HTBP - How to effectively time block 2
Time blocking goes deeper than you think...
Abstract
In this post, we explore two more variations of time blocking.
From starting the discussion through personal experiences in the last post, I looked forward to researching more about how we organise ourselves on a daily basis.
But the question I asked myself before doing further research was: “Would the way I time block change?”, which will be answered in a reflection at the end of the post.
Discussion
When talking about time boxing, I did not mention self-discipline and the visibility of its planner. This is because, irrespective of a person’s discipline or response to having a visual cue to act, the cons highlighted would still be prevalent.
However, when looking at time batching and day theming, they introduce a different type of self-discipline. We are familiar with the discipline of sticking to deadlines, but as we move away from institutions of work or education and have more autonomy in terms of blocking out our time and what we do within it, the discipline of sticking to our word is just as important.
As I explore these two methods, I invite you to see what elements of each one seem appealing to your style of working and experiment with at least one of them.
Day Theming
To start with, I chose to continue the conversation on the variations of time blocking with the most adaptable method of the three: Day theming.
After my initial findings about this method, my first thought was: “Is it applicable for everyone?”
Given I started the discussion on the premise of it being the “most adaptable method”, this may seem confusing, but as you will see I answer this question at the end of its exploration.
Day theming is essentially when you dedicate specific days to a particular aspect of your work.
For example, when working on a project, there are broad categories that the tasks required to do come under, and you may decide to focus on one category per day of the week.
This presented itself as a useful and simple way to organise days, as if you have many tasks over a working week, it provides effective clarity on what you’re doing on a day to day.
As highlighted by LifeHack, this enables you to stay focused and prevent time lost due to context switching. Therefore, day theming encourages you to be productive as you would prioritise one aspect of your work each day.
Context switching is when you go from one task to another and then back to your initial task.
A common example of this is checking your phone whilst doing some work, where you are required to refocus in order to continue your work.
Based upon the initial findings, I could support the idea that anyone can use day theming as a way to organise themselves.
However, given for most people, time is blocked out for them due to work, school, university, etc., would it prove an effective approach?
In my personal experience, having a single focus on a type of task for a whole day can become monotonous, uninspiring, and simply boring. Instead, I would have at least two focuses throughout the day, based on priority and the time that it would take for me complete.
This can arguably be overcome by having a single focus after the time blocked out by work or education, but it wouldn’t necessarily constitute as day theming. The idea would be used but the execution is different.
So, for people who do not fully navigate their own time, maybe it is a method possible when having days off or holidays, but most would be unable to day theme on a regular basis.
In addition to this, what if your estimate of needing a day to achieve a certain target does not go to plan?
From my research, it seemed that day theming would be used throughout the week, making a rigid structure. On one hand, you can argue Parkinson’s Law; it states “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”, but on the other hand, there are some responsibilities that cannot be rushed.
If that is the case, day theming can even become unproductive.
But a simple solution I thought of is to just have some of the weekday themed instead of all of it, as to allow for any unfinished business.
Despite this, as a time blocking technique, day theming seemed too extreme and idealistic to be used on a consistent basis, where the only caveat to this would be to use it in a work setting whereby you have autonomy in projects or your work in general.
In that case, it may prove effective, as you can adhere to a deadline whilst creating a specific approach.
In most cases for me personally, it was a technique too rigid for me to apply in reality.
On reaching this judgement, Timely described day theming as a “more advanced version of task batching”.
Based on my perception of day theming being an extreme method, I wondered if task batching would be more reasonable and perhaps hit the spot for time blocking.
Time Batching
Now for the last variation of time blocking.
The definition of time batching is one that I will paraphrase from the Time Doctor:
It is the idea of grouping similar tasks together which makes you more efficient as you only do one type of work during an extended period.
What brings about the efficiency benefit is avoiding the same productivity inhibitor referred to before, which is context switching.
In addition, as a result of context switching, there is a time required to refocus known as ‘attention residue’.
Attention residue describes the lingering thoughts that we have about a previous task, where Sophie Leroy, a professor at University of Washington. describes them as “ruminative” thoughts.
She references the meaning of them in her research paper: “Ruminations refer to thoughts that are repetitive, intrusive, and aversive” (McIntosh & Martin, 1992).
Therefore, the impact of distractions and fulfilling the urge to do multiple tasks causes us to diminish our productive efforts.
Sahil Bloom has a dedicated newsletter which describes this phenomenon as one that derails the “quality and efficiency of your performance” and gives insight into the solutions to combat attention residue.
Time batching therefore works to counteract attention residue.
However, I also came across the idea of time batching being the opposite of multitasking, in which I thought there surely is a middle ground between them.
As the Time Doctor says in relation to time batching and our tasks; “the idea is to focus on them less often but for longer.”
Therefore, time batching can be the polar opposite of multitasking or a complement of it, as there are various ways to approach this method of time blocking.
You can decide to do one task at a time within a certain period of time or do multiple tasks within the time batch at the same time, where in this you merge both multitasking and time batching.
In some cases, multitasking is giving into our urge to do tasks which results in impulsive decision-making and losing energy in switching focus.
But when talking about the relation between time batching and multitasking, I would define multitasking with regards to the categories of the tasks at hand.
For example, you wouldn’t wash dishes with one hand and be writing notes on the other.
In situations where you do time batch, there is a possibility of multitasking, which can be problematic if doing attention-demanding work as compared to it being an effective way to save time with the more menial tasks.
I think its important to provide the distinction within the definition of multitasking by categorising tasks and acknowledging when and where it is appropriate to time batch and complete one task before another as compared to when you can multitask whilst time batching.
Multitasking can be of benefit or detriment dependent on the context.
Back to time blocking?
Coming full circle now, we return to time blocking.
Finally, I will discuss one of the YouTube videos that I found unique and that inspired some exploration.
When watching Danielle Colada’s video on time blocking she mentioned having ‘bottlenecks’ and ‘criticals’.
Essentially these are categories in which ‘criticals’ are priorities and ‘bottlenecks’ are tasks that have many sub-tasks behind them which could stop you having clarity on what to do later.
Danielle then paired this with the idea of time-flexibility.
She created separate calendars to highlight responsibilities or tasks that could not be rescheduled, to tasks that would be ideal if she were to have everything go to plan, but without pressure of feeling the need to fulfil those tasks.
This provided me an interesting perspective, as there may be aspirations we want to put into motion but we are also aware of the multiple sub-tasks that will come as a result of this.
However, if we do not plan when to act on the aspiration or simply start now, we will never commit to it in the future:
A goal without a deadline is just a dream.
Reflections
What does effective time blocking even look like?
I would like to start this reflection first on the lack of research.
For a widespread, established, and well-known productivity technique, I was surprised to find a lack of research into how time blocking has been proven to have a significant impact on productivity but also the variations of time blocking themselves.
Of course, research has its inherent limitations with regards to how remote its findings can be in relation to ourselves, but key takeaways can be found which provide a more objective viewpoint.
Perhaps learning how to time block is intrinsically related to our experiences? 🤷🏾♂️
But alongside this, the journey comes with a lot of misinformation and misleading views which only place more emphasis on taking action and finding out for ourselves.
So, as a person who has been time blocking throughout their life, what would effective time blocking look like to me?
For the most part, I will continue to time block as I have been doing, as if it isn’t broke don’t fix it.
But first, I have found reflecting on how I unconsciously time batch and multitask quite fascinating, as I have previously realised the distinction of when to dedicate time and focus to a current priority and when to focus on doing tasks to the best of my ability. This means with more menial, lower effort tasks, I’ll tend to do both batching and multitasking, but for those important tasks I would simply do one after the other if were to batch time for them.
Now moving onto time boxing, which I discussed in my last post.
The severe limitation of our ability to estimate time concerns me for this method, and only reminds me of the time I would be frustrated if my days didn’t follow a rigid plan. However, I do see opportunity when it comes to one-off events as to have our time boxed out.
The opportunity comes from the statement of intent to focus on that task for a specific time with no compromise, but I would only do this with tasks of lower priority. As a person who is not deadline-driven in order to see a task through, i.e. I set my own deadlines ahead of those placed on me, I don’t think it would be an effective way to time block for myself in the long-term.
Lastly, day theming. The defining factor is surrounding how much freedom you have to decide when to dedicate a day to one activity. If you do have that control over your time, I do see it as an effective way to time block, once again as a statement of intent, but also not being too strict as to the timings of completing tasks within the activity. A problem may occur however if attempting to day theme every day of the week, where failure to carry out the plans of one day may lead to the week falling like dominoes.
There are elements within each variation which can inspire you to experiment with a technique that you believe will be effective, and takeaways that could plant a seed to eventually work your way towards using some of them.
As subsets/variations of time blocking, it is crucial to first be comfortable with using the original technique before jumping into the cold water of these more niche methods.
What should we do with this information?
Throughout writing this piece I noticed that there is so much out there in terms of how to effectively time block.
Everyone has their own experiences which in turn provides them with the confidence to give ‘advice’ with conviction.
But it clicked.
One thing I told myself halfway through writing the first post was:
Advice is perspective given at best.
The reason there is so much out there is because firstly, everyone has their own way of doing things and secondly people demand the routines, techniques, and teachings of people who have successfully found a way of working for themselves.
This can be helpful as it provides guidance, but ultimately to find a way which works for you is through action via experimentation.
I’m not saying completely ignore everything out there, be rebellious, and go completely rogue, but we must sample what’s out there and actively use our critical thinking to provide clarity on what is actually applicable to ourselves.
I think this quote by Billy Wilder effectively encapsulates this:
Billy Wilder - “Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be you own instead of someone else’s.”
P.S.
Have you merged elements from the variations of time blocking?
Feel free to click the ❤️ so more people can discover it on Substack!