We all have the same 24 hours in a day.
And still, most equate doing more work with making faster progress.
Now in some cases, more is absolutely the answer.
Unless you’re already working at a rate where you wonder how the heck you’re going to be able to keep this pace.
I’ve been there.
In fact, it used to be my default.
Any time I would set a big goal or get into a period where I was campaigning to fill up my client roster, I would work feverishly to get to the destination.
A handful of years back, I remember a coach of mine asked me a question…
“If you didn’t need another client right now, what would you do?”
It was 11 a.m. on a Tuesday and the thought of continuing at my current pace left me feeling paralyzed because I was already exhausted.
My answer:
“Relax and watch a movie.”
His response:
“So go do that.”
So what did I do?
I made a fat bowl of popcorn with just the right amount of coconut oil and salt and sat down to watch Deadpool for the millionth time.
Within 2 days I signed a new client paid in full for $12,000.
This article isn’t about taking the time to kick back and watch your favorite guilty indulgence as the money rolls in.
It is about how to bring structure to your days so you can have a better idea of when to hit the off switch because you know what actually got done and what didn’t.
And that is…
Time blocking.
If you’re currently forcing yourself to work as much as possible because you think that if you do more you’ll achieve more, then the method that follows will bring a more objective approach to your productivity.
This way, there’s no question of what you need to do and whether it got done or not.
What I’ve personally discovered (and you likely will too after you put this into practice) is that being more diligent with my schedule and working in dedicated chunks of time has resulted in more freedom as opposed to less (which is what most equate with structure).
There are plenty of articles and videos on the internet that talk about time blocking. My goal with this article is to make it extremely simple.
Quite frankly you don’t need to be a time blocking expert in order to reep the benefits.
Similar to flipping a light switch, you don’t need to know how it works to benefit from a well lit room.
At the end of the day, there are two things you need to understand:
#1 – Why you avoid it
#2 – How to get yourself to do it
Freedom from vs. Freedom to
I can’t even begin to count how many coaches and creators cringe at the thought of structure. The majority of the time, these are also the ones that struggle the most to get focused work done and hit their revenue goals.
The reality is most of us started our businesses for one thing.
Freedom.
And anything that strips freedom away is seen as the enemy.
But here’s the kicker…
Most people are seeking the wrong kind of freedom.
They are moving away from something they don’t want in hopes to eventually have what they want.
It’s freedom from something. Not freedom to have, be, or do something.
Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan outline these two perspectives in their book 10x Is Easier Than 2x.
Freedom from – which is externally escaping from what you don’t want, and is avoidance motivated.
Freedom to – which is internally committing to and courageously choosing what you most want, and is approach-motivated. 1
Here’s the thing…
No amount of moving away from something unwanted is going to put you in a position of power. In fact, it will do exactly the opposite leaving you feeling tired, drained, and often aimless.
If you’re experiencing any of these signs or symptoms, chances are your value for freedom is rooted in moving away from something unwanted as opposed to moving in the direction of something wanted.
Signs and symptoms you’re moving in the wrong direction
As you read this list, grab a notecard or open up to a page in your journal and put down a | for each of these that happen more often than not.
- Important things slip through the cracks. You find yourself forgetting what needs to get done in your life or business.
- You avoid scheduling things in your calendar and committing to projects.
- You’re really good at starting things but are historically inconsistent with following through to completion.
- Projects and tasks end up taking longer than they should (partially because you’re multitasking most of the time or constantly switching between tasks).
- You show up late to most things despite your best efforts.
- You’re easily distracted and pick your phone up mindlessly all to find out that you don’t remember why you even picked it up in the first place.
- You lose a lot of good ideas because you jot them down in a random note or voice memo but it rarely makes it past that stage.
- You tell yourself that you’re going to get better at planning and batching content but the days, weeks, and months go by without you getting organized. You’re still getting the content done but you’re doing it daily, overthinking, and constantly stressed wondering if things are going to be like this forever.
- You feel like you’re always working but you’re not clear about what specifically got done.
- You have a ton of great ideas but when you look back at the last 6 months, none of them got built.
Now tally up your | and see how many you got out of 10.
The lower the number, the more likely you’ll benefit from imposing a little structure into your day via time blocking.
Besides the fact that you’re likely wasting a ton of time and energy with a lack of structure, when you lack structure you’re not building a business that can be turned into a machine.
Time blocking (and time tracking) is a great way to see what repetitive tasks you consistently do and what you can eventually hire out to do.
If you don’t know where you’re spending your time or how much time you’re spending doing particular tasks, you could fall into the trap of thinking you need to hire when in fact you don’t need support yet.
Whether you’re looking to get more done or just be more intentional with how you spend your time so you can see where you need to hire first, you’ll benefit from time blocking.
Time blocking – what it is and how to do it
“Time blocking isn’t about creating a rigid schedule that stresses you out; it’s about providing structure and ensuring there’s dedicated time for what matters most to you.” 2
If you ask 10 creative entrepreneurs how they feel about structure and scheduling, 8 or 9 of those people will say they hate it.
The vast majority in the entrepreneurial space are independent people. They enjoy the freedom that comes with being their own boss.
If this is you, what kind of freedom are you operating from? Freedom from or freedom to?
There will likely always be a part of you that is moving away from what’s unwanted. The objective here is to be ultra clear on what freedom allows you to do as well.
Is it the freedom to travel and see the world?
To race ultras, Ironmans, or Triathalons?
Or to lead a simple life in nature?
Start with what freedom allows you to do instead of what you want to avoid.
The essentials: Time-blocking basics
Let’s begin by understanding what time blocking is.
“Time blocking is a time management method that asks you to divide your day into blocks of time. Each block is dedicated to accomplishing a specific task or group of tasks, and only those specific tasks.”3
At the end of the day, it may look something like this…
Structuring your current tasks in a way that groups them or hand-picks the most important tasks and puts a dedicated window of time on your calendar is the way to go.
Now, before I dive into the rest of the conditions for time blocking, there’s one “prep” activity that will significantly increase your effectiveness here…
Doing a brain dump.
Getting everything out and giving it a place to go is huge.
It takes everything that could be a good idea and puts it down on paper. From there you can decide what makes it to your calendar and what you can leave for another time.
I unpacked my preferred method for doing a brain dump in another article, The Art of Doing Too Much, where I also unpack The 8 Laws of Doing Too Much and the practice of closing loops. If this is a new concept for you, definitely check that out.
Let’s get into a little more detail on how to properly time block.
Start simple and avoid the temptation to block off your entire day.
Going from not time blocking to blocking all your time is kind of like setting a new years resolution to get fit and going from not training at all to training 6 days a week.
You’re more likely to jump ship because you added in too much too fast.
5 Conditions for effective time-blocking
In it’s simplest form, setting yourself up for successful time blocking could look like having these conditions satisfied:
- A designated start and stop time
- A specific objective to complete in that time or a cluster of similar tasks That means it is measurable and by the end of the time you can say Yes or No to it being finished.
- A way to effectively block distractions – app blockers, focus mode, etc.
- Depending on the type of work, listening to some instrumental music is great. My favorite way to trigger flow is to have one song looping.
- Schedule these blocks during your peak productivity hours. If you know at 3 PM you experience a dip in energy, don’t schedule a work block at that time. If you’re a morning person and the hours between 6 and 10 AM are your most productive, protect that time like your life depends on it.
The classic way to time block is by using the Pomodoro method which essentially looks like this.
- 25 minutes of focused work
- 5-minute break
- Repeat for 4 rounds
- 25-minute break
- Repeat.
Aiming for 4 hrs total of these sets can accomplish more for most people than 8 hrs of being less intentional with your time.
I aim to get my 4-hour block in within 30 minutes of waking.
Then I get out and train or if it lines up with one of my longer 25-minute breaks, get outside for a walk and get some morning sun.
For me, these are my most productive hours of the day.
While time blocking is a great strategy and extremely effective when used strategically, there are some common mistakes when it comes to packaging your time into neat little blocks.
Common pitfalls with time blocking
Here are some common mistakes when it comes to time-blocking that I’ve encountered myself and have seen my clients face off against as well.
- Scheduling too many blocks in a day where you’re hyper-scheduled from when you wake up to when you go to bed.
- Underestimating how long things take and not scheduling enough time to complete a task or group of tasks.
- Not having a specific objective in a block of time.
- Not taking enough breaks and trying to sit down and slug it out for hours on end.
You can even use time blocking to designate call time slots and show them as free instead of busy so you know to schedule around these and prioritize the things that matter most.
This way, you have a clear picture of when those calls could come in. This makes it easy to prioritize those time slots and it also sets the intention to have those spots filled when you prioritize them.
One of the biggest pitfalls with time blocking is when it doesn’t go as planned. When this happens, most will throw the baby out with the bathwater. Thinking that the plan was too hard or rigid and going back to just flowing.
The goal here isn’t to get this perfect.
It’s to train the habit of focus.
And to see where your time is going so you can have a realistic gauge of what you have time for and what you don’t have time for.
Some days you’ll be on like a beast and others you’ll feel like an absolute and utter failure.
And that’s okay.
NO ONE is perfect. Please don’t use this as another impossible metric for the measurement of your self-worth.
Give yourself grace.
If you fall off the wagon one day, come back the next with a better plan of attack.
At the end of the day, time blocking is supposed to help you protect your time and attention, get more done in less time, eliminate distractions, and create focus.
As you build out your system for time blocking you’ll also start to feel a sense of relief.
There’s anxiety that happens when we feel like something isn’t accounted for. When you start to block your time more effectively, you’re giving your to-do’s a place to live. It moves them from an idea to a dedicated chunk of time that can be measured as complete or incomplete.
Time blocking at least gives a sense of “I’ll be able to tackle that (at a specific time)” when those intrusive thoughts come up.
Start with a brain dump and get it all out onto paper.
Then take the most important tasks and give them structure by blocking time on your calendar to complete those specific tasks.
What you’ll likely find is that you get a ton more work done in less time. You’ll likely also start to see all the stuff you were doing that you thought was important but was actually unnecessary.
And more importantly, you just might start moving toward the things you want instead of just avoiding the things that you fear.
Until next time,
Jeff Agostinelli
- Hardy, B., & Sullivan, D. (2023). 10x Is Easier than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More by Doing Less (p. 110). Hay House.
- Abdaal, A. (2023). Feel-Good Productivity: How to Achieve More of What Matters to You (p. 110). Cornerstone Press.
- (n.d.). Time Blocking. Productivity Methods. https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/time-blocking
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