Time Blocking (Highly Effective)

[Red-White-Light]

Hey guys,

So, a quick summary. I have been trying to juggle lots of different aspects of self-improvement. I spent hours creating a life-plan for myself and I create goals and objectives around them.

I also have made routines for myself, using a checklist method in my digital common place book (Onenote). It was an ok method for behaviour management, however it wasn't time aware. 

I knew the benefits of scheduling and have achieved a lot from it, however I didn't take it seriously. I revisited block scheduling and it has honestly changed my life. Every night before bed, I spend 30 minutes planning my schedule for the next day. I have been using google calendars, which also sends me reminders half an hour before a specific task.

I still have kept my daily routine on Onenote and use it as a reference point to create my schedule.

Routine and Schedule are two very distinct things. A routine hasn't got time blocks around them. You know that you have to do them, but there's no accountability to do them at specific times. Scheduling gives you time management and awareness. 

Living unconsciously, it's easy to fall into bad behaviours, patterns etc. It's very easy to become unconscious. When you are conscious, you can see clearly what is required of you and you gain a meta-perspective of the maze you're in, but you are still that rat which lives inside that maze. If you don't have safety nets to fall into, you will find yourself falling into unconscious traps.

[GrowthPilgrim]

Depending on your productivity level and type of work the practice of timeboxing can be highly effective, especially if you go from no structure to this. However, in the long run, you might discover, that this (as shown here) is a strong overuse of the concept. As you grow you will learn to appreciate the structure, not for the sake of structure itself, but because it allows you to create more creative freedom in your life. At some point, you will probably shift back towards using the calendar for only really rigid events and appointments. Of all your productivity stack, you will treat your calendar as the holiest territory where you represent only the "hard" landscape of your day. This will allow you way more flexibility to tackle daily demands according to your context, energy levels, and time available in any given situation. Timeboxing can still help you for planning out your day and estimating how much can be done. But you will probably not adhere to this plan, as all plans are inherently false and counterproductive if followed without consciousness.