Why Time Blocking Your Day Is Critical
Do You Time Block Your Day?
How does time blocking help maximize your productivity?
I practice zero white space on my calendar as much as possible and my productivity has skyrocketed.
Click play to find out how time blocking can benefit you and how you can apply it in your life!
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Transcript:
Hey everyone.
I hope you’re having a great Friday afternoon, morning, what time is it? I guess it’s still morning, still 11:30 right now.
I wanted to give you a brief example of why time blocking your day and why having zero white space is so critical. So I’m gonna wait a couple minutes for people to come in, Log in, and catch this.
So we got a couple people joining us now. Give Facebook some time to notify everybody that I’m live. And I’m going to say if you’re just joining, comment below with where you’re viewing from. Please just let me know where you’re viewing from.
I would love to have this as a little open dialog, rather than me just teaching. So yeah, if you’re joining, drop where you’re joining from, where you’re viewing from.
And what we’re going to talk about today Arlington, Texas, thank you.Thank you, Christine. Arlington, Texas. I’ve never been there. Actually, Cathryn and I are going to Austin, Texas in a couple months.
What’s going on, Steve from Chicago. Very nice. I actually might make it out to Chicago this Summer. I may, I may. I got a buddy out there that I need some face time with so I may jet out there in Chicago. I’m in New Jersey, and it is beautiful out. I’m a little upset that I do have work that I have to do today.
So I’m gonna try to be half inside, half outside. I have all the windows open. I hope Arlington and Chicago are beautiful where you are.
If you’re just joining, drop where you’re calling in from. Or where, calling in from, where you’re viewing this video from. What we’re going to talk about today is a real life example. This happened yesterday, and I needed to share it with you guys.
Why time blocking and why zero, Germany, nice. Nice, thanks Benjamin for letting us know you’re viewing from Germany. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Actually, Germany, believe it or not, is one of our largest demographics over in Europe, believe it or not.
So thank you Benjamin for chiming in.
It’s probably getting late. It’s almost time for beer over there, I would imagine. The work day is ending and the weekends here. So thanks for watching. If you’re just joining, drop where you’re viewing from. We have Arlington, Texas, Chicago, Illinois, Germany.
Thank you everyone for watching.
Alright, so, getting into it. Here is why time blocking and why zero white space in your journal, Oregon, thanks, Dan, is so important. This happened, Australia, very nice. We got a global all-star cast here today. Thank you.
Why it’s so important. So, if you’re just joining, why is zero white space on your daily Calendar so important? So yesterday, I had a full-on, action-packed day with calls and meetings and, well, that pretty much just like, England, thank you.
Katrina, thank you, Katrina. England. If you’re just joining, let us know where you’re viewing this from. And I’m talking about why time blocking and why zero white space on your daily planner is so important. So yesterday, I had calls back to back. So if you don’t know, Cathryn and I, we actually schedule all of our calls on one or two days a week.
For me, it’s Tuesdays and Thursdays. That’s the only time that you can schedule a call, have a meeting, do something that revolves an interaction with me. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with the exception of our weekend, or the end of the week team recap on Friday.
Thank you for the likes.
Kate, thank you for joining us from England. So Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, are just head down, focused on work. I could focus on marketing or running the team, or scaling, or new sales channels . Cathryn can work on designs when she doesn’t have calls. And it alleviates the head space. ‘Cause what normally happens is you have a call coming up in about two hours and you’re like, oh, well what can I get done in this two hours.
You end up just doing these little tasks, if anything at all, and you end up procrastinating too much before that call. So that’s why we try to have head down focus days.
Stacy, thank you for watching from San Francisco. That’s why we have head down focus days to clear up the brain space and not put any pressure on what we need to get done. We could just go into creativity mode. So here’s why time blocking is so important, especially when you have calls and meetings back to back to back.
Dan, see if you can pull that off. It’s incredible with what it can do for your creativity and productivity and output because meetings are just a time suck, but they’re essential. So you need to collaborate, you need to work with other people, you need to have calls, and that sort of stuff. So yesterday morning start with a 9:00 a.m. meeting with Jessica, our CMO. Jessica, who you’ve probably seen in the alliance, her and I were talking, and I needed to do something first, and then hand it off to her.
Then that’s what we realized in our morning meeting. And I said, Jess, you know, I’m looking at my day right now and I can not get that to you until 4:30 minimum. And this was a time sensitive thing because I saw my day, it was already booked, already blocked off with very single half hour broken out to extreme detail.
And I’m like, Jess, you’re gonna get this at probably around five o’clock tonight because I can only look at it at 4:30 minimum, and that’s if everything goes smoothly throughout the day. And once I’m done handling it, I can pass it off to you, and then you can take the reigns and do whatever you have to do with that.
So it was time sensitive and we knew that the earliest it could get done would be maybe six, seven o’clock by the time I handed it off to Jess and she did whatever she had to do. And ideally, what we really wanted was this to be done, you know, much, much sooner, even days before.
But, it was so important. The thing was, I couldn’t cancel any meetings, I couldn’t move things around because everything was blocked off. But here’s what’s interesting. So if you’re watching, if you’re just joining us right now, everyone’s commenting where they’re viewing from, and I’m discussing why it’s so important to block off zero white space from an example that occurred yesterday.
So, 9:00 a.m. first meeting, the last meeting ended at 4:30. At the 9:00 a.m. meeting I realized with my CMO, Jessica, Jess, we need this thing done ASAP. I need to handle it first, then I can hand it off to you. You can do whatever you need to do, but guess what, you’re not gonna get it until maybe five o’clock tonight. I’m sorry, but it is what it is.
Abbey, NYC, hope you’re enjoying this beautiful weather. I’m in New Jersey. Cathryn’s in New York, though. And it’s really, really nice today. So with my time blocked, here’s what happened. After Jess, I had two more meetings, and then the meeting ended early. We accomplished everything that we needed to accomplish, we got everything situated.
I now had a 20 minute block of time before my next meeting. So what I did was this thing that I needed to hand off to Jess. I put that in the margin, as far as the notes and ideas space on the left-hand side. So I knew that that was a big task that needed to be handled, and I put that in the margin, rather than at 4:30 when my last meeting was.
So because I put it in the notes and ideas side, now it’s free reign. So now, if I have an opening, let’s try to tackle that a little bit. So one meeting ended early, 20 minutes early and I realized now is the time for me to focus on this task that I need to hand off to Jess. So I was able to accomplish before my next meeting.
The next meeting happened, then I had another meeting after that. And guess what. After that meeting, it ended 20 minutes early again. Actually, it was about 18 minutes early, but for the sake of this conversation, we’ll call it 20 minutes. So now I had another 20 minutes to fit this task that I was supposed to, that’s time sensitive, that people are waiting on me for.
So as soon as that was done, boom, I’m right where I picked up, right where I left off. I picked up right where I left off. I was able to complete it before 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon. I handed it off to Jess. Jess was able to get it done. And we had it done and wrapped up before 3:00 p.m., which is much, much better than 7:00 p.m. tonight.
People are now working late, now they’re working through dinner. I mean, we’re remote, we’re trying to run and grow this thing. So people have crazy schedules, and fortunately, I was able to pinpoint the times that I could fit this spot, this tasks, into spots throughout my day to get it done as quickly as possible to not mess up other people’s time, to not mess up their dinner and their free time and this and that.
And we were able to get it accomplished much, much quicker. So this is why time blocking is extremely important. Now, if you’re getting some value from this, please, don’t just sit there and watch and just consume. Drop me a like, give me a thumbs up. Give me a comment. Engage with me a little bit just so I know I’m not wasting hot air here.
But this was a critical thing that needed to get accomplished in a short amount of time. Thank you for the likes. In a short amount of time, and the only way that it could have gotten done sooner, thanks Dan, sooner was because I was so strict with time blocking and having zero white space on my calendar that when things did come up, I could stick it in.
So Abbey, let’s see here. So Abbey, I’m reading your comment right now. It’s too big to read in this, but I will, here we go. So, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna read this out loud. I often find that I’ll block out all of my time in the beginning of the day, but get derailed by time sensitive things.
So similar to this, right? So similar, you’ll probably be like, oh, well I blocked out all of my time, but this thing came up, and now I need to figure out where to fit it in. You’re talking about a case where you couldn’t reschedule, but I often block out things that are reschedule-able. I believe that’s what you’re saying.
The rest of the comment is blocked off. Let me see if I can read the rest of it. And Dan says ditto to that. So give me one second. Let me see if I can pull that entire comment up. I can’t right now.
So you’re saying that sometimes you put things on there that are reschedule-able.The problem is, is that you’re not strict enough with your time, or you’re putting things on there that don’t really require that much, that much of your attention, or aren’t that important.
That’s what I’m reading from this right now, and now I’m just making assumptions, but I’m making assumptions from a place that I used to operate from. Where, oh, this person wants to have a call with me. Well, let me put that on the list, and, you know, it’s gonna be important someday because we are gonna be working on that project in the future, and I would like to get some more information on that.
So let me put that here. But in the grand scheme of things, is it the most important call that you should be having that day? In most cases, it’s not. In most cases, you don’t even need to have calls or meetings based on most of the stuff that you’re talking about.
For me, when I time block my calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays ,they are the most important calls that we are working on, regardless. And that’s why they’re so hard and concrete on my daily schedule. They can’t be moved around. So because I have a clear focus on what needs to get done, and what really needs to happen, and what meetings I really do need to have, that’s why they’re so locked.
And what happens is they’re locked in place, and what I do is when things come up that are important, like this thing that I needed to handle and then hand off to Jess, when things come up like that, yeah, they are gonna come up. But the thing is to be extremely strict with your time, with your priorities, with what’s important and happening in your life.
And if you find yourself, oh, well this thing can be rescheduled to tomorrow, or to next week, then what is it doing on your list anyway? That’s the question that I want to ask you. Because if this thing can be rescheduled and put off, what are you doing wasting your time with it in the first place?
Maybe you can hand this off to your assistant. Maybe you can get some more information via email. Or from another source, rather than having a call and a meeting. Just send, hey, send me over a document, send me the information, let me glance at it, then we don’t need to get on a call, and I can do it in my spare time throughout the day.
That’s probably what’s happening. Now, Dan, does that help? Abbey, does that help in helping clarify? You don’t need to comment . Just give me a like or a thumbs up or something like that.
Let me know if that is something that you find as a pattern that happens. Things get pushed off, things get scheduled, then rescheduled, and then things come up, and then it’s like this vicious cycle. Cool, okay.
Yeah, so, I wanna say here, make sure that you have the highest priority tasks on your list. Make sure that you’re strict with your time because, let’s not forget. Okay Dan. Be strict with your time, because time is the only non-renewable resource that you have. Once you spend it, it’s gone.
So really make sure and clarify what needs to get done, what calls really have to be made, what calls really need, or meetings really need to happen, Abbey. And then what happen is, now important tasks, they do come up, but you’re finding yourself, okay, this is an important task, and you know what, my day’s more free now because I’m not wasting it on all these meetings that really don’t mean much,or can be rescheduled, or aren’t that important or don’t need to be had at all.
So that’s what I would recommend. So, here’s what I would like.
If you’re watching this video after the recording, still comment below. I will hang out, like I always do. I’ll continue the dialog in the comments. And we’ll go from there. Let me know what questions you have. If you’ve tried this before, what success that you’ve found with zero white space on your calendar.
And if you have any examples, please share. Any success, hey, my productivity has skyrocketed ever since I’ve done, implemented the zero white space calendar in daily planning. Let me know.
So, just to recap really quick. I’m gonna tie it all together for you.
Had meetings from 10:00, or excuse me, meetings from 9:00 to 4:30. At my nine o’clock meeting, the first meeting in the morning, I found out that Jess needed something from me, but I needed to handle it first. She wouldn’t get it until a minimum of five o’clock at night, which would mean that that thing would not be completed until probably six, seven, seven o’clock at night, and she was waiting on me the entire day.
And this was a time sensitive thing. So, what happened was I had several meetings. One meeting ended 20 minutes early. I knew that that was a priority, so I wrote it in my notes and ideas space, and I fit 20 minutes of work time to get that done during that 20 minute span. What happened after that was I had two more meetings. The other one ended 18 minutes early.
For this case, we’ll just say 20. I now spent 15 more minutes, or 20 more minutes working on that task, and I was able to hand it off to Jess before 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon. The whole thing was done, said and done, after she got wrapped up with it by three o’clock, which is four hours shorter and sooner than the seven o’clock time frame that we had originally scheduled.
So this thing was extremely important. It needed to get done. And this is why time blocking is extremely important. You can find ways to fit in important tasks so you don’t have dead time. You don’t have time where you’re procrastinating. You don’t have time where you’re dilly-dallying around. You don’t have time where your team’s waiting for you.
You can be as efficient and as productive as possible. And then get this. Here’s the thing, here’s the best part about it is, if I waited until 4:30 at night to hand this off, or five o’clock at night to hand this off to Jessica, she would’ve been up until seven o’clock, missed dinner, you know, she should be winding down by then.
But thankfully, we love her, and she would be working on this. Now I didn’t screw up her evening. And that’s important. It didn’t screw up my evening, it didn’t screw up her evening. We got more done in one day than we thought we would, and that most people do. So this is why zero white space time blocking is extremely, extremely important.
Abbey, I’m gonna read your question, but then I wanna sign off. So give me one second to read through this. Okay, that happens. And when those things come up, you just need to allocate, okay, well I have this amount of time, and this amount of time.
Benjamin, thanks for sticking with me, and watching along, and thanks for your comments.
So Abbey, you just need to make sure that if you’re going to move and allocate that time somewhere else that you can fit it in throughout the day. Just make sure that you don’t push it to the next day. If you have to segment that one task that maybe is two hours into two one-hour segments, do that so you can get more done in the short amount of time that you have.
Stacy, thank you for chiming in. Thank you for watching. And I’m gonna wrap up now, guys.
I hope you got some value out of this. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope all of you have an awesome weekend.
Thanks, bye.