Time blocking: how to plan your workday in blocks

What is time blocking?

A to-do list says what to do. A time-blocked calendar also says when, which forces an honest answer to whether it all fits. Three close relatives are worth knowing:

• Timeboxing. A block with a hard stop. When the time is up, the task is done for now, finished or not.

  Example: Give the slide deck 90 minutes and present what you have.

• Task batching. One block for a group of similar small tasks, so you switch gears once instead of ten times.

  Example: Return every phone call in one 30-minute block after lunch.

• Day theming. Each weekday gets a theme, so related work lands on the same day.

  Example: Mondays for planning and one-on-ones, Thursdays for writing, Fridays for learning and loose ends.

Time blocking also pairs well with the Pomodoro Technique: run our free Pomodoro timer inside a long focus block.

How to time block your day in 6 steps

Ten minutes, first thing or the evening before.

1. 1List what has to happen today. Pull from your task list, inbox and calendar. Keep only what fits in one day; the rest goes to another day.
2. 2Place the fixed points first. Meetings, lunch, school pickup and anything else that can't move go on the calendar before any task does.
3. 3Put the most important task in the biggest gap. Give it one long block, ideally 90 minutes or more, before the rest of the day fills up.
4. 4Give the small stuff its own blocks. Messages, replies and admin get one or two blocks of their own, so they stop filling every gap.
5. 5Leave about a fifth of the day open. Keep a buffer block or two for overruns and surprises. A day planned to the minute breaks by 10 am.
6. 6Re-plan at midday. Look at the afternoon at lunch and move blocks to match what really happened. Moving a block is the method working.

Time blocking examples: maker, manager and meeting-heavy days

Paul Graham’s essay Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule (opens in a new tab) (July 2009) split work into two kinds: makers, who need half a day at a stretch to do anything hard, and managers, whose day runs in one-hour slots. Here is a time-blocked day for each, plus one for roles where calls are the job. Load any of them in the planner with the Start from chips.

Common time blocking mistakes

Most people who try time blocking and drop it hit one of these in the first week.

• Planning every minute. A full plan has no room for the call you didn't see coming, so one surprise knocks over the whole day.
• Focus blocks that are too short. Thirty minutes is barely enough to get going on hard work. Give focused work at least an hour where you can.
• No block for shallow work. If messages and admin don't get a block, they leak into every other one.
• Keeping blocks private. Put them on your shared calendar with a clear name, like "Focus: Q4 plan," so people book around them.
• No gap after meetings. Leave 5 to 10 minutes between a meeting and a focus block to write notes and switch gears.
• Quitting after one messy day. The plan is a guess. Re-plan and keep going for two weeks before you judge it.

Time blocking for teams

One person's blocks hold up only if the people around them respect them. Four habits that make it work for a whole team:

• Share a team focus window. Pick two or three hours on set days when nobody books internal meetings, such as Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
• Stack recurring meetings. Move standing meetings to one or two afternoons so the rest of the week has long open stretches.
• Name blocks so others understand them. "Focus: launch brief" gets more respect than a block marked "Busy."
• Say your big blocks out loud on Monday. Five minutes in the weekly meeting on who has which long blocks lets handoffs land outside them.

Want everyone on the same page? Maximizing Time Management is a 60-minute live virtual workshop where a host teaches your team to set priorities, stop putting things off and plan calendars around the work that matters, with only pen and paper needed. It runs on Zoom by default, or Teams, Google Meet or Webex on request. Book about 2 weeks ahead.

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  Maximizing Time ManagementStarting at $48 USD / person

It’s one of our lunch and learn workshops, hosted sessions your team can join from anywhere. Get a free quote with your date and headcount and you’ll have a full plan within 24 hours. More habits for people and managers are in our time management tips.