I’d like to start this entry with a story. This story may sound familiar or it may not. Either way, just bear with me.
Usually by 7 AM, he was dressed and frantically packing school lunches while yelling upstairs to the kids that they needed to brush their teeth and get dressed. But today he was still sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a cup of coffee. “Ahhh, it’s nice to wake up a little later and not be in such a rush to get dressed and off to school and work. I feel like I have some time back and can enjoy my mornings” he said. As the clock struck 9 AM he started to think, “I better get moving” but the hot coffee and kitchen table just felt a little too comfortable. His internal monologue persisted, “It’s all good, I have my laptop down here, I’ll answer some emails as they come in and I’ll definitely go for a walk or something later today”. Somehow 3 PM hit and he still was in his gym shorts and aside from a few bathroom breaks and passes through the pantry for some mindless snacks, he really hadn’t done much. The kids were still in their pajamas and alternating between a zombie-like state in front of the TV followed by a state of total melt-down. Each time they melted down, he’d get frustrated and tell them to go entertain themselves, but the truth of the matter was that he didn’t know what to do with himself any more than the kids did. The first few days of this felt ok, but by about a week in, he started to realize that something had to change.
Does this story sound at all familiar or relatable? This is my version of week 1 of lock-down and from the murmurings I have heard, there are plenty of individuals out there with similar accounts.
Here is the thing. Prior to COVID-19, many of us had rhythms to our daily routines without even realizing it. These rhythms often were created for us and came in many forms. To name a few:
- Gyms with pre-determined group work out schedules that we wanted to show up to.
- Set hours for our workday (including start/stop times and meeting times)
- Set hours for the kids’ school day drop off and pick up
- Pre-determined lunch or coffee breaks at work
- An internal and unrecognized desire to go to bed at a certain time because you know the alarm will go off at 630AM whether you go to bed early or not
- These are just a few examples, I’m sure if you think about it there are more specific to your circumstances.
With mandatory quarantine and work from home orders in place, these unspoken rhythms may have become completely disrupted. This is because it is far easier to manage our time and habits when external drivers are motivating us to adhere to a schedule. Furthermore, these intrinsic drivers in our previous routines more than likely resulted in habit stacking (a term coined by James Clear author of ‘Atomic Habits’). Simply put, habit stacking occurs when the act of completing one habitual activity results in your following through with a secondary activity. An example might be pre-packing your gym bag in the morning as a ritual that resulted in the stacked habit of showing up to the gym prepared.
But what happens when those drivers evaporate overnight? The answer is that things can go off the rails very quickly. Daily routines such as getting dressed, eating at defined times, exercising, being productive at work, and much more can all be impacted… unless we take control back.
How does one take control of their schedule back when their routine is completely disrupted? Through a simple skill called ‘time-blocking’. As the name might indicate, time-blocking is the act of breaking your day down into individual blocks of time which are scheduled and dedicated to certain tasks. These tasks might include, work, emails, exercise, cooking, shopping, social media consumption, playtime, naptime, family time and anything else that you might fill your day with.
I started practicing time blocking several years ago when I felt I was at my absolute worst. I was over-worked, over-weight, over-stressed, and not devoting enough time to my loved ones. Something I realized when I decided to make a change was that part of my problem was a lack of structured priorities. I would say things like ‘fitness is a priority’ or ‘I need to keep my business books organized, but then I wouldn’t set aside time for daily exercise and each fiscal quarter I would frantically try to do 3 months of accounting before my tax reports were due. It took me noticing these contradictions in stated priorities vs how I allocated my time for me to realize that I needed a better system if I was going to make a change.
Enter time blocking. Here are my steps for time blocking:
- Take an inventory of everything that you wish you could do in a day (and I mean everything: exercise, cook, ride a bike, play a game with your kids, go to work, attend a conference call, etc.).
- Next to each task write down approximately how long that task should take (I try to do 15–60 minute intervals).
- Organize these tasks into 3 categories: 1) MUST DO, 2) IMPORTANT TO DO, 3) WOULD LIKE TO DO IF TIME PERMITS (this step will be subjective and depend heavily on your own priorities and values).
- Select whatever calendar application you prefer or even just a good old handwritten calendar or journal.
- Fill in the MUST DO items first on the daily calendar. For instance, if you have no choice but to drive the kids to school at 8 AM, then that activity must have a blocked time on your calendar. If you have a daily meeting with your colleagues at 10 AM, then that obviously needs to be time blocked (I don’t encourage you to start skipping meetings to get your workout in unless you have the coolest boss ever).
- Next, look at your open time slots and fill in the IMPORTANT TO DO items.
- And finally, use the remaining open time slots to add in your WOULD LIKE TO DO IF TIME PERMITS activities (my guess is that when you break your day down into 15–60 minute intervals, you will find there is more time available than you realized to fit these items in).
And there you have it, a complete time blocked calendar. The only thing left to do is follow it.
An unexpected by-product of this exercise is that you may be forced to reconcile what your individual values and priorities are. I will save that discussion for a future blog entry. However, I’ll leave you with this: your priorities may vary from your peers. The objective of time blocking is to help you systematize your day in such a way that your priorities and goals do not fall by the wayside.
Happy time blocking! Go get your day back!
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Previously published on “Change Becomes You”, a Medium publication.
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Photo credit: istockphoto.com