John Rampton December 2, 2021 What’s Time Blocking and Who Should Use It?
- Multitasking is something you do frequently
- You have trouble focusing on one task
- You’re prone to getting distracted
- Meetings rule your days, and you’re unable to focus on what matters most
- At work, you want to be intentional with your time and energy
- You need more insight into how you spend each day
- Overworking is a problem for you
- You must handle a lot of different responsibilities, tasks, and projects as part of your job
- You want to achieve more goals and boost your productivity
Advantages of Time Blocking
Highlights your priorities.
Replaces to-do lists.
Fights against perfectionism and procrastination.
Enhances concentration and focus.
Ensures you follow through with goals.
Protects your health.
Helps you stop being a people pleaser.
Disadvantages of Time Blocking
Using the time blocking technique takes a lot of time.
Murphy’s Law.
We’re terrible at estimating time.
It kicks you out of the zone.
We rarely have the same schedule.
Sunk costs can cause you to make the wrong decisions.
It doesn’t help you begin the work you have scheduled.
How to Time Block Correctly
- Block your priorities. Create a daily to-do list of all the tasks you must complete. Then, sort each task by priority. Now, take your list and block out the most important and urgent for first thing in the morning.
- Stop working on clock time — work when you’re most productive. Instead, plan your schedule based on when you’re most productive. Usually, this is based on your circadian rhythm.
- Create theme days. As an example, spend Mondays recruiting, Tuesdays in meetings, and Wednesdays on creative projects.
- Reserve breaks and time off. Keep an empty block of time on your schedule at all times. These blocks can be used for meditation, walks, or staring out the window. They also give you more flexibility in your schedule.
- Set boundaries — but be flexible. Despite your best efforts to plan ahead, life is full of surprises. To accommodate this, leave empty blocks of time for adjustments or unexpected events.
- Create time blocks for things that happen. You should also block out specific times for your priorities and rest as well as those things that really matter, such as administrative and creative tasks, family time, and self-care.
- Use a calendar to track your blocks. Having the top calendar app is paramount to successful time blocking, mainly because it can track your blocks and avoid conflicts.
- Revise. Last but not least, track your progress every week or month and revise your schedule if necessary. For instance, if you planned to write a blog post for two hours, but it only took you one, adjust your schedule to reflect that by advancing your next task.
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