How To Stop Relying On Calendar Blocking

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Time is elusive.

We like to claim ownership of it by reminding ourselves that each day has 24 hours we can choose how to use. We choose our sleep schedule, we choose how to plan our work, we choose our meal times and free time, and so on.

Truth is, however, much of that time is out of our control. There are external elements involved in many of our activities, and those are, from where we stand, basically an unknown. At work, meetings may be postponed or cancelled, traffic or a breakdown may delay our travel, unexpected commitments may crop up, we may have to fill in for absent colleagues. We can’t control our health or the weather, nor can we control how and when people dependent on us may need us. We often can’t control how much sleep we need, nor can we control lapses of memory that result in urgent errands or last-minute work marathons becoming a necessity. And — to a great extent — we can’t control the human need to unwind with some pleasant, easy activity like a video game or a Netflix binge after work is over and the dishes are done and the kids are put to sleep.

Given this, therefore, it becomes far harder to allocate time to the things we want to prioritise over the things we have to prioritise whether we like it or not. We prepare schedules diligently and promise ourselves that we will have so many productive hours per day, but unforeseen events stall us at every turn and our lovely plans are soon derailed completely. And hence the usual, much-touted time management tactic of calendar blocking ends up failing more often than not, which leads to demoralisation, guilt and a belief that there’s no point even trying to be productive.

I’ve been there and done that. Over and over.

There had to be a way out, though. Productivity wasn’t a myth, and neither was time management. People all around me were building successful careers while pursuing hobbies and enjoying healthy personal lives. Clearly, it could be done. Even in the midst of chaos.

So I went out there and experimented. I identified the things I generally did on a working day, got a rough idea of how much time it takes for me to complete a task, and also did an honest evaluation of my attention span (shockingly low).

And I found that a simple yet significant shift in the way we approach our tasks can do a great deal for us in terms of being more productive.

It involves looking at our to-dos as micro-tasks — big things broken down into small works chunks — instead of as tasks that require X number of hours.

While this might sound unimpressive, here’s what I want to emphasise:

When I say micro-tasks, I mean in terms of actual work, not time slots.

I don’t mean reading for ten minutes. I mean reading five pages. I don’t mean brainstorming for half an hour. I mean listing 10 ideas. I don’t mean writing for fifteen minutes. I mean writing one page.

I mean breaking down each sizeable task into bite-sized pieces of our choice, depending on how much we can get done in little chunks of time, and then doing them whenever those chunk-sized windows of time open up throughout the day.

So, here’s what you do.

1. List out, precisely, all the tasks you need to do over the coming week, ten days or whatever timeline you prefer. Try and keep it fairly short, though — none of us can reasonably plan for more than a month ahead.
2. Divide all these tasks between two categories — those that require dedicated blocks of time, and those that can be done piecemeal — in the form of micro-tasks that can add up — while doing other things. For instance, aerobics/yoga may require a dedicated time slot, while reading the news can be done while commuting. The former category will almost always call for a regular time block — I’ll be focusing on the latter category in this article.
3. Break down each task in the latter category into micro-tasks. As I mentioned above, this means division on the basis of outcome, not time spent. So, read five pages. Come up with ten ideas. Write one paragraph. Write one email. Prepare one slide. Bookmark three research articles. Listen to one podcast episode. You can even go extra granular and divide them further — so, listen to half an episode or write half a paragraph. The idea is that they should be doable within short periods of time and that they should not require a dedicated time slot.
4. Then, list out the activities/time periods during an average day during which it would be possible for you to do a few of your micro-tasks. Such as commute to and from work, travel during office hours, while waiting for a call/meeting/email in office, on your way to and from the supermarket or the daycare centre, while in the line at the cafe/cash counter/metro station, and so on.
5. The most important part — start doing those micro-tasks during those time periods. And here it’s not about which ones you do when — it’s about just doing them. Reading on the train to work, jotting down a few ideas while awaiting a call, listening to a podcast/lecture while getting the groceries…you get the picture. The idea is to have all the micro-tasks add up over the course of a day so that you can go to sleep knowing that you got a lot done. And sometimes you can get larger chunks of time for this too. You’re on your way to a meeting that gets postponed by an hour? Stop at a cafe and get some more micro-tasks done. Long line at the grocery? Listen to another lecture.

A few points I’d like to mention here.

First, make sure that these micro-tasks don’t come in the way of your regular duties at your job.

If you get spare moments at work, first check that there isn’t any pending work that you need to catch up on. Doing your personal tasks during office hours may not come across well to your manager, especially if office work gets affected. However, there will be multiple empty moments throughout the day when you would be scrolling aimlessly through your Facebook feed or playing some random game on your phone. Instead of that, get some micro-tasks done.

I would encourage you to switch between different types of micro-tasks while you’re doing them.

So don’t keep reading an e-book — read a few pages, then switch to writing part of a blog post, then switch to a course lecture, then switch to making a first-cut logo design, and so on. This way, you’re much less likely to get bored of doing anything — and given that we reportedly have the attention span of a goldfish, keeping ourselves interested in what we do should be a priority for us.

Try not to make the micro-tasks too small.

It’s easy to fall prey to the temptation of making each micro-task so minuscule that we end up ticking off lots of them and feeling good about ourselves — the idea, however, is to use micro-tasks to get more work done, not tick off more boxes. If you go home and realise that all you have done is to write headings and dates on each slide in a new deck, that’s not very productive — instead, if you work on each slide bit by bit and manage to complete three in a day, that’s more of an achievement.

Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get as many micro-tasks completed as you would like.

We are human. We’re fallible. And Instagram feeds are incredibly tempting. At some point, we will slip and spend twenty minutes looking at pictures of burgers and feel guilty afterwards. For better or for worse, it’s part of who the digital human is. The main thing is to consciously get as much done as possible so that, even if you didn’t get enough unbroken free time during the day, you still get a good number of micro-tasks done.

Lastly, this approach is in no way a 100% replacement for schedules.

As I mentioned at the start, certain things like yoga or guitar practice require dedicated blocks of time, and you need a schedule to fit them in. Moreover, sometimes you will get free days or half-days during which you have the opportunity to get much more done than on a working day — for such times, it makes to have a schedule and make the most of your day in a planned manner. When you’re strapped for time and juggling office and a household, however, schedules are less likely to work out as intended, which is when it makes sense to use your spare moments and waiting times fruitfully by completing your micro-tasks.

Time management is a tricky game — the more so because the only constraint is the fixed amount of time per day. By going with the uncertainties instead of trying to fight them, we give ourselves an advantage in the game — and as we become accustomed to uncertainties and keep completing more and more micro-tasks, we’ll get further ahead with our goals and in the game…and ultimately come out a winner.