Time Blocking

Time blocking is an underrated way to get more stuff done and it’s ridiculously simple to do. It just needs a bit of foresight.

Before I start, you might think I’m a hypocrite, especially after how I said that productivity is overrated but I’d argue that while time blocking can be used to do more work that falls under the stereotypical view of what’s productive, it can also be used for the purpose of fitting in more leisure time and meaningful breaks. Just like any other tool, time blocking is as useful as you make it.

Anyway, this tool is about scheduling your day beforehand, almost like creating a to-do list for an entire day. This may seem tedious and rigid, but you don’t need to plan every single minute of your day. In fact, I found myself only specifying the time I’d do my work and intentionally ignoring scheduling leisure time. Not only that, but it also helped me stay focussed throughout the day as I would just take a look at what I had scheduled and seeing what I should do at that particular moment.

Of course, time blocking needs you to know what you want to do for that day which may not always be possible. You might find that you’ll get interrupted multiple times by clerical admin tasks that pop up last minute and need to be done. I haven’t figured a way to get past this downside yet but I’m certain there’s a way to remove or at least minimise these disruptions.

Another argument you could make against time blocking is that it requires you to have a certain amount of self-discipline. Just like every single thing in the world, it does. To get past this, I found that making my schedule publicly visible helped quite a bit. I’m an IBDP student and like I’ve mentioned previously, it’s a very difficult programme to get through, so I joined the IB Discord server so I’d have easy access to helpful people when needed. I also used it as a way to keep myself accountable via peer pressure.

Well not peer pressure exactly, but there are a few thousand people on the Discord server so it’s quite likely someone would see my attempt at time blocking. One of the things I liked about this method of accountability was the emote reactions at the bottom. They served as motivation from a few people encouraging me as well as a reminder that this glorified to-do list is very public.

Since it’s unlikely that everyone is an IBDP student, try telling your friends about what you intend to do or put it on your Instagram story. Tweet live updates if you really want to! As long as it works for you, that’s all that matters. After all, if something’s not working for you, why wouldn’t you change it?