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Timeblock Your Day

For the seventh article in our Find Your Flow series, we cover how to timeblock your calendar and take control of your day.

We all have days where we make big plans for productivity, only to have calls, meetings, emails, and other distractions get in the way. This is especially true in the era of Calendly and shared calendars. Clients or colleagues are grabbing the next available slot in your day, eating into the time you had hoped to set aside to get things done.

So how can we take back control of our day and ensure we have enough deep work time to get through our priorities? The answer lies in timeblocking.

What is timeblocking?

Your calendar and your to-do list are inextricably linked. You cannot get through all your tasks if you don’t have enough time in your day to complete them.

So, with timeblocking, you simply add the tasks you need to get done with the amount of time necessary to complete them into your calendar. Essentially, you are adding your tasks to your calendar.

Why use timeblocking?

There are a variety of reasons why timeblocking is helpful for productivity and flow.

For one thing, you are blocking your calendar from others scheduling meetings or calls. Whether you use Calendly or work in a team, people will see specific times blocked and not schedule a meeting. Or at least think twice about it.

You also increase accountability for the task. This helps you not only complete it but also avoid multitasking or distraction during that time.

Timeblocking can also help you avoid getting bitten by Parkinson’s Law, which states that the amount of work fills the time available for its completion. If you have a simple task that should take an hour, but you have 4 hours available, the task will inevitably add scope and complexity to fill that time. Using the timeblock method, you allocate the actual time you need to complete the task.

Finally, the timeblock method also helps reduce decision fatigue, a concept we’ve addressed previously in this series. By planning out your tasks and the exact times you want to tackle them, you reduce the amount of decision-making you have to make throughout your day. You also have a better handle on how your day will go. Hence, fewer surprises contribute to your stress levels and eat into your productivity.

How to timeblock with Taskable

One of our latest improvements is a timeblock feature that allows you to quickly add tasks to your calendar.

From your My Day view, you can drag tasks scheduled for the day into the available timeslots in your calendar. We automatically schedule them for the entire time available in that particular block. You can adjust the start and finish times. The task appears both in your Taskable calendar and your Google Calendar, so no one can schedule a meeting during that time.