Why Time Blocking is Crucial

Well, when is the last time you had a look at your Calendar, whether in an analog or a digital. What is even there? Events such as birthdays, something else, or just white grids? Are your tasks / to-dos organized? You don't know what you have to do today or the whole week? Well, start with Time Blocking. But what is this even?

What is Time blocking

Time Blocking is a time management method, that involves scheduling or breaking something into blocks of time. Each block represents a specific task / to-do you have to do.

Like this:

As you can see, instead of spreading tasks throughout the day, like in the left, you block a time period for a specific task, do it and then move on to the next task. This way you can put all your focus to the current task instead of all, as multitasking is really hard to achieve.

Variations of Time Blocking

Now as we have general overview of what time blocking is, lets get a rough overview of different variations of it.

Task Batching

The method involves grouping multiple tasks together into specific time blocks. By using this method you reduce the amount of switching between different tasks which helps you minimize the different context. Task Batching is optimal for doing shallow works - tasks that don't require too much deep work.

Day theming

Day theming is a method where you block an entire day for a specific task or work. By applying this method you can do deep works as it this method allows you to get into a flow state.

Timeboxing

Timeboxing is similar to task batching, only the different is that you set a hard time limit for a tasks. This means you set 1 hour timer from 9am - 10am lets say for planning a project and after the time is over, you just move on to the next one. This method help you to limit time for tasks that can easily take more time than necessary.

Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a time blocking method which where you set 25 minutes for task followed up with a 5 minute break. This method forces you to get the task done due to the element of time pressure. After the time is up you will take a 5 minute break and move up or continue with the previous task.

⮞ AI time blocking ⮜

Nowadays AI is everywhere even when it comes to time blocking. Of course planning tasks for each day is tough - it requires some extra time to do this. Therefore there are tools like reclaim.ai (which I personally use) or Motion, which can help you plan the task you enter automatically. You just enter the task, the time it will probably take and when you want to finish it then the AI takes over takes your current events in your calendar into account and then plan the given tasks automatically. This way you save a lot of time which can be used for other things.

Why you should do it

Now the question stays: Why you should start with time blocking?

Well, it offers some benefits which you might get implementing in your daily life.

• Better focus

- Focusing only on one task for a specific amount of time reduces switching between different unrelated tasks (context switching)

• Deep work

- By scheduling every task you can bring all your mental resources to do one thing. This helps you to stay more focused.

• Managing shallow works

- By planning your shallow tasks such as reading and replying to emails and so on you prevent this types of tasks distracting you during the day by limiting the time for such tasks.

• Time awareness

- By planning everything, you can have a better overview of the time you actually spend daily and optimize it by managing their priorities.

• Achieve your goals

- By taking time for your daily goals you can progress faster and are also more likely to follow through.

This is are some benefits you can have by utilizing the time blocking systems. For sure there are other benefits too, which I might have forget it.

How can you do it

Now lets get to the implementation. How can you actually implement time blocking. What are the tools required?

First of all you need a calendar. It will be the main tool you will be using while implementing your time blocking. In it you will plan all your tasks for a day or even a week. Then grab a notebook / paper and write down all the tasks you need to get done (weekly / daily regardless) and also the time you might need and always put a buffer time of like 20-30 minutes.

After that priorate the tasks. What do you need really get done? Which task can wait? There are some method to sort task which are important and those which are not such as the Eisenhower Matrix.

Now that you all planned it out it is time put the tasks in you calendar. Have a look at it and put the task there where you have enough time to do it.

At last, if you have don't have enough time to put every task in you calendar, you can use AI like I previously mentioned reclaim.ai (which I use) or Usemotion (which cost a little too much for me) to plan the task automatically.

Helpful resources

Explanations

Links

[1] - "Time Blocking: The Complete Productivity Guide for 2025" - https://reclaim.ai/blog/time-blocking-guide

[2] - "Time Blocking" - https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/time-blocking#why-is-time-blocking-so-effectively

[3] - "The Eisenhower Matrix" - https://todoist.com/productivity-methods/eisenhower-matrix