How To Time-Block 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, Author of Deep Work

Your calendar is increasingly busy, but leaves you less productive.

Why?

Because you don’t control your schedule, so it controls you.

The answer: Time Blocking.

Is it for you?

Time Blocking is for those who:

• Have their days chopped up by meetings

• Don’t have time for strategic thinking

• Juggle responsibilities and projects

• Get constantly interrupted

• Are always just reacting

What is Time Blocking?

It’s assigning a fixed time + duration for all your tasks.

You know exactly how your day is structured.

Being more disciplined with your time,

Creates more freedom + control.

Time Blocking is what makes you stand out from your peers.

Why?

Because you trade busy for focused.

Because you trade stressed for organised.

Because you trade ineffective for effective.

Here’s the 3-step process to make you the master of your calendar:

1. Create calendars

What are the big areas you spend your time on?

• Work?

• Study?

• Family?

• Hobbies?

• Side Business?

List them and try and pull them into 3-5 buckets.

Once you have your main time buckets, create a calendar for each.

Using a digital calendar for this has one advantage: colour-coding.

Give each calendar a distinctive colour.

2. List your items

There are two types of items in your calendar.

Fixed:

• weekly team calls

• sports practice

• commute

Flexible:

• cinema trip

• family visiting

• prospective client call

Capture the ones that occur regularly.

Rank your items

Which do you want to spend more time on?

Which do you want to spend less time on?

Which are most important to you?

3. Populate your calendar

Now it’s time to fill in your calendar.

Start by putting in the most valuable items in first:

Do you struggle with having time for strategic/deep work?

→ Put it in the calendar first.

Do you do your best project work in the morning?

→ Schedule it.

Most of us, don’t have the freedom to design our calendars at will.

But you have a few time slots in the week, you could use more intentionally.

Rather than just checking email 10x a day, give it a slot after your high value work.

Time Blocking 101:

By being intentional about how you spend your time, you become more effective.

Blocking time off leads to more freedom + less stress.

The 3-step process to regain control of your time:

• Create calendars for your main time buckets

• List + rank all your calendar items

• Block your time on your terms