Time Blocking: The Key Unlock To Maximizing Your Productivity
A normal workday isn’t just about ticking off the items on your to-do list. It’s juggling between non-work activities, endless meetings, replying to emails and team chats, and picking up dozens of calls. In a world filled with distractions, how do we focus on things that matter to us? Enters the superhero of our article — time blocking.
Time blocking, a technique used and recommended by Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Cal Newport, allows you to take back control of your workday and organize your daily schedule effectively.
What is time blocking?
Time blocking is a time management technique that requires you to divide your day into slots or blocks of time. Each slot is dedicated to working on a task or a group of tasks. For example, you create a block of 3 hours that is dedicated to replying to emails, team chats and calling your peers to get updated with the day’s progress. Time blocking helps you start each day with a set schedule of what to work and when to work.
How time blocking helps you be more productive?
- Helps avoid switching of tasks: Let’s suppose you went out in the afternoon to buy groceries. You came back and resumed working on your project. In the evening, you go out to pick up your child from a swimming class. This context switching between tasks can not only affect your motivation, it can reduce your concentration and the overall quality of your work. Instead, what if you time block all the tasks that require going out and focus on your project in the remaining time?
- Helps fight distractions: If you had an hour to deliver a presentation, would you slouch off on the couch and stream the latest season of Money Heist? Absolutely not. Parkinson’s law suggests that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Time blocking allows you to be stricter with the time you allot to each task or group of tasks and thus helps you fight distractions.
- Gets work done faster: Ah, the best part. Instead of working on unrelated tasks and breaking your focus, time blocking helps you focus on one thing and get it done faster. Oh yes, Money Heist Season 4, here we come.
How to “time block” effectively?
1. Note down your tasks and prioritize
The first thing you need to do is list all the things you need to get done. Be it journaling, exercising, replying to emails or working on a project. A good way to do this is by setting an hour for brainstorming all the tasks you need to work on for the upcoming week. This list will likely have two types of tasks: the ones that are high on your priority list and the others that can be dealt with later.
Highlight all the tasks that can’t be avoided. Also, identify why you’re resorting to this technique? Is it to get more done in less time? Or to have enough time to work on your hobbies or spend time with your family? Knowing this will help you prioritize effectively.
2. Put them into blocks
Once you have a list of all the tasks, figure out how to batch them together. For example, you may want to have a block dedicated to just working on your project. On the other hand, you might want to have a block that is dedicated to two or three things such as journaling, meditating and saying positive affirmations. Place your tasks in blocks in such a manner that it curtails the amount of context switching and helps you focus better.
3. Estimate the time required for each block and schedule
In the beginning, you might want to overestimate the time required for each task in a block till you get used to this technique. This will help avoid the overwhelm while working on a particular time block. You can effectively time box each task in Brutask with its timeboxing feature. Also, make sure a particular block does not exceed 90 minutes as this works with your natural rhythm. Once you know the estimated time, start with scheduling your blocks effectively. How?
By identifying the time of the day when your energy levels and productivity are high. Schedule your most important blocks for the day in that period and the reactive tasks in your slump period. Make sure you keep a 10–15 minutes buffer after every time block because it’s difficult to switch gears and jump off to another time block quickly.
4. Review
At the end of every week, review which tasks took more time and which ones were completed easily. Your time blocking schedule will take some time to work perfectly for you, which is the reason why it should be flexible. Allow for small changes and keep tweaking it for the better.
Time blocking is a great way to keep your distractions at a minimum and boost your productivity. But want to take this one step further? With Brutask, scheduling your tasks, prioritizing and time boxing them becomes a breeze.
Try it for yourself at https://brutask.com/
