And so we see lots of great examples both in young organizations and big complex biotech companies with lots of regulatory guardrails have still found ways to do this gracefully.

And I think we end with this idea of conflict debt, which is a term we really love. Leanne Davey, who’s a team scholar and researcher, and anyone in a tech company will recognize the idea of tech debt, which is this weight the organization drags around until they resolve it. Conflict debt is a beautiful metaphor because it is this weight that we drag around and slows us down until we decide to clean it up and fix it. The organizations that are really getting speed right have figured out either formally or informally, how to create an environment where conflict and disagreements can be gracefully resolved.

CURT NICKISCH: Well, let’s talk about this speed more, right? Because I think this is one of those places that maybe people go wrong or take too long, and then you lose the awareness of the problem, you lose that urgency. And then that also just makes it less effective, right? It’s not just about getting the problem solved as quickly as possible. It’s also just speed in some ways helps solve the problem.

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. It really is the difference between imagining the change you want to lead and really being able to bring it to life. Speed is the thing that unlocks your ability to lead change. It needs a foundation, and that’s what Monday through Thursday is all about, steps one through four, but the finish line is executing with urgency, and it’s that urgency that releases the system’s energy, that communicates your priorities, that creates the conditions for your team to make progress.

CURT NICKISCH: Moving fast is something that entrepreneurs and tech companies certainly understand, but there’s also this awareness that with big companies, the bigger the organization, the harder it is to turn the aircraft carrier around, right? Is speed relative when you get at those levels, or do you think this is something that any company should be able to apply equally?

ANNE MORRISS: We think this applies to any company. The culture really lives at the level of team. So we believe you can make a tremendous amount of progress even within your circle of control as a team leader. I want to bring some humility to this and careful of words like universal, but we do think there’s some universal truths here around the value of speed, and then some of the byproducts like keeping fantastic people. Your best people want to solve problems, they want to execute, they want to make progress and speed, and the ability to do that is going to be a variable in their own equation of whether they stay or they go somewhere else where they can have an impact.

CURT NICKISCH: Right. They want to accomplish something before they go or before they retire or finish something out. And if you’re able to just bring more things on the horizon and have it not feel like it’s going to be another two years to do something meaningful.

ANNE MORRISS: People – I mean, they want to make stuff happen and they want to be around the energy and the vitality of making things happen, which again, is also a super infectious phenomenon. One of the most important jobs of a leader, we believe, is to set the metabolic pace of their teams and organizations. And so what we really dig into on Friday is, well, what does that look like to speed something up? What are the tactics of that?

CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if that universal truth, that a body in motion stays in motion applies to organizations, right? If an organization in motion stays in motion, there is something to that.

ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely.

CURT NICKISCH: Do you have a favorite client story to share, just where you saw speed just become a bit of a flywheel or just a positive reinforcement loop for more positive change at the organization?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. We work with a fair number of organizations that are on fire. We do a fair amount of firefighting, but we also less dramatically do a lot of fire prevention. So we’re brought into organizations that are working well and want to get better, looking out on the horizon. That work is super gratifying, and there is always a component of, well, how do we speed this up?

What I love about that work is there’s often already a high foundation of trust, and so it’s, well, how do we maintain that foundation but move this flywheel, as you said, even faster? And it’s really energizing because often there’s a lot of pent-up energy that… There’s a lot of loyalty to the organization, but often it’s also frustration and pent-up energy. And so when that gets released, when good people get the opportunity to sprint for the first time in a little while, it’s incredibly energizing, not just for us, but for the whole organization.

CURT NICKISCH: Anne, this is great. I think finding a way to solve problems better but also faster is going to be really helpful. So thanks for coming on the show to talk about it.

ANNE MORRISS:  Oh, Curt, it was such a pleasure. This is my favorite conversation. I’m delighted to have it anytime.

HANNAH BATES: That was entrepreneur, leadership coach, and author Anne Morriss – in conversation with Curt Nickisch on HBR IdeaCast.

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about business strategy from Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review.

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This episode was produced by Mary Dooe, Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Special thanks to Rob Eckhardt, Maureen Hoch, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.

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