The power of time blocking
For busy business owners, time-blocking your calendar has become a thing.
And there’s a good reason for that… it works.
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What exactly is it?
Time blocking is an approach to time management that involves dividing your day into blocks of time, each dedicated to accomplishing a specific task or group of tasks.
Think: client prep time, proposal writing, marketing, content creation, operations, finance, etc.
Instead of winging it day-to-day, you assign specific tasks to predefined time slots that you build into your calendar in advance.
This helps create a more organized and focused workday, allowing you to concentrate on one thing at a time without being pulled in a hundred directions.
And it commits you to actually doing the tasks you block into your calendar.
Business development, anyone?
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Why you should care (and adopt it asap, if you’ve not already).
Here are some of the benefits of time-blocking:
Improve your focus and productivity: When you allocate specific time slots to tasks, you minimize multitasking and distractions, allowing for deeper focus and more creative and efficient work.
Get better at time management: It forces you to estimate how much time tasks will require and plan your day more effectively. As you get into it, you’ll learn where you need more time and where you need less. Use this knowledge going forward.
Minimize the risk of over-scheduling yourself: When you see the time mapped out on your calendar, you reduce the likelihood that you’ll overcommit yourself. (TIP: if you have to leave your workplace to go to a meeting, block the travel time, there and back…it’s real.)
Prioritize what needs to get done: Time blocking forces you to prioritize your tasks by assigning them to specific slots in your day, ensuring that important work gets the attention it needs. Think the Eisenhower Matrix.
Ditch Procrastination: With tasks scheduled and time allotted, there's less room for procrastination because you know exactly what you should be working on and when.
Increase accountability: When time’s blocked out for specific tasks, it's easier to hold yourself accountable for making progress on your goals. You’re committed to what’s on your calendar. #responsibility
Develop better boundaries: Done well, time-blocking can help you set clear boundaries between different types of work and personal time. Use it to schedule every important activity, including taking care of you and your loved ones.
Track how you’re using your time: Using time-blocking, you begin to get a clearer picture of how you actually spend your time, which can lead to insights on how to work more efficiently.
Reduce overwhelm: Knowing what you need to focus on at any given time can help reduce anxiety and overwhelm when it comes to juggling multiple tasks or projects. You have a plan.
Enhance your flexibility: Although it seems counterintuitive, having a structured schedule makes it easier to adapt and rearrange blocks of time when something unforeseen arises (aka “when life happens”). Just don’t punt them too far down the line. See “accountability” above.
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Don’t touch things twice.
Calendar blocking has one other benefit that I’m a huge fan of. It helps to keep you from touching things twice.
And it’s a rule I try to live by in my business and my life. A sweater is on my bed and I’d rather not fold it and put it away. My urge is to move it to the chair.
Then I hear the voice in my head, “Is the maid coming by any time soon?” Uhm, no. So I fold the sweater and put it away. Thereby not touching it twice.
Back to business…
Let’s say you’re not calendar-blocking and thus you’re checking email multiple times throughout the day.
Chances are there’s an email you’ll read that requires some thought, work, or research before you can respond. So you flag it for follow-up, to come back to later when you have time to do the necessary work.
Which means you’re touching it again… touching it twice.
Now imagine the alternative when you’ve adopted calendar-blocking.
Let’s say you have an hour set aside to do email. In your dedicated hour, you receive that same email and, with the time blocked, you do the work necessary to respond then and there. Touching it only once and moving on.
Doesn’t the thought of that lift a weight off your shoulders? And free up some brain space? I thought so.
Now, I can already hear the “yes, but.” But what if I’m at the end of the hour I’d blocked when I get to this email?
You have two choices:
1) borrow from the next block on your calendar to complete the necessary work; or
2) move it to your next email block by adding it as a note in the calendar entry.
Voila.
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Want to help figuring out what exactly should be on your calendar to profitably grow your business?