What is Time Blocking or Time Boxing?

Whether you call it time blocking or time boxing, the overall concept boils down to this:

You make appointments with yourself to focus on certain subjects or tasks.

Here are a few keys to time blocking or time boxing:

Know your professional and personal priorities. This should drive your decisions.

Determine how much time you need to spend on your top professional and personal responsibilities.

Make appointments with yourself for the upcoming week to work on those priorities. Remember, this needs to happen around meetings and appointments you already have on your calendar.

Allow cushion, leeway or padding for reactionary time. The only thing predictable about the unexpected is that it will happen to you each day, so you need to allow gaps in your schedule to handle these things.

When the unexpected does occur, you can “Tetris” your time blocks around as necessary.

Time blocking can be for any amount of time: the full day, half a day, one hour. Decide on your comfort level.

Below are some examples of time blocking or time boxing for the entire work week:

(click on the individual images to enlarge them)

 

 

 

 

For the complete guide to time management, check out The Inefficiency Assassin: Time Management Tactics for Working Smarter, Not Longer.

 

About Helene Segura, M.A. Ed., CPO®

As The Inefficiency Assassin™, Time Management Fixer Helene Segura empowers professionals on the go with the tools to slay lost time. Personal inefficiency at work leads to increased stress levels, lower morale, higher absenteeism, more turnover – and rising spending on employee health care and hiring. Why not improve productivity, decrease stress levels, and increase profits instead?The author of four books – two of which were Amazon best-sellers – Helene Segura has been the featured organization expert in more than 200 media interviews. She has coached hundreds of clients to productivity success and performance improvement by applying neuroscience and behavioral modification techniques to wipe out destructive, time-wasting habits.Helene turns time management on its head by sharing both client case studies and pop culture examples to teach her mind-bending framework for decreasing interruptions, distractions and procrastination so that companies can spend more time generating revenue.

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