You’re probably definitely not surprised to hear that we, as humans, are incredibly distractible. The average American picks up their phone 144 times each day. If you take away eight hours for sleeping, that’s approximately one pickup every seven minutes. Email, too, is out to distract us. We can’t forget the average 120 emails that land in our inboxes every day.
And although we tend to villainize technology as the great time-waster, people were finding other ways to waste their time long before the internet came around. It’s hard to resist catching up with your office BFF after a weekend apart or folding that load of towels real quick before you start on your client’s project.
It doesn’t matter whether you work at home or in the office, whether you have trouble with time management in a personal or professional setting, there will always be something to pull your attention away from what needs to be done and steal away your most finite resource: time.
That’s why today we’re talking about one of the most popular time management strategies: time blocking.
In our time blocking 101 post we went over the basics of how to time block, including five steps to get started and tools to help you stay on track. This time we’re diving deep into the strategies you can utilize to make the most of your time blocking and maximize your overall efficiency. Let’s get started.
Tip 1: Perform a time audit before you begin time blocking
Before you start planning how you ideally want to spend your time, it’s a good idea to know how you actually spend your time. In a 2017 study, researchers found that business leaders waste a lot of time doing things that they should delegate to someone else or skip altogether, like spending an average of 3.9 hours a week watching videos on their phones and spending another 3.2 hours a week managing menial issues that should have been handed off to someone else.
When making a time audit, you spend a few days tracking what you’re doing throughout the day. We talk about how to perform a time audit here, but in case you need the TLDR; version, here are your options:
- Use a to-do list to track how many tasks you completed throughout the day. This gives you a clear picture of what you accomplished but doesn’t tell you how time was spent on each task.
- Install a time-tracking app like Rescue Time. You’ll be able to see exactly where your time went, but it’s not ideal if you need to track a lot of non-digital tasks.
- Use a pen-and-paper/digital spreadsheet that you update in 15 or 30-minute increments. While it’s incredibly labor intensive, you’ll have a clear idea of how every minute of your day was spent.
A truly effective audit happens over the course of a week, so you can get a clear picture of what your Monday-Friday looks like, as well as your weekend if you’re looking to boost your at-home productivity. If you’re completing the audit manually, set an alarm every hour to record your activities over the last 60 minutes.
Once you’ve completed your audit, it’s time to analyze the data. How does your true time expenditure compare to your ideal?
Are you giving enough time to high-priority tasks?
How much of your day is being lost to time-wasters?
What needs to change in order for you to reach your personal and professional goals?
Take all of these questions into consideration before you begin time blocking your schedule.
Tip 2: Start with your must-do
As you implement time blocking, start with what Kendra Adachi calls ‘planting your flags.’ Flags are the fixed parts of your day that must happen, things like a team meeting at 10 or picking your kids up from school at 3:30.
Plant your flags in your day, remembering aspects like travel time or prep time. Once you do that, you’ll be able to see how much time you have in between the necessary tasks so you can block in other events, like focused work or administrative tasks.
Tip 3: Batch tasks to limit context switching
Batching tasks can improve your efficiency in several ways—
- Sometimes you have tasks that need to get done but don’t require an entire block of time. Instead of breaking your blocks into smaller chunks of time, batch your to-do list so you’re completing similar tasks during the same block.
- Batching can help you knock out future work. Instead of posting on the company Facebook page each morning, you can schedule posts for the entire week on Mondays.
- You can even batch an entire day, such as scheduling all of your meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays so the rest of the week is free for other responsibilities.
By task batching, you prevent the cognitive overload that can come from context switching, constantly jumping from one activity to another. You don’t have to mentally readjust every time you start something new, which can result in slower and less accurate work.
Tip 4: Take breaks in between blocks
Time blocking, meet the Pomodoro method.
When your schedule is full of blocks and no breaks, one of two things is going to happen:
- You’re going to burn out by the afternoon.
- You’re going to add impromptu breaks and throw off your schedule for the rest of the day.
Neither of those is ideal.
The timing of your breaks depends on how you time your blocks, but a 25/5 routine works for a lot of people. Work 25 minutes, take a 5-minute break. If you work 50 minutes, take a 10-minute break.
If you want to maximize your breaks (and prevent wasting your break on doom scrolling), make a list of activities that will refresh you and prepare your mind and body for another deep work session. You might add ideas like—
- Going outside for a fresh air and sunshine break
- Filling your water and getting a snack
- Laying on the floor to stretch your body
- Having a quick chat with a colleague or friend
If you’re working from home, these breaks are when you might want to head to the laundry room to switch over the clothes or turn on the oven for dinner, instead of trying to squeeze them into your work time.
No matter what you choose to do, find a way to move your body and take your eyes off a screen. Even if you head to the gym every day after work, prolonged sitting can do a number on your health. A study from Columbia University found that 5-minute exercise ‘snacks’ every 30 minutes of working can significantly lower your blood pressure and blood sugar, as well as boost your mood and decrease your fatigue.
Tip 5: Be precise about your goals for each time block
Being vague about what you want to accomplish during a time block is giving yourself permission to do less. Instead of saying a block is for email, you might title the block email, and then set a goal like—
- Clear all new messages from your email (hello, inbox zero 😍)
- Send 4 follow-up emails to warm leads.
- Write your 500-word email newsletter for the week.
Remember Parkinson’s Law? “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” With a set amount of time and a set list of tasks to complete, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.
Tip 6: Create your schedule around your energy levels
Have you heard of the time management technique called “Eat the frog”? It comes from a quote (oftentimes attributed to Mark Twain but French in origin) that says something like, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
Basically, this method involves tackling your biggest—and likely most dreaded—tasks first thing in the day. And sure, that sounds very practical and common sense—unless you’re not a morning person.
In case you need to hear this—you don’t have to wake up at 5 am or be a morning person to still be a productive person.
Schedule your most difficult tasks for when you can best focus. That might mean blocking off time from 8-10 am, or from 3-5 pm or 9-11 pm. You know your own rhythms better than anyone else. If you aren’t sure what times of day you’re most ‘in the zone,’ try a few different blocks and track when you’re most productive,
It’s also helpful to take into account those not-so-productive hours. Use this time for the tasks that need to get done but don’t require your brain to work at full capacity. Most emails can fall into this category, as well as more menial activities like filling out timesheets (Better yet, use RescueTime to automate completing timesheets!).
Tip 7: Take it a day at a time
It might be tempting to spend Sunday night blocking out your entire work week, but in the long run, it’ll eat away at your productivity. Your kid will get sick and stay home from school, you’ll end up scheduling a last-minute client meeting, or a project will take twice as long as you anticipated.
At the end of each day, take a little time to completely block out the next day. Some of this will already be done for you if you have pre-scheduled meetings or events, so by the time you reach late afternoon, you’ll have a good idea of what you need to focus on the following day.
Tip 8: Try Google Calendar
Google Calendar allows you to assign colors to different tasks so you can color code your blocks throughout the day and week. It’s up to you how you want to manage this. You might keep all personal blocks one color and work blocks another color, or you might separate your work obligations by color if your calendar is solely to track your professional time.
Here’s a time-blocked calendar that color codes work tasks by work or meeting, with personal tasks a contrasting color—
You can save time by using the recurring events option on Google Calendar. If you know you have a company meeting every Monday morning, add it to your calendar once and set it to repeat each week.
As you block off the next day on your Google calendar, take a little more time to add all the links you need directly into the event. If you’re going to be cold pitching clients in the morning, include the link to your Trello board where you track your efforts.
Tip 9: Create time for important but not urgent tasks
If your schedule revolves around completing the next big task, start penciling in some time for those important-but-not-urgent tasks. They’re the kinds of things that move you forward professionally and ensure that life is running smoothly, but they tend to get pushed to the side until they become both important and urgent.
Make a list of things you’d like to do to invest in yourself personally or professionally. You might block off time to work on an online course you bought or network on LinkedIn. Without dedicating specific time to these tasks, you’ll push them to the back burner, but when they’re a designated part of your schedule you’re going to be hard-pressed to turn your attention elsewhere.
Tip 10: Try a different time management technique
Time blocking may be a great task management tool, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for you.
They (they as in the all-knowing internet gods) really can’t agree on how long it takes to form a habit, but three weeks is generally considered a low estimate. Try time blocking for three weeks, and if it doesn’t feel like a good fit, we give you full permission to try something different. Here’s a rundown of more than a dozen time management techniques.
Not every job is suited for time blocking, either. People with creative jobs need flexibility to accommodate periods of inspiration; people who often travel for work may have varying schedules that make following a rigid schedule difficult.
Take back control of your day
No matter what method you decide to use, you’ll be able to accomplish more when you have a crystal clear plan of how you want to spend the time. Tell me in the comments– what time management method has worked best for you?
Love all the possibilities to have the most productive day! Especially being aware of your individual body clock. Night owls are likely to be cleaning the kitchen at 10pm lol.