One of the most challenging parts of finding harmony between life and work is being effective at time management. Timeboxing is a simple time-management technique that can help you accomplish the most while keeping your boundaries in mind.
Some people are perfectionists by nature, spending hours on the same task, while others procrastinate and wait until the last minute to finish a task. Some may work a lot but not complete the tasks, while others may spend time on the wrong activities. There is no right or wrong; it all depends on how those tasks are measured: some may be more geared to quality and others to quantity or checking off as many boxes as possible. But what matters at the personal level is how that person feels at the end of the day: accomplished, frustrated, or overwhelmed.
Learning to prioritize and define how long to spend on each activity by consistently applying a system to allocate tasks into your daily schedule will hack your time-management skills.
While a to-do list is the most common system used, it simply reminds you what to do, but it lacks many other aspects that hinder your efforts: it doesn’t tell you how long to spend on the task, doesn’t tell you when to do it and particularly tends to overwhelm you, showing how many tasks you still have pending. The bottom line is that it is unrealistic, to say the least.
There are many other ways and systems to manage your time more effectively. The good news is someone analyzed this for you: in a study that conducted 100 productivity hacks, timeboxing was ranked as the most useful.
What is timeboxing?
Timeboxing is a term born as part of the agile methodology toolkit to create a visual to-do list on your calendar.
Timeboxing helps you establish what to do, when and for how long, and evaluate at the end of the day how you did, to increase your sense of accomplishment.
With timeboxing, you schedule your tasks to your calendar, allocating time boxes to put a strict limit to activities, blocking the time so that you don’t overwork (for perfectionists) or overcommit (for people pleasers), and reminding yourself about what to do next. Additionally, it helps others see when you are free in case you share your calendar. Timeboxing also enables you to prioritize and be realistic about your availability, considering your meetings and previous commitments, and makes it easier to follow your daily schedule.
How to do timeboxing
It involves five steps:
1. Choose a system or app that will help you timeboxing. You can schedule the activities directly on your calendar, or use apps like Sunsama, where you can list your tasks and, based on the date and time planned. Sunsama will automatically create a box on your calendar to block the timeframe needed to accomplish it, so that it combines your tasks with your meetings.
2. Define the tasks you need to complete (at least one day in advance). Estimate the time needed and the due date
3. Block the time on your calendar, with the task’s name and duration, as if it was a meeting. If some tasks are too long, divide them into smaller boxes of 2, 4, or 8 hours.
4. Every morning make sure you have all the hours you want to dedicate to work blocked with relevant tasks. You can keep a to-do list or backlog with tasks to choose from when you have free time.
5. Work following your calendar, no questions asked. Keep moving until time’s up, and then you can evaluate your results and adjust for next time. The secret of this method is to trust your initial planning and avoid changing it on the go as much as possible. If you do need to make changes, add them directly to the calendar so that you can evaluate what you get done at the end of the day.
Remember to consider the due date when you block the time to ensure you finish the more urgent tasks first. You can even add boxes for breaks, gym, or relaxation. I highly recommend adding frequent “time stealers”, like prepping for a meeting or doing the post-meeting work. If you have a meeting, add these 15-minute boxes before or after to set more realistic timelines. The secret of time management is limiting how much time you dedicate to each activity, even breaks or snack times, to avoid going over with perfectionism or to predict better how much time you need in the future. Timeboxing will help you be more effective and mindful about using your time.
If you need an accountability partner to help you implement your timeboxing, contact me to schedule a coaching session today. To learn more about timeboxing, wait for my new book to be launched or take a peek at some of the content on Kindle Vella.
