Ep 16 Unlocking the Power of Time Blocks for Ultimate Productivity
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Kelly: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the productivity genius podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Fifield. And today we're talking about. Now, I'm going to suggest several different blocks of time to put on your calendar and I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to list them out from the time that I think is the most important and the ones that I would put on my calendar first.
If I couldn't put any others, what would I start with? And then we'll go kind of, not necessarily in decreasing order of importance, but just as you are. Starting to use this type of system, which ones I would say are the most impactful in the beginning.
Now the way that I set this up, I use Google Calendar. So I set up repeating blocks on each day and then I just edit the details in my calendar. So I have these blocks pre set up on my calendar. But if you're using like a paper planner, you could use highlighters or something to like kind of block out that time.
So the first block of time I suggest you get on your calendar before any other one is planning time. I would put time on my calendar [00:01:00] every single day at the beginning of the day. for planning. Now, this reminds me of that saying about meditation, like, uh, you should meditate for 20 minutes every day unless you're too busy, and then you should meditate for an hour, right?
It's that idea that if your mind is unclear, then you're going to be all over the place. And really, kind of the same idea here with that planning block. If you think to yourself, I don't have time at the beginning of my day to plan, I just have to go because I have so much to do, then you definitely need this time on your calendar.
This is the time where you plan out everything that you're going to get done that day and at exactly what time.
Once you set up your plan for the day, you want to try to make your default reaction to changing it no. I'm not changing it. When someone comes and says, can you do this for me? You want your default reaction to be no or not right now. Now, I'm a recovering people pleaser. so I understand wanting to do things as soon as someone asks you for it, and maybe like some tasks, of course, if my boss asks me for something immediately, I'm going to do it [00:02:00] immediately, right?
They're the one paying me. But for the most part, most things that come into our world that people want from us can probably wait. You probably sometimes want to do it immediately either because you like me or people pleaser or you just don't want it weighing on your Mind, but when you get good at scheduling things like that Don't weigh on your mind because you learn to trust yourself and you know That you're going to get that thing done when you say you're gonna get it done the second block of time if we're gonna add a second one, I would say is your wrap up time This is where you're going to reward yourself for what you got done on my Google Calendar.
I give myself like a little green check, um, like the emoji. That feels so good to see all of the little green checks on my calendar. And also to plan next day, maybe so maybe this is your planning time, but really initially the wrap up time, I'm not looking for you to necessarily plan out your whole day because you're going to have lower willpower at this point.
You're going to have decision fatigue. I would say this wrap up is just to get clear on what needs to get done tomorrow. Have everything written down that you want to remember for the next day. [00:03:00] That way you don't have to think about it all night. You want to be able to fully disconnect from work. All right, the third time block, if you're going to put on a third, I would say is your weekly brain dump.
You could do this Friday after work, Saturday, Sunday. Some people even do it Monday first thing, like you may have heard of Monday hour one. I don't like doing it personally on Monday because I have a huge pull Monday morning just start working. And even though I totally could resist that, I really don't want to spend a lot of energy resisting that pull on Monday morning.
Plus, I actually really enjoy this time if I put it on like a Saturday or Sunday, I kind of chill, relax, it's like a treat for me. So what you're going to do is you're going to dump out of your brain everything you want to get done in the future, short term and long term, and get it all onto paper. That might sound like it would create overwhelm, but it actually does the exact opposite because now you have some control over it.
You can see it all written down. Now, I actually do this on my iPad, but if you want to do it on paper, also awesome. And so the next thing you do is you prioritize all of [00:04:00] those tasks. That's why I do it on my iPad, because I like dragging them around. But if you're using paper, then you just want to number them.
And then decide how much you want to give yourself for each of those tasks. If you're like, I don't know how long that's going to take. You've heard me talk about micro stepping, micro step it out to see how long that's going to take. And then sometimes when I... Do that. And I realized how long I would, it would ultimately wind up to complete the task or project if I hate it.
If I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's way too long to invest in getting this thing done for that result. That amount of time I'm not happy about that. Then I rethink the task. Maybe I can just eliminate it. Maybe if it's not worth the time, maybe it's not worth it at all. Or could I do something totally different that would get the same or a better result?
If I'm like, nope, this thing, I still want to get this thing done, then I definitely go back and see How can I do this faster and get at least the same or better result? All right Fourth block of time you want on your calendar is free time Now most people are gonna tell you to put this on your calendar first I think that would be awesome, but I think most of us really resist that.
We feel like, well, we can't get that [00:05:00] on there till all the other things are done. So why put that pressure on ourself? If you're doing time one, which is planning, the wrap up time, and your weekly brain dump, It's more realistic to think you're going to get this on your calendar.
If you're not freeing up time to invest in yourself and your loved ones, then what the heck is the point of all this, right? So you want to schedule in free time. The most important things in your life with the most important people. Alright, the fifth block of time. Power blocks.
The time you're going to work towards your current goal. If you hear, uh, yelling in the background, we have some football watching going on in the house. So, it's totally fine if you hear that, but I'm not being attacked or anything. My family's just watching a football game, but what is the current goal that you're working on?
I suggest you have one main goal at a time, maybe two, but I really would love if you only had one goal. That way you can stay super focused and make maximum progress in the fastest or I guess in the shortest amount of time. Now, I put these power blocks at the beginning of my day. I think for most [00:06:00] people.
You do your best work in the morning if you identify as a night owl. I totally get it That's how I used to identify used to say I'm such a night owl for me and I think for most people That's Because of procrastination, I did so much of my important work at night because I procrastinated so much that I believe that's just when I did my best work because it was really the only time I could get myself to do work, but based on like biology and neurotransmitters and circadian rhythms and evolution, it just doesn't make sense to me that night owls actually exist.
If night owls, like myself, could get better at this whole scheduling thing and this whole follow through thing, I believe everybody would work better in the morning just based on how we were built.
of course, you can totally just believe you're a night owl and believe, hey, it works best for me. I just would invite you to just consider the possibility that that's not true, because I know when I was calling myself a night owl, I was chronically under sleeping, like never sleeping, super stressed all the time, always feeling behind.
So if that is [00:07:00] how you're operating right now, I would love for you to consider maybe I'm not built that way. maybe that's just the patterns that I've been reinforcing my whole life. And that's why I do important work at night. So anyway, that was a side note, but I suggest you put these power blocks in the morning.
Now, if your job doesn't Allow for flexibility in the morning and you have to be doing other thing in the morning. Totally understand that. Do you want to get up earlier in the morning and create that time? Maybe not. Put these time blocks where you can. You might want to try to start working to a time when you can get some of your most important work done in the morning.
Maybe it's only 10 minutes a day. But we want this to be your most important work, not your most urgent. This is the work that's going to move you forward.
Again, even if it was only 15 minutes a day, if you did that just 5 days a week, that would add up to 8 full 8 hour days in a year working towards your goal. Think of how much you could get done towards your goal if you invested 8 full days on your goal. Or that turns into 11 [00:08:00] full 8 hour days if you were to do that 7 days a week just for 15 minutes.
So start working your creative magic And see how you get some time in your morning to work towards your goals. Okay, now in the last episode I talked about creative time. Go back and listen to that episode. That time is incredibly valuable and I think you'll absolutely love it. Again, doesn't need to be a huge amount of time, but you definitely want to get that on your calendar.
You'll be amazed at what you can come up with in that time.
And then the last piece of time I definitely wanna see you get on your calendar are breaks.
Schedule times for breaks and then take the breaks. Five minutes is not going to make or break your day. It's not like all the projects are not going to get done if you take five minutes.
And in reality, you're going to take the breaks anyway. Your brain does not work all day long without a break. It takes breaks. It'll take a break by Implying that you should check Instagram. Hey, let's check Instagram. Or, we're hungry. Or, let's go walk around. Or, you'll start talking to someone.
Or maybe you open up a [00:09:00] browser to Google something. Your brain is going to take breaks anyway. You may as well intentionally take them and then feel good about them. rather than beating yourself up that you just watched 10 minutes of cat videos. Of course, there's going to be other blocks of time that you put on your schedule.
Like I mentioned, I think, was it last episode? That I have blocks of time on my calendar to just say work, because I know every week there's going to be work that my boss is going to assign to me. I don't know what it's going to be, but it's not like a week is going to go by and she's not going to give me any work to do.
So I have blocks of time that are there just for getting those things done. And then depending on your job, I'm sure there's lots of different blocks you might need. Maybe you need time to check your email or slack. Maybe you need follow up times for phone calls, client hours, appointments, family commitments.
All of those things will go on your calendar too. But those time blocks, the ones I mentioned in this episode, are the ones that will give you the most impact if you were to put those on your calendar.
Try them out. Go in order. Don't try to put them all on your calendar all at [00:10:00] once. start with planning time, even if it's just 5 or 10 minutes at the beginning of your day, you'll save yourself hours and hours each week if you set up that habit. Alright, next week we've got a good one.
Morning routines. How to set yourself up for an incredibly productive day. Don't worry. My suggestion is not going to be waking up at three o'clock in the morning and doing yoga for two hours and Meditating for three hours to get productive. It's going to be actionable simple
and You'll be able to do it in a small amount of time but until then I hope you have an amazing week
