Over the past week, I’ve been trying out Time Blocking for productivity. What is Time Blocking? It’s a productivity technique like scheduling, but less enforced.
In the past, scheduling has been something I’ve tried but not succeeded at. Time Blocking, though, seems much more manageable. Scheduling is a structure for every minute and task of the day. Time Blocking is a more flexible approach to scheduling.
What Is Time Blocking?
To Time Block is to dedicate each hour of your day a specific task. It’s to generalise activities and group them by hour, such as all chores at 1 pm on Sunday.
You can chunk out several hours for one specific task, or have four general tasks to complete in an hour. The approach to Time Blocking is versatile and personal. When compared to scheduling, Time Blocking feels less intense. It feels like you have control of what to work on and when.
How Do You Time Block?
It’s best to do your Time Blocking either first thing in the morning, or last thing at night for the following day. Take out a piece of paper, either lined or dotted, whichever you prefer. I use dotted as that fits in with my Bullet Journal.
Write down each hour of the day that you’re either awake for or plan to be awake for. One hour for each line. For me, this is 6 am – 9 pm.
Now write next to each hour slot what you plan to do during that time. If you need breaks, ensure you write them in. Do the same with Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner slots.
That’s it! Time Blocking is super simple and super easy. Here’s an example of what your day might look like:
6 AM – Wake, Morning Routine, Read
7 AM – Writing
8 AM – Writing
9 AM – Exercise
10 AM – Exercise
11 AM – Breakfast, Shower, Meditate, Dress
12 PM – Film a video
1 PM – Edit video
2 PM – Edit video, Lunch
3 PM – Create thumbnail, Upload,
4 PM – Business management
5 PM – Dinner
6 PM – Finish work for the day
7 PM – Downtime / Read
8 PM – Downtime / Read
9 PM – Evening routine
Now Your Turn!
Now that you have some understanding of Time Blocking, try it out! Take a day and follow the technique and see what it does for your productivity. I’d love to know how you find it.
If you wanted to learn a bit more, I created a YouTube video on the topic, which you can check out below.
Thanks for reading.
If you enjoyed this post or found it useful, share the site with your friends. We have loads of other useful posts if you want to learn more, so have a browse. Cheers!