How You Get More Done in Less Time
Save 10+ hours per week using these time blocking methods.
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Today’s Overview:
Emails, meetings, deadlines, instant communication, constant connectivity, social media, colleagues, Zoom fatigue, task switching...
Project Managers have no shortage of tasks competing for our attention, and it can be challenging to find time to get everything done. What’s the key to productivity?
Time blocking is a productivity method where we split each day into time blocks of variable length. In each block of time, we single-task and focus only on that specific task associated with the current time block, with no context-switching.
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Timeblocking: How You Get More Done in Less Time
Filed under: Productivity, Frameworks & Tools
"Kyle, how do you get so much done!?"
Emails, meetings, instant communication, constant connectivity, social media, colleagues, Zoom fatigue, task switching...
Project Managers have no shortage of tasks competing for our attention, and it can be challenging to find time to get everything done.
The most difficult challenge for any Project Manager is resource allocation. Resources can take many forms (your time, other peoples' time, cash, etc.) but no matter how many resources you have, we all get the same 24 hours each day.
What’s the key to productivity?
People often ask me how I get so much done with my 24 hours, so I thought I'd share a few tricks that I've learned over the years.
Theming Your Days
You've probably experienced the magic of being in a flow state.
When you get into a state of flow it's like time stands still. Suddenly, you're getting more done in less time. It's truly magic!
But I find that it takes time to get into a flow state. And you can't get into flow if you're context-switching.
Context-switching became a huge problem for me. It felt like I was constantly being pulled in different directions and couldn't sink my teeth into doing ONE thing well.
So I came up with a solution. I assign "themes" to each day of the week, carving out as much uninterrupted time as possible. Here’s an example:
Monday: Internal team meetings and deep, focused work.
Tuesday: Work planning.
Wednesday: Engage with stakeholders.
Thursday: Change & risk management.
Friday: Administrative and deep, focused work.
This schedule lets me manage all project tasks effectively by grouping similar ones together. By placing creative work days around the weekend, I often get up to four days straight of deep focus.
While Tuesdays and Thursdays are typically intense with meetings, it's a fair trade to ensure I have 2+ days dedicated to uninterrupted, deep work.
Timeblocking: Adding Tasks to Your Calendar
“A 40 hour time-blocked work week, I estimate, produces the same amount of output as a 60+ hour work week pursued without structure.” - Cal Newport
If you have a task list, but you don't know when those tasks will get done...you have a problem.
For a long time, I've practiced time blocking. This was taking every task on my to-do list and creating literal time blocks on my calendar dedicated to those tasks. As long as I follow my calendar, things get done!
Productivity expert, Cal Newport, divides work into two buckets:
“Deep work” — deep concentration and focus for a long period of time.
“Shallow work” — non-cognitively intensive tasks which are low-value and easy to replicate.
It may sound extreme, but he recommends to “schedule every minute of your day.” This time blocking approach involves dividing your day into “blocks” and then assigning activities to each one.
So what does this actually look like?
1. Define what times you’ll do deep work, shallow work, and take meetings.
The point of time blocking isn’t to create a schedule you can stick to perfectly each day. Instead, it forces you to be more intentional with your time and how you direct your attention.
Batching like-tasks together will reduce context-switching and increase your efficiency throughout the day.
Choosing specific times and days you take meetings instead of taking them any time is one of the best ways to protect your deep work time.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the early adopters of time blocking, used this technique to distribute hours for deep work, shallow work, and rest. He remarked that “every part of my business should have its allotted time.”
2. Establish a routine and stick to it
Trying to rely on the force of your willpower alone will just leave you discouraged. It’s fleeting and mood-driven, so it needs to be confined with a purposeful schedule.
When you dedicate time for specific tasks, you become accountable for staying focused, which keeps you on track.
Decide where you’ll work and for how long, gather everything you’ll need to do that work, remove distractions, and catch yourself if you find your attention drifting. Schedule time with yourself to get deep work done so nothing else can steal it.
The art of blocking time is taking ownership of your time, and as a result, taking ownership of your daily life. To me, this is a vital factor in living with greater intention and focus.
3. Set limits to when and how you work
You might want to start practicing deep work with 1-2 hour segments a day, and then gradually work your way up to longer, more frequent stretches.
Cap the number of meetings you take on each day, week, and month to avoid Zoom fatigue. Too many meetings and you’ll use up all the brainpower you’ll need to get deep work done.
4. Minimize meeting lengths
Parkinson's Law is the old adage that work expands to fill the time allotted.
"Parkinson’s Meetings Law" could state that meetings expand to fill the time allotted. Maybe that could explain how the average length of a meeting has increased by 10% in the last 15 years and that the average duration of a meeting is now between 31 to 60 minutes.
Instead of the usual 30- or 60-minute standard meeting lengths, consider testing out 15 or 25-minute meeting lengths.
I hope this has been useful for you!
Remember, efficient work is not about working hard or being busy, but about being smart with our time. We all have only a sliver of time in this world, and time is our ultimate non-renewable resource. Let’s spend it wisely.
Time Management + Energy management
Have you noticed that you are more efficient at certain times of the day?
I'm a much better writer in the morning. I'm a much worse critical thinker after lunch. These are things I've learned about my skills and how they relate to my energy level throughout the day.
If you have an easier time getting through certain tasks at a certain time of day, take that into account during your planning!
You don't have to theme entire days, you can theme parts of your day – like setting aside the first two hours of your day for writing or problem solving. The more you play into your best energy, the more you'll get done.
Until next week,
Kyle Nitchen
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These are great as always! Sometime else I saw on your time blocking calendar was the color coding of blocks. I color code different projects, overall product line meetings, and organizational meetings, etc, and just by seeing the colors better prepares me for the day has in store.