What is… Time Blocking?
Do you… juggle many things during your day?
Do you… find yourself reacting to numerous requests from others – in person, via message, or email?
Do you… discover your day or week splattered with meetings?
Do you… struggle with many interruptions throughout the day?
Do you… find it challenging to have ‘work’ or ‘thinking’ time to yourself?
Do you… have a long list of ‘to do’ items, but no time to get them all done?
"A 40 hour time-blocked work week, I estimate, produces the same amount of output as a 60+ hour work week pursued without structure." — Cal Newport, Author of Deep Work
Time blocking is a method of scheduling your time to bundle certain projects together for efficiency, but also to use specific blocks of time to get specific work done. It is high-level planning to build time protection in to ensure you can complete your work, and still participate in other activities that involve others (i.e., meetings, calls etc.). When you assign a block of time, you can then prioritize the work you’ll do in that window. For example, on the calendar, block time for specifically addressing email. During that time, work on email. Outside that time, do not. You’ll assign other activities to be completed during that time block.
Prioritization
It is necessary to prioritize for yourself first. Using the Eisenhower matrix approach is helpful in building your time blocking approach for a day or week. Knowing what is urgent versus important will define how you use your time blocks. Many of us likely do this to some degree in our heads. We know what we need to get done, and approximately when. However, if we do not specifically plan for the time necessary to complete that work, that is when we end up in ‘scramble mode.’ Working in this way is precisely why Cal Newport’s quote above rings so true, and is almost certainly accurate in its assessment of time usage.
Variations
You can approach the idea of using time differently in many ways. Time blocking helps you schedule times for specific work you want to accomplish. You can also work where you time batch activities together. Combining time blocking and batching can be an efficient way to get certain activities complete. For example, if there is a lot of set up needed for a task, batching several things that use the same resources together at the same time would be a good use of time batching and time blocking.
In our retail world, this might be pulling reports from the same system. Do all that at once, so you’re already logged in, in the right frame of mind, and have what you need already together. That may mean blocking more time to do the task, but then it’s all done at once. Often, you’ll hear podcasters or YouTubers say they time batch and do multiple episodes or videos at the same time. Because there is some much equipment to set up, they want to limit the number of times they put up and take down their recording accessories. This is perfect for batching.
Other concepts include day theming and time boxing. Day theming is exactly what it sounds like: assign a theme of work to specific days of the week. You might have a planning day when you get all your planning activities completed for the week during that day. This doesn’t have to be the entire day, and again, in retail we may do some of this almost by accident. Being deliberate in it can improve the productivity and efficiency of your work.
Time boxing works to create a limit on your time. For example, instead of having a block of time for writing reviews, you would box the time to write four reviews between 9:00am and 10:0am on Tuesday. It is subtle, but builds constraints in to ensure you know exactly how you’ll use the time and what you need to accomplish. This may be more useful for tasks that seemingly have no specific start and finish, or the project would span over multiples days or time blocks. Boxing the time builds the limits in to what you’ll accomplish with each segment of time you establish.
Practice
Time blocking will take practice. I am still trying to make it work for me in better ways. It can be a bit scary to think you’re only going to do certain things at certain times. It seems like such an intelligent way to plan a day, a week, or even a month of time, but feels awkward and nearly impossible to get the messy reality of life to fit into it.
Here is my challenge, and I am taking this one as well. Try it for a month. Plan your days and weeks ahead of time by using blocks of time. Maybe start with a few simple ones – the first thirty minutes of each day is dedicated to email catch up. The last thirty minutes of the day is dedicated to email catch up. Schedule at least two other 30-minute blocks each day specifically for work you want to get done. Then, make sure you have a plan for each of the time windows. So, when the clock arrives at that time, you know exactly what you’re going to do.
How can time blocking work for you?
Other Resources:
The Complete Guide to Deep Work
Time blocking 101: A step-by-step guide to getting the most from your daily schedule
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Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash