HTBP - How to effectively time block
Did you know 'Time Block' is an umbrella term?
Abstract
Exploring time blocking did not stop at just defining it and exploring its role in productivity as well as our daily life.
I decided to continue on this topic as I had two questions that I wanted to answer:
Is understanding how to time block just a personal journey?
How useful is the information out there?
In the search for an answer, I was met with a plethora of YouTube videos and shorts on how to time block effectively alongside articles discussing what it is, its benefits, and viewpoints on how to effectively do so.
Interestingly I was also met with the recurring theme of Google Calendar, which has become increasingly popular in the last few years, where I encountered various approaches at how to organise your day through it.
This included using various forms of time blocking, the types of calendars to create, as well as when and how to plan ahead.
Therefore, navigating and taking valuable insights from all the sources of information was a journey of learning and understanding to say the least, I definitely had to trudge through the sludge.
But in this post, I will siphon the most useful parts to explore how you can make actionable plans in order to take control of how you use your time.
Discussion
Precursor: My journey of understanding how to time block
Upon reflecting on my use of time blocking, I noticed it was a default method of organising my days without me being aware of it.
As discussed in my previous post, I would study for a fixed time after school which became a routine, and I only became more intentional with how I use the technique since GCSEs.
My interest in self-development, professionally and academically, led me to understand that how I manage my time would be the fundamental to being successful in the pursuit of becoming more productive.
I found it intriguing to see what ways people have achieved extraordinary outcomes, for example, from the miracle-like academic comebacks, from failing to A*s, and the ultimate optimisation achieved in order to fulfil a range of personal goals like fitness, hobbies, and work.
But I never became too invested.
A common recurrence was that the information that I came across was too remote; not applicable to my life.
Of course, one cause of this would have been the difference in circumstances between me and the content creators, most of which were uncontrollable.
Not only this, but an additional factor was that most were at different stages of academia, which meant their working styles did not align with my way of working. This stemmed from the simple fact that they had the freedom to control whole days, whereas I would still have time blocked out for me due to school.
Even if I came across someone at the same stage as me, there would always be something that would baffle me.
There were two extremes: one side was unreasonable personal demands where people would just cram study and have nothing else outside of that and the other side were ones that would give long-term advice, which may have been effective, but were too complex or vague.
This always left me with more questions than answers.
Despite these challenges, I found a creator whose advice and reflections resonated with me much more than most.
Mike Dee, his channel formerly known as ProjectElon, had more relatable and easier to implement advice.
I watched some videos and also partook in a Skillshare course, which up until this point was the largest active commitment I made at once into learning how to study effectively and be productive.
After taking notes on the whole course, from 2021 to 2023, I would read them weekly as a reminder of the fundamental courses of action to take when aiming to work on tasks/responsibilities.
I have always acknowledged the importance of consistency, and despite the seemingly unsuccessful search for self-development, I learnt important principles from the research as well as the actionable points I gained from Mike Deeโs Skillshare course.
I still hold the belief that experimentation is the best way to learn how to time block in various scenarios, as packaged and ready-made solutions are rarely directly applicable to myself.
Due to that, only a bit of the advice was taken on which was enough in itself.
That is far better than changing a whole routine whilst having a lack of knowledge on the external factors supporting the personโs way of working.
As a result of this, I didnโt have regret for not digging deeper than the occasional article/video that caught my eye prior to the course.
However, in my active search for answers for this post, I came across information which showed me new ways of organising my time, which inspired a different outlook on time blocking and taught me more about my natural progression in how I have been time blocking over the years.
Variations of time blocking
As we all work in different ways, I chose to delve into the variations of time blocking.
These are called:
The Time Box Method;
Time Batching; and
Day Theming
Prior to further research, time batching was the only method I had heard of, so I was intrigued to explore these variations and to evaluate whether or not they are useful techniques.
Time Boxing
The Time Box Method consists of a brain dump, prioritisation, and planning of when exactly tasks will be done and by what time.
Initially I thought this could a particularly useful way to plan and that it is an understandable and straightforward procedure.
Despite this, I pondered why we donโt hear about this variation of time blocking more.
Maybe itโs the fact that it would be time-consuming and depends on your motivation to do it day by day?
Although it is well and good to be consistent, I would question whether it is the most effective way to plan for the day ahead and if it is really worth the time of doing this extensively every day.
On the other hand, if I were to use this technique, it would probably be more useful if I were planning for the week ahead or for a longer stretch of time, as it wouldnโt be as difficult to remain consistent.
For this reason, I thought about this variation of time blocking as somewhat of a hybrid between the prioritisation grid and a calendar. It ensures you are being productive by you actively reinforcing what your priorities are and gives you a concrete time in which you should achieve them.
There are pros and cons of this though.
Due to the self-made deadlines you impose on yourself, you make use of Parkinsonโs Law. The law states โwork expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.โ
This means you prevent yourself working on a task longer than necessary by allocating a strict period of time to complete a task.
In some cases this may be of benefit, for example for a lingering task or for your own targets within a time pressurised situation.
However, what concerned me was the rigidity of time boxing.
Based upon my findings, it seems it is a technique that is intended to be used on a daily basis, where seeing the heading โtimeโ in the framework of the planner above was a straight red flag.
Kinga Kmak of Unrubble demonstrated what time boxing looks like: โTime Boxing involves allocating a specific time slot, or "box of time," where each task is assigned a fixed duration within which it should be completed.โ
The word โboxโ fired some ideas at me as its connotations arenโt the best.
It can create a sense of urgency, in which someone may react with focus or quite the opposite: stress. Having such open ground for how you react I thought would only lead to inconsistency and frustration, as emphasis is placed on how you feel on the day of planning and acting.
Another perspective I found interesting was that of MindTools; โ[Time Boxing] encourages you to focus on time instead of tasksโฆ you allocate a certain number of hours or days, called a "timebox," to each activity. You then use this time โ and only this time โ to complete the task.โ
The โtime boxโ or โbox of timeโ was a recurring theme but that โfocus on timeโ I thought was another deficiency in this method of time blocking.
As discussed in my previous post, our tendency to estimate time is poor and having time as the focus also allows space for error in terms of allocating too much time to a task.
So, when reflecting on this method, I wandered: Is time blocking and time boxing interchangeable?
Both allocate time for tasks and activities, but Clockify put it simply: Time blocking reserves time, time boxing limits the time you spend.
As mentioned earlier, time boxing is essentially creating your own mini deadlines. From experience, deadlines give us a bias to action, which ensures that a task is done by a particular time/date.
But when working in the long-term, partially due to our ability to estimate time and also the lack of opportunity/leeway for spontaneous events/exploration, time boxing would be an ineffective method for a project, coursework, or something you want to do to the best of your ability.
Even when breaking up long term projects into smaller tasks, time boxing gives the incentive to get tasks โout of the wayโ or to just force yourself to remain within the preconceived plan of action irrespective of what happens.
By placing times on when you do tasks, it adds an incentive to forget about breaks and overwork.
At the same time, no matter what you do, you have to stop at the end of the time box.
Conversely, time blocking is more iterative, where you can adjust how you reserve time the next time you do an activity/task. Why this is key is because time boxing acts more like a planner, whereas time blocking can be used as much as you would like throughout your day at will.
The risk of doing too much
As intriguing as it may be to suddenly find a way of working ideal to you, a risk that we should be aware of is falling into the unsustainable habit of overly blocking the time we have.
This habit can come as a result of โperfectionismโ in the pursuit of productivity, where you can overwhelm and trap yourself in a robotic and idealistic approach to productivity.
I learnt from my mistake of intensely time blocking, which actually had remnants of time boxing and in the end, it only led to me to being burnt out.
It was an unsustainable practice that was frustrating before, during, and after the burnout.
This was also inspiration for my post โShould you plan your perfect day?โ in which I discussed having a skeleton of your day, as opposed to the relentless pressure of continuously time blocking.
I ensure to time block my main priorities only and ensure that there are gaps in-between.
This is because, it turned out to me that the trade-off between productivity and autonomy when going that extra step of intrinsically planning other areas of life, after having planned out my priorities, was just not worth it.
There was minimal room for productive gains, where in the end I fortified myself against a wall, which was my calendar in response to any spontaneous activities, opportunities, and events.
Some may argue that you cannot overdo the method of time blocking as it is up to the discretion of the person as everyone is different; at most though, it may be an effective short-term solution to be slightly intrinsic in order to rectifying/maintaining focus.
Therefore, in my next post, I will continue to explore the other variations of time blocking: time batching and day theming, where I continue to extract key takeaways for both methods.
P.S.
Did you know there are variations of time blocking?
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