Timeboxing—The Key to Enhancing Your Productivity

January 10, 2019

After a nice long break over the holiday, many of us are finding it hard to get back into the swing of things.  Okay–maybe it’s just me.  So, I thought I would devote the month of January to getting those of us who are struggling back on the right track.

Timeboxing can be the key to our success. Successful people like Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and a number of others use this tried and true technique to manage their otherwise busy day. Timeboxing is the practice of setting a fixed amount of time for each task and integrating the resulting time blocks into your schedule.

I admit it—I have my trusty old “To do” list on my desktop with a gazillion tasks listed—both business and personal. But what has always increased my overall productivity is transferring those specific tasks into my weekly/monthly electronic calendar. The benefits of “timeboxing” are many. In fact, it may be the single most important skill or practice you can possibly develop as a modern professional.

I often use timeboxing when I have a task or project that I need to complete that entails many action steps. By timeboxing, I can commit to working on a few tasks for a given period of time to make a dent in it. For instance, I recently had to create a marketing plan for a client. As you can imagine, it had a lot of moving parts. However, because I was able to break it down into smaller timeboxing chunks of two-three hours tasks on my calendar— interview, research, write, etc.—it became much more manageable. One other important step is that I also gave myself permission to stop after a set amount of time.

Timeboxing also helps you avoid procrastination and increases your ability to control your schedule. It forces you to focus on getting the right thing done at the right time with less stress. You simply decide what to do and when to do it. It also gives you a comprehensive record of what you’ve accomplished. Because it’s in your calendar, you can always look back to see what you have worked on.

In summary, timeboxing can maximize your time. Try it and see how much more you can accomplish!