If I told you that one change to your workday could make you infinitely more productive, more profitable, and make you feel better at the end of each day, would you believe me? Better yet, would you take the advice?
Here’s the change – time blocking.
Cal Newport, author of Deep Work, says this of time blocking:
“I take time blocking seriously, dedicating ten to twenty minutes every evening to build my schedule for the next day. During this planning process I consult my task lists and calendars, as well as my weekly and quarterly planning notes. My goal is to make sure progress is being made on the right things at the right pace for relevant deadlines.”
When I read Deep Work, I made lots of notes about time blocking, but I didn’t do much about it. Fast forward a few years to Mar 2020 amid the beginning of the pandemic, and I realized that to save my sanity and keep me from burning my business to the ground with a lit match, I had to try something else. Time blocking came to mind. And it saved my life.
When I talk to customers and recommend it to them as a way to remedy those days when you feel like nothing ever gets accomplished, they invariably answer with something like this: “But I can’t schedule every minute of my day. What happens if there’s an emergency?” This is translated into “I don’t like not being able to do things when people ask for them.” What they don’t understand immediately, but eventually come to realize, is that this is precisely why you should block your calendar. I have news for you, and this may be hard to hear: There aren’t that many emergencies unless you’re in emergency services; and most people can wait a reasonable amount of time to hear from you.
I won’t dig into the nitty-gritty details of how this works in a blog post, but here are three things to consider as you plan to block your time:
1. The purpose of time blocking is this - Block off the time you need to work on the things that are a high priority for you, and be very selfish about giving up that time to anything else or anyone else. It’s that simple, and it’s also that mind-blowingly hard. You have to be selfish, and while some people have a hard time with that, you gotta get over it to succeed with time blocking.
2. Be realistic about how long you need to block off for your tasks. Err on side of blocking off too much time as opposed to too little to further ensure success in the beginning.
3. Start small and block your calendar off for the upcoming week. Don’t block off the next quarter on your first attempt. Use the small wins to help you gain courage to block off more and more time in advance. I’m not asking you to block off every minute at first…that’s for later.
What are some benefits of time blocking? Here are things I’ve seen in my experience:
1. I’ve learned to say no. Saying no to something now means you can say yes to something later. I never stop repeating that to myself. Make it your mantra.
2. I’ve felt less like I was burned out. Nothing hastens burnout faster than feeling like you can never get ahead of the work.
3. I’ve felt in control of my day. Time blocking, for me, gives me small victories each week and allows me to feel optimistic about my work as opposed to feeling like I’m always behind.
There is nothing selfish about realizing that no one else can do the hard work that you have to do for your business. Make time for it and place the level of importance on it that it deserves. If you want to take a deeper dive into time blocking, we discuss it at length in both our Grow Up Consulting and Start Up Consulting solutions. Your sanity will thank you!