Time Blocking: A Productivity Tool for a Clearer Mind and Desk

In The Performance Prescription, I talk about Execution as one of the Four Fundamentals of sustainable high performance. Focusing on ‘getting the job done’ is important, at least in part because so much of the stress we carry through a working day comes from things left undone, creating a hum of background noise in our minds and distracting thoughts that can knock us off our game. I’ve found that ‘time blocking’, the practice of assigning specific tasks to specific slots in our calendar rather than working from an open-ended to-do list, is one of the most effective ways of dealing with these problems.

Some of the benefits of time-blocking stem from a phenomenon called the Zeigarnik effect. Basically, the idea is that unfinished tasks are like plates spinning on poles in our mind, requiring at least intermittent attention. Completing tasks lets us store the plates safely so they don't take up mental RAM.

However, who among us can ever claim everything is done? The good news is that a study conducted by psychologists E. J. Masicampo and Roy Baumeister discovered another way to get pending tasks out of our minds while we focus on other matters. They found that making a specific plan to complete a task is the critical factor. Simply deciding when and how we are going to do something is often enough to quiet the mind, even before we tackle the task itself.

Time-blocking basically leverages this finding in a practical way that helps declutter the mind, reduce anxiety, and boost productivity.

That dovetails with a separate but related body of research on what psychologists call ‘implementation intention’ – the discipline of deciding in advance when, where and how you'll do something, rather than trusting willpower in the moment. A meta-analysis pooling dozens of studies found that this kind of specific pre-commitment produced a substantial improvement in follow-through compared with vague intentions to simply ‘get to it.’

Time blocking is essentially implementation intentions applied to our day: instead of a list of things we intend to do, we make a series of decisions about when we'll do them. That's a meaningfully different psychological position to work from, and it's a large part of why time blocking tends to reduce procrastination more effectively than an open to-do list, which leaves every task's timing (and therefore the decision of when to start) up for negotiation. And many of us will know that if we don’t have our own agenda to work to, we’ll likely end up working to other people’s.

Another benefit of time-blocking is that it helps counter what is known as ‘Parkinson's Law’ – the observation first made by the historian C. Northcote Parkinson in the 1950s that ‘work expands to fill the time available for its completion’. Give ourselves a whole afternoon for a task that could take a couple of hours, and it will, mysteriously, take the whole afternoon. Time blocking pushes back against this directly, because it forces us to set a boundary around a task before we start it. A block on the calendar isn't just a reminder to begin; it's an implicit deadline, and deadlines are one of the most reliable ways we know to curb work's natural tendency to sprawl.

None of this requires elaborate systems or apps. It requires deciding, in advance, what we're doing and when – and then treating that decision the way you'd treat an appointment with someone else. No system is perfect and genuine emergencies can get in the way. My experience, though, is that time-blocking generally makes a big difference in people’s ability to keep a clear mind and stay on top of things.

References

Masicampo EJ and Baumeister RF (2011). Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(4), 667–683.

Gollwitzer PM and Sheeran P (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.