Many people say that time blocking is the key to being productive. Nir Eyal says “An unscheduled day isn’t freedom. Rather, it’s a recipe for regret. When we don’t plan time in our day to do what really matters, our life quickly falls out of balance.
But is it as helpful as everyone says?
If you haven’t guessed by now, this week's edition of “cutting through the bullshit” and our weekly challenge was time blocking
Firstly for those of you who don’t know, time blocking is where you schedule or block out time to do specific tasks throughout your day. However this isn’t just scheduling tasks, it also means scheduling in your personal time.
Now there are some, like Nir Eyal, who say that every minute of your day should be scheduled so that you can maximise your time - that means for everything - including for socialising and relaxing. However if we’re going to be honest - and that's what we’re here for - that’s A LOT, especially if you’re just starting out.
But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here.
The real question is, was it really helpful in making our day productive?
We looked at 3 different criteria to assess:
How helpful was it for focus and productivity:
The conscious action of blocking out time in your day to complete specific tasks is actually extremely helpful. The whole team found that when we had specific tasks to get done and put them in our calendars, we were able to sit down and actually focus on them, get them done and use that time block efficiently. I guess it’s true what they say - tasks contract to fit into the time we give it.
Was it easy to implement:
For some of us on the team, they took to time blocking like a duck to water. But in reality the majority of us found it really hard to block out every minute of the day. If we’re listening to those time blocking purists who say we should be time blocking everything then implementation was pretty difficult which was discouraging. We would suggest starting slow! Time block those big tasks that you really need to spend time doing, otherwise it can be quite overwhelming and really difficult to implement. Eventually you’ll work your way up to being a master time blocker 💪
Did we enjoy it:
At this point you will have gathered that what we aren’t time blocking purists. In general we didn't enjoy the idea of having to plan out every minute of every day. BUT, we really did enjoy it - as in making space in our day for the important things that needed to be done; allocating time for specific tasks and then removing all the distractions in order to make it happen.
So overall, we highly recommend time blocking - it allows you to organise your day and schedule time for the most important things. I keep cracking on about it, but there’s no reason you need to start by blocking out your entire day. Start slow with just the most important tasks and if you find that useful, build yourself up to blocking your day.
If you have any tips and tricks that help you to improve productivity, wellbeing or overall daily life feel free to comment. We’d love to try them out for our next weekly challenge!