Improving Management of Time and Tasks, Part 8 

Holiday or vacation is over.  It’s time to get back to work.  But focus is hard to come by.  Intrusions abound.  Work hours, which always had some casual interruptions, are now fraught with disruptions.  Open office spaces invite coworkers to break your concentration unapologetically.  Photocopiers churn and paper trays are slammed shut.  Printers grind.  Loud phone conversations distract.  You want to ignore it all but you also don’t want to be rude.  And Work-from-Home has its own disturbances.  Package deliveries.  Lawncare workers mowing and edging.  Dogs barking.  Household chores visible from your work space.  This doesn’t even account for the myriad of legitimate work interruptions from emails, instant messaging, and text messages.  And then there are the meetings… the endless meetings.

How do you make time for the really important and impactful work that will produce the biggest results?  How do authors find uninterrupted time to pen a novel?  How do programmers get the code for an entire platform written?   How do architects draft the blueprints for a high rise with so many interruptions? Time Blocking and Time Boxing — two management techniques — can help manage time to ensure focus so the important work is done.

Manage Tasks with Time Blocking and Task Batching

Anyone who has gone to school in the U.S. may have experience with Time Blocking.  Schools and factories use Time Blocking a lot.  This approach to scheduling work involves working on a specific task for a set amount of time, and then moving on to the next thing when that time is up. And, like in a school, that time period is punctuated by a bell or an alert to signal when time is up.

This method ensures that a particular project gets uninterrupted attention every day.  The time is BLOCKED (set aside) for just that task, and that project is worked on during that time block until it is done.  When the time block ends, it’s time to move on to other work. 

Add Task Batching

Time Blocking is often paired with Task Batching.  Task Batching is when time is allocated to complete many low-value tasks at once, such as reading emails, after working on a high-value project for a big block of time.  It’s meant to keep the person focused on activities that require similar thought patterns as opposed to jumping between tasks, especially low-value tasks.

Pros:

For a computer programmer — who probably has a number of tasks that arise each day that cannot be delegated or deleted but also needs to work on one or two big important projects – Time Boxing paired with Task Batching ensures that a block of time is set aside that is sacrosanct for the important and impactful projects and then other low-value tasks are grouped to be handled later.  

When time is blocked, the goal is to focus on only one thing:  that task.  Slack will be ignored, text messages will go unanswered and emails will be allowed to pile up during those hours each day.  Calls will go straight to voice mail.  No pings, dings or rings.  The door to the office might be closed.  In an open-space setting, the person might wear a noise-cancelling headset and politely ask coworkers not to disturb during that time.  Or the person might work elsewhere so they can avoid interruptions and distractions.  This is also referred to as Deep Work.

Time blocking is an excellent way to get a big project started. Once a certain amount of time is spent on the project, sub-tasks will emerge and become clear.  Estimating how much time the project will take will become clearer. 

Cons:

There is one big drawback to Time Blocking:  Parkinson’s Law.   Parkinson’s Law says that work expands to take up the amount of time allocated.  A project will take as many hours as is allowed.  That is no coincidence.  Most people subconsciously work at a pace that expands or contracts to fill the amount of time allocated.  Procrastination, perfectionism, and other useless pursuits seep into the process.  That is counterproductive to efficiency and speed.

If Time Blocking doesn’t Work, try Time Boxing

Time Boxing reverses the Time Blocking process. Instead of allocating an amount of time to work on a task, you allocate the amount of time it will take to get the task done.  Time Blocking requires a person to think through how much time a particular project is going to need and then blocks that time out.  For example, if a programmer is customizing a platform to manage inventory for a retailer, they must think about how many hours it will take to write the code, beta test it and then roll it out to a small group for feedback.  The programmer might estimate that the whole project will take 120 hours.  He might then Time Box 3 hours every day to work on that specific project.  That would require working on the project 15 hours a week for eight consecutive weeks in order to equal 120 hours. 

Add in the Pomodoro Approach

The Pomodoro approach to Time Boxing specifically recommends dividing all work time into 30-minute segments, where 25 minutes are spent working on the assigned task followed by 5 minutes of rest, stretching, restroom break and mental refreshing.

Pros

This forces a person to think about when they will get something done and imposes a hard deadline.  Then each day is broken down into boxes that can range from 15-minute to 60-minute increments.  The task is boxed into the time and the work has to be done in that amount of time.  If a task wasn’t completed in the allocated time, then more time can be boxed to complete it.  But the time box creates urgency to complete within the allocated time.

Like Time Blocking, a key element of time boxing is working without distraction. Because it’s a race against time to complete the work, distractions are more readily ignored.  Once time is up, it’s up.  Time can be boxed to deal with other tasks, such as responding to emails, answering questions on Slack and reviewing text messages.  The same for replying to phone messages.

Cons

There are drawbacks to Time Boxing too.  It takes time to plan the day using the time blocking technique.  This pushes people to plan their day the night before, such as with the Ivy Lee Method of task management.  The disadvantage of scheduling work the night before is that decision fatigue will make that harder to do well.  Moreover, flexibility could be an issue.  And, failure to meet deadlines could cause a lot of stress making it difficult to stick with the plan.  Plans that are abandoned are ineffective.

While many people think that Time Boxing and Time Blocking are basically the same,  there is a key difference. While time blocking emphasizes deciding when you will work on a specific project or task, Time Boxing focuses on limiting how long you work on a specific project or task.  For people who have trouble getting started on a project, Time Blocking is helpful.  But for those who have trouble completing a project, Time Boxing helps establish an end point for a job.  So for some, pairing the two systems can ensure that projects are started and completed and goals are met.

If, after learning about and trying the various methods and strategies for managing both time and tasks, none of these analog approaches has helped with productivity, efficiency and boosting results, then it is time to go digital.  There are a number of really intuitive time and project management software that combine the best of various approaches.  Stay tuned next week when we consider software options.  Don’t miss it.

Quote of the Week

“Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year- and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade.”
Tony Robbins

© 2023, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.

The post Improving Management of Time and Tasks,
Part 8  first appeared on Monday Mornings with Madison.