I Started Time Blocking With Minimal Effort

I know I’ve been updating a little less often than usual lately, and that’s in part because of how life has been busier than ever for me. It’s gotten to the point where even my days off feel like a constant rush of work to get more and more done off a never-ending list of to-dos.

I’ve already been bullet journaling for a while, and I even joined the 5 AM Club, but it seemed like I needed something else to get me that push I needed to be even better.

But I started to realize one thing: The 20/20/20 Rule behind the 5 AM Club is very easy for me to follow because it gives me a very definitive window of time to get things done.

It also reminded me of this quiz I once took on Todoist a good while back (before I even tried the 5 AM Club at all). The suggested productivity method I scored? Time blocking.

Enter Time Blocking

Instantly, I started to think it wasn’t really right for me because I only pictured those overly-elaborate schedules that people draw out with colorful boxes to denote tasks and activities. It seemed like a bigger waste of time for me to even get started trying to do something so complicated. That’s why I dismissed it at first.

The idea only came back to my mind as I thought again about the 20/20/20 Rule that makes the 5 AM Club so effective. Perhaps the rule itself was merely its own form of time blocking without fancy charts.

Then it hit me: Not wanting to time block because other people make such elaborate graphs and images is a lot like not wanting to bullet journal because of all the overly-gawdy Instagram and Pinterest pictures that over-complicate everything.

Just like my own bullet journaling, time blocking could and should be straightforward, easy, and efficient. I already did it in my 5 AM Club practice, after all! What was stopping me from doing it for the rest of my day with downtime?

I Gave It a Shot

Feeling I had nothing to lose and so much to gain from taking control back, I thought it would be worth at least experimenting with.

Just like my bullet journal practice overall, I kept everything dead simple and simply wrote down an agenda format much like this:

10:00 – 10:05: Start time blocking
10:05 – 10:15: Work on forms sent through email
10:15 – 10:20: Meditate
10:20 – 10:30: Plan out work for next week
10:30 – 10:40: Read a book

Seems simple enough, right? No colorful blocks, spreads in a notebook, or anything fancy. I’m just writing down what I’m doing and when. It’s essentially the 20/20/20 Rule, except I’m dividing everything into increments of 5, 10, and 15 minutes overall.

I’ve been doing this for three days now.

How Has It Worked So Far?

I am astonished because I didn’t think such a minor adjustment would yield such tremendous gains.

After only one day, some incoming work I had to handle during the weekend was taken care of in a matter of minutes. I’m even able to plan out what I’m doing next week in greater detail as well as other matters I can attend to with my downtime. In fact, I’ve time blocked specific portions of time to writing this post.

While my life and work are still somewhat stressful overall, it’s not as bad as it was before. In fact, this is a change I’m willing to make permanently. I think of it now as my new productivity weapon among many others; combining them together should help me get more done and enjoy my life more than ever before.

How Do You Manage It?

There are a few things I do that I like to keep in mind as I time block, as I can see it not working for others with a few possible pitfalls.

• Don’t expect perfection. In fact, this whole setup seems to eliminate my pangs of perfectionism when they do emerge. I just challenge myself to get as much as I can done within my given window of time. If I finish early, great! I can take that time back. If I don’t, I’ll block more time to continue later.
• Speaking of that, some tasks may not take the whole block of time you’ve set aside. This is perfectly normal; just reclaim the time for the following tasks. I’ve begun to enjoy seeing just how early I can finish everything within a session of time-blocked tasks.
• Focus on one thing at a time only. Seriously. Most people think they can multitask, but a minuscule fraction of the general population truly can (less than 1%). This tiny portion of people also tends to look insanely talented when demonstrating their multitasking abilities. People who insist they can tend to divide their attention between two different things over and over while not doing particularly well at either. Instead of lamenting this fact, we can take advantage of how adept we truly are at single-tasking. By staying laser-focused, we can enter a flow state where effort comes forth without any distractions.
• If you didn’t finish your task, stop what you’re doing and move on to the next anyway. You can block more time for later to resume the task. If you finish later tasks early, great! Just use that extra time to come back to the unfinished tasks if you desire.
• There’s really no need to overdo things. While some people may love having intricate pages in their journals, planners, or notebooks filled with colored boxes, I get by with a simple agenda-style listing with times. I get all of the benefits of time blocking with less effort.
• If something comes up to disturb everything, like maybe an unplanned bathroom break or perhaps a colleague stopping by to ask about a work-related matter, don’t feel discouraged. Instead of feeling like your carefully time-blocked plans were ruined, just roll with it. Again, try to stick with what you planned closely enough and see how much time you can effectively reclaim. It’s entirely possible to regain all of that time again.

Now What?

I’m absolutely loving my attempts to time block so far and I can’t wait to see how well this compounds over an extended period. I only did it for three days and I already feel like I get so much more done, and my downtime in the evening (when I block some aside, of course) feels so much better and well-deserved than before.

I’m planning to update on this whole thing later on with what I’ve been able to accomplish since then. In the meantime, have you tried time blocking? If so, how well has it worked for you? If not, do you subscribe to a different productivity method instead? If so, which one? Or better yet, do you combine any other methods like I do? I’d love to know what you think.