Not long ago, I mentioned my horror at the idea of using your calendar to schedule your entire day (in 15-minute increments). Apparently, some folks do that. More power to them. It’s not for me.
On the other hand (when you’re a lawyer, it’s good to have more than one hand), I’ve recently been reading about how some people use their calendar to manage their day and what they do makes sense to me. Instead of breaking up the day into bite-sized segments of time, they schedule blocks of time that are dedicated to important projects or groups of tasks. Because it’s on their calendar, an appointment with themselves, they do them.
When I first heard about this, I balked because, being invested in GTD, I see the calendar as a place to record appointments and other must-do time-oriented tasks.
Once I saw how other people use time blocking, however, I realized that it’s not inconsistent with GTD, as long as you are committed to keeping those appointments with yourself.
Anyway, here’s what I’m doing right now.
I scheduled a one-hour block for writing. I do that first thing.
I scheduled a second block for my walk. I was already walking every day so this was just a matter of putting it on the calendar.
And I scheduled a third block for writing my blog post/email and doing other tasks associated with the business such as answering email.
By 11 am, I’m accomplished my MIT’s (Most Important Tasks) for the day. I’ve got the rest of the day to do other tasks, do more writing, read, work on small projects, take a nap, run errands, or whatever.
So far, so good. I like getting my MIT’s done early. If that’s all I do on a given day, it’s a good day.
Do you use time blocking? GTD? How do you use your calendar to manage your day?
