Time Blocking for People Who Hate Being Boxed In

Hello, and welcome to episode 403 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.

Are you in danger of boxing yourself in with too many processes and too much structure?

Now, it’s important to stress that having some structure to your day is important. But too much can lead to boxing yourself in and losing flexibility.

Let me give you an example I often come across. Protecting time for doing your focused work. Having this protected on your calendar so the time cannot be stolen by others is important.

If you protected 2 hours and finished in 90 minutes, that doesn’t mean you have to continue for another 30 minutes. Take a break. You’re done.

But this works the other way, too. If you have two hours protected for a project task but cannot finish it in that time. It’s okay. You turned up. You did the work, but you miscalculated how long it would take.

This happens to all of us. Some days we’re on fire and can plough through a lot of work. Other days, a lot less so.

The problem is that when you begin your day, you really don’t know what kind of day you’re going to have. There are too many variables. How you slept, whether you’re catching a cold or simply something else is on your mind.

Your life is not measured by what you do in one day; everyone has bad days.

So, with that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Alex. Alex asks, hi Carl, this year I’m trying to be better at time blocking, but I am really struggling to stay consistent with my blocks. What advice do you have to help stay true to your calendar?

Hi Alex, thank you for your question.

Something I have always taught is that of all your productivity tools, one of them needs to be sacred. One of your tools must be the “truth” about what you are going to do that day.

Task managers are generally not good at this because we throw a lot of things into them. That’s a good thing. Yet, the issue is that most people never curate what they throw in. This creates overwhelming lists of low-value, ill-thought-out items that will never get done. They just cripple your task manager’s effectiveness.

The best tool for acting as your sacred base is your calendar. It’s never going to lie to you. It shows you the 24 hours you have each day and where you need to be, with whom, and when.

You cannot overload yourself without it being plainly obvious that you are trying to do too much.

And let’s be perfectly clear, an agreed appointment with someone will always take priority over an email or proposal you need to write. If not, you cancel the appointment.

I hope, at a basic, civilised human being level, you get that.

I’ve called off face-to-face meetings in the past if the person I am meeting cannot put their phones down and actually talk to me. It is rude, disrespectful, and no person with an ounce of integrity would ever do that.

One of the striking things I’ve noticed about the highly successful people I work with is that they never have a phone. Tablet or laptop near them when they are in meetings. A notebook and a pen are all they have.

That’s focus, professionalism, and demonstrates to the person you are meeting that you are focused on them in that moment.

When you make your calendar your primary productivity tool, you gain clarity about how much time you have available for the things you want to do.

It’s visual, it’s staring at you, and there’s no escape from reality.

If you work 9 hours a day and today you have 7 hours of meetings, you only have 2 hours to do solo work. That’s it.

If you need three hours to get your critical, must-do work done, then you have two choices. You either cancel a meeting or you accept that you will need to work an extra hour.

It’s strange how so many people waste so much time trying find other solutions. That’s time they could have spent on getting started on the work.

The solution is to time-block slots for doing the work that matters.

The best salespeople block time every day to prospect and follow up with their customers. That’s why they are the top salespeople.
The best CEOs block time every day for working on their top priority task. That’s why they are the best at what they do.
Best-selling authors block time for writing every day. That’s why they sell a lot of books.

Now, as I eluded to at the beginning, there will be some days when things don’t go according to plan. You might be sick, had an argument with a loved one or just be distracted for whatever reason.

Or there could be a good old-fashioned emergency that needs your attention.

It happens. That’s life.

However, it’s not really about what you do or not to do in one day. The purpose of time blocks is to get you to show up and do the work. It’s not about volume.

Spending twenty minutes on your actionable email is better than spending zero minutes. It’s surprising how much you can get done when the pressure of time is on you. You don’t dilly-dally around. (Wow! That’s a phrase I haven’t used for a long time!)

Ultimately, the measure is how well you did against your plan for the week, not necessarily an individual day.

Let me give you an example.

I have two blog posts, two newsletters, this podcast and a YouTube video to produce each week. They are my measurables. Six pieces of content.

I know I need about 12 hours a week to produce that content. I also have 15 hours of coaching appointments. So, in total, I need 27 hours protected before I begin my week to complete my professional work.

It’s doable, and based on my completion rates, I complete this work around 87% of the time over 12 months. I’ll take that. (I measure it at the end of every year)

I work with one highly successful CEO who writes a LinkedIn Newsletter every week. Her company has over 50,000 employees in six different countries. She protects two hours every week to write that newsletter. One hour for the first draft and one hour later in the week to edit it.

Last year, she didn’t miss one newsletter. She had a 100% completion rate. And that was her goal.

How did she do it? She protected her writing time every week. She would protect Monday mornings when in the office, and when travelling, she would take advantage of jet lag and write when she was wide awake in the early morning or late at night.

She time-blocked the time. She knew the only way to achieve a 100% completion rate was to make sure each week she had protected the time to do the work.

However, time blocking only works if you are planning your week. Not planning your week leaves you open to other people hijacking your calendar, and as I am sure you are aware, other people are often very persuasive… or demanding.

When you sit down to plan the week, you first look at what meetings and appointments you have scheduled. How much time does that leave you?

That will tell you what you could realistically get done that week.

If you’re away at a conference for three days, you really only have two days to work with. However, one of those days will probably be needed for catching up, so realistically, you’ve got one solid work day.

But let’s look at a typical week when you are at your usual place of work.

How much time do you need to do the work you are employed to do each week? A journalist may be expected to write an article a week. How long does it typically take to write the article, excluding the research and interviews? That would be their starting point.

Doctors I work with often need 2 hours or more after seeing patients to handle paperwork. If they want to get home at 7:00 pm each evening, then that will affect the time they need to stop seeing patients and do paperwork.

Salespeople are focused on seeing clients most of the day, but they also often have paperwork and follow-ups to do. Where can they fit the time they need for paperwork and follow-ups?

Knowing what you are expected to do as part of your job and ensuring you have sufficient time to do it each week is what I call protecting time for your core work, and it goes back to the birth of humankind.

Our ancestors on the Savannahs knew their core work. To hunt for food. If they’d had a big kill one day, they may have been able to take a day off, but when they started their day, they knew their job was to go out and find food. It was a non-negotiable part of their day.

That’s what time blocking does for you. It gives you clarity on what you need to do that day. All you need to do is show up.

One tip I can give you about time-blocking is to keep your time blocks general. For instance, the CEO I mentioned a moment ago calls her newsletter writing time simply “writing time”. That gives her some flexibility.

If she needs to write a report for the board and is up against a tight deadline, then that is what she will write in that time. She will then find another space for the newsletter writing.

I do something similar. I have writing time and audio/visual time protected on my calendar. I can then choose what I write or record on the day as part of my daily planning routine.

If you’re in sales or a client-facing role, the time you spend working for your clients can be called “client” or “customer” time.

I would also highly recommend that you set aside time every day to deal with messages, emails, and admin. These tasks will creep up on you if you’re not dealing with them every day. Even if you can only find thirty minutes, take it.

Whenever I am on a business trip, whether domestic or international, I make sure to set aside time during the day to address my actionable messages. The most challenging ones are domestic, as I generally drive to the appointment or event. The easier ones are international as there is a lot of time hanging around in airport lounges.

Another tip I would give is not to go crazy here. Time blocking is not about blocking every minute of the day. It’s about protecting time only for the important work you need to do.

When I look at my calendar, there are only three hours a day protected for solo work. On days when I have a lot of meetings, I usually reduce that time to one hour.

So there you go, Alex. I hope that has helped.

You are going to have good and bad days. That’s perfectly normal. But, you have complete control of your calendar, so you can move things around, change your blocks if necessary. But, and this is the important but, once you’ve locked them in for the day, you stick with them.

Remember, it’s not about how much you do in the time, it’s about turning up and doing the work.

And if you want to transform your time management and adopt a sustainable time-based productivity system, my newest course, the Time-Based Productivity course, will do that for you.

It will teach you how to time-block effectively and organise your work so you are doing the right things at the right time. PLUS… by joining the course, you get free access to my recently updated Time Sector System course and my Time Blocking Course.

If I were to recommend one course for 2026, that’s the one I would recommend.

Thank you for your question, Alex and thank you to you too for listening. It just remains for me to wish you all a very, very productive week.

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