At first, I thought time blocking is a technique that must work since Bill Gates and Elon Musk schedule their day around similar principles, but it did not take me long to realise that I may be a little different.
What is Time Blocking
It is the simple technique of setting aside a specific amount of time for a particular task.
Your day is not set in stone.
As much as we wish that our plans never change, they do. Maybe the bank had its systems down, and instead of an estimated half n hour, you wasted an hour and a half. Perhaps you run into your old high school friend during your morning run, and instead of an hour, you spend two. Your day and your schedule may change. Time blocking doesn’t help you with it.
It sets you up for failure.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but if you are a serial procrastinator, your mind is trained never to do anything hard, and it will default to the easy stuff on your schedule. If you set aside 2 hours for a challenging task and, for some reason, that time is taken up by something else, you will struggle to convince yourself to readjust your day to make time for the task.
I have spent weekends carefully creating time blocks to be successful and follow a schedule. However, every time I couldn’t accomplish something, I felt worse than the day before.
Manoeuvring around your time blocks is hard.
If you schedule your day to have dedicated time blocks for going through office emails, working on your writing skills, having lunch, etc and your schedule for this day goes haywire, you spend more time thinking about how to readjust than getting anything accomplished.
What do I do?
I create a list of practical tasks I need to complete the next day, but no time duration and time slots are dedicated to any of these tasks; the only objective is to finish everything on the list. I adjust whenever something takes a little extra time because the goal is to complete your list. I have noticed that if I miss something, I go to sleep saying that it’s okay, I will get it done tomorrow, rather than stressing that I have failed and what if my schedule has a surprise tomorrow that derails my plan for the next day.
Flexibility with accountability works for me. Give it a try; maybe it works for you too!
