One of these days I would love to do a really in depth dive into time blocking**- why I do it, why it works, how to do it successfully, all in one post (or maybe a video). But until I have time to do that, I’m going to post about it anyway, only in smaller chunks.

I have alluded to time blocking in a few past posts, but it deserves its own lime light. I finally realized how important it was to me when I was having a really rough week. I had a session with my coach that week (yes, I have a coach- it’s like being a therapist, if you’re not talking to another coach regularly, you’re not doing it right) and she pointed out to me that despite having a really rough week I had been successful at accomplishing most of what I needed to because of how I had used my schedule that week- I had blocked out EVERYTHING that needed to happen, and when something went off plan I moved things around.

The most important element of this entire system is that you need to SCHEDULE EVERYTHING.

Ever since then I have been faithfully blocking out my time. As a result instead of an ever growing to do list, my list stays pretty stable and, most importantly, manageable. The most important element of this entire system is that you need to SCHEDULE EVERYTHING. Anything important enough to make it onto your to do list needs to also make it onto your schedule, because if you don’t schedule it, you don’t do it.

But how do I impliment this on a practical level? As simply as possible. Every Sunday I take my irregular tasks (because things that happen at the same time every week are already on my schedule) and I add those to my schedule for the coming week at a time when I know I will be able to work on them.

For example, I write all of the week’s blog posts at once, so I know I have to schedule a chunk of time, usually on Saturday or Sunday, to do that. I have a list that I look at during my planning time to make sure regular recurring tasks get done, and then I look at my task list for the coming week. I typically schedule a block for home admin, a block for work admin, and a block for home tasks (like weekly cleaning and maintainance), so I am technically not scheduling any of the smaller tasks that fall into those three categories specifically. However, they link back to my life hubs, and because of how my notion is set up it is simple for me to look at just home tasks during a home task block.

The main goals here are to 1) estimate how much time a task or group of tasks will take you, and 2) get that time plotted somewhere on your calendar.

Typically when I’m scheduling out my week I leave some blank areas and wiggle room, because the next important step is to look at at least once each day (but ideally you would refer to it throughout the day to help keep you on task), and to adjust your schedule as needed.

This is why I love calendar apps for this purpose over a paper planner (but it is a purely personal preference- I also loved the combo of the Inamio planner and an erasable Frixion Gel Pen). Moving blocks of time around is super easy in Google Calendar, which is my prefered online calendar. Using this method I am far more productive… and I can still find time to squeeze in a nap on low energy days.

**I do want to end with a little note on how I use the term “time blocking” vs how some other productivity experts use it. They are often talking about a series of regular blocks, like a morning block, an early afternoon block, a late afternoon block, and an evening block, and you devote each block to a single type of task (ie always do appointments during your Tuesday morning block, always work during your early afternoon block, etc). It is a great system for people who like a lot of structure, but it is not what I am talking about in this post. I have tried the other type and it did not work for me. I need novelty and change far too much for a system like that to work. Which is exactly why I roughly map out the things I need to do but leave myself the possibility for all sorts of shifting.