What is Time Blocking?
Time blocking is a game-changing approach to work that, for some people, has the power to transform the way they manage their time. This innovative technique is designed to help workers become more efficient while also finishing tasks faster. Time blocking is involves scheduling fixed, uninterrupted blocks of time for specific assignments or projects. Workers focus on one task or project during each block of time. This approach also helps workers both focus on and prioritize their responsibilities. When a time block is up or when a natural milestone is reached, the worker can begin the next time block while switch to a next task.
How to Implement Time Blocking in Your Work Environment
If you haven’t tried time blocking in the past, you’ll want to approach it methodically to achieve the best results. Here are some steps to help you use the practice successfully.
Step 1: Identify Your Goals and Priorities
- Think about what you must do and then make a list of your tasks, including both short-term and long-term responsibilities.
- Once you have your list, group similar tasks together (e.g., checking email or making phone calls).
- Next, identify the most important and urgent tasks or groups of tasks that need to be completed and how long you estimate those tasks will take to complete.
Step 2: Create a Schedule
Once you have your prioritized task list ready, select a calendar or planner that works for you, such as Timesheets.com, or a physical planner.
- Add your task list to your calendar by creating blocks of time over the course of the day. For longer, multiday projects, consider blocking a certain amount of time per day until the task is complete. For instance, you might consider completing a 20-hour job by blocking 2 hours per day over the course of a couple of weeks. This approach allows you to work on multiple projects while still taking advantage of time blocking.
- A good practice is to assign your most important tasks to the most productive time blocks (e.g., morning).
- Also, it’s considered good practice leave some buffer time between blocks for unexpected interruptions or transitions.
Step 3: Protect Your Time Blocks – It’s Time to Get to Work!
When you begin working on a block, focusing exclusively on the task at hand will help you minimize distractions but there are additional steps you can take. For example:
- Close apps or browser tabs that you don’t need open.
- Silence music or other types of broadcasting that could leach your attention.
- Turn off notifications.
- Silence your phone
- Let your colleagues know to when you will next be available if they need you so they don’t disturb you while you’re locked in on a project.
Step 4: Review and Adjust Your Methodology
- It’s important to remain open minded about how you go about using Time Blocking. What’s right for some is not necessarily right for everyone. With this in mind, evaluate your blocking strategy and your results on a daily and weekly basis.
- Be prepared to make adjustments if something doesn’t seem quite with your block scheduling, or you’re not achieving the results you hoped for.
- Don’t be afraid to break rules every so often. Sometimes a broken rules is also a solution to a problem. Resist the urge to be too strict or rigid.
Time Blocking on Timesheets.com
Timesheets.com has an easy to use scheduling system included with every account that’s perfect for simple time blocking. If you’re looking for a good software to use with time blocking, You should give Timesheets.com a try. Use the features of our simple scheduling function to create time blocks for yourself or your employees.
