Time Blocking Simplified: 3 Rules to Transform Your Productivity

Time blocking works. But, as with most simple ideas, we like to complicate and confuse them.

There are two parts to time management—stuff to do and time available to do it. The stuff to do part is variable. It will change from day to day. Time, on the other hand, does not change. You get a fixed amount each day. Your job is to fit what needs to be done into the time you have available.

By following a few simple guidelines, you can take advantage of this super-powerful way to manage your time and work without making it complex.

Here are three tips to help you with time blocking:

Don’t be precise

This means blocking time out for the type of work you are doing, not the specific task. For example, rather than “complete ABC report,” block time out for “report writing” or “writing time.”

The reason for this is you maintain flexibility to work on whatever needs doing that is associated with writing. Priorities change rapidly during the week, and deadlines change. You want to know you have time to deal with the day’s priorities.

Use your task manager for the specifics

This means if you look at your calendar and see you have a block of time for proposal writing, you can go to your task manager and group together all tasks associated with writing proposals.

Your task manager is fluid. It will change daily and here you can easily designate your priorities for the day.

Create your weekly blocks as recurring blocks

A trick I learned early on was to create recurring blocks of time for the things you want to do each week and set them to recur. This way, when you do your weekly planning session, you can move them around your calendar to fit in with your schedule for the week.

Then, if you want time to exercise each week, create however many blocks you want for exercise and move them into place when you do your weekly planning. Do the same for family time, me time, and anything else you want time for each week.

This will keep you focused on what’s important each week.

Time blocking is a great way to ensure that you are doing the things you want to do. The key is not to overcomplicate it and to ensure that you keep some free time each week for dealing with emergencies.

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