The Art of Manliness - Get More Done With the Power of Timeboxing

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.360 From work to chores to entertaining distractions, there are many options for what you can be

00:00:15.920 doing at any moment in the modern world.

00:00:18.160 We often endlessly toggle between these options and, as a result, feel frazzled and frustratingly

00:00:23.460 unproductive.

00:00:24.380 We feel ever haunted by the question, what should I be doing right now?

00:00:27.860 Or, what am I even doing right now?

00:00:30.440 My guests will share a simple but effective productivity method that will quash this feeling

00:00:34.160 of overwhelm, answer that question, and help you make much better use of your time.

00:00:38.840 Mark Zow Sanders is the CEO and co-founder of Filtered.com, a learning tech company, and

00:00:43.920 the author of Time Boxing, The Power of Doing One Thing at a Time.

00:00:47.700 In the first half of our conversation, we unpack what time boxing, which brings your calendar

00:00:51.860 and to-do list together, is all about and its benefits as a time management system, including

00:00:56.500 how it can help you get more done, live with greater intention and freedom, and even create

00:01:00.680 a log of memories.

00:01:02.260 In the second half of our conversation, we get into the practicalities of time boxing,

00:01:06.440 from how to capture the to-dos that will go on your calendar, to how to deal with things

00:01:09.660 that might pull you away from it.

00:01:11.160 We end our conversation with how you can get started with time boxing right now, and have

00:01:14.480 a more focused, productive, and satisfying day tomorrow.

00:01:18.000 After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash timeboxing.

00:01:26.500 Mark Zow Sanders, welcome to the show.

00:01:37.300 Nice to be here.

00:01:38.060 Thanks, Brett.

00:01:38.440 So you've got a new book out about a productivity system that you've been using for the past 10

00:01:43.740 plus years, and it's called Time Boxing.

00:01:46.420 What is Time Boxing in a nutshell?

00:01:49.260 In a nutshell, Time Boxing is a simple, easy system for spending more of your time on what

00:01:54.580 matters to you, so that you live a more intentional life, set more intentions, and see more of

00:01:59.900 them through.

00:02:00.980 I can give you a definition if you'd like.

00:02:03.240 Yeah, definitely.

00:02:03.740 We'll see.

00:02:04.040 What's that definition?

00:02:05.640 The definition I use, and which I came up with, and is in the book, is what, when,

00:02:09.880 one, and off.

00:02:10.740 So there are four parts to it.

00:02:12.540 So first of all, what are you going to do that day?

00:02:14.800 Then when are you going to do it?

00:02:16.160 We'll start and end times.

00:02:17.580 Then one is doing that one single thing and nothing else, and not multitasking.

00:02:21.980 And enough means doing it to a good enough standard, not trying to do it perfectly.

00:02:27.780 Gotcha.

00:02:28.380 And the way I described it to myself when I was reading this, it's basically your to-do

00:02:32.440 list, but on your calendar, scheduled out.

00:02:35.780 That's a good way of putting it.

00:02:37.120 Yeah, exactly.

00:02:38.160 Exactly that.

00:02:38.860 I mean, look, more concretely, I wake up in the morning, I get dressed, I brush teeth,

00:02:43.420 and I feed the cats.

00:02:44.960 I time box for 15 minutes right at the start.

00:02:47.420 So there's a 15-minute time box at the start of my day.

00:02:50.800 It recurs, so I make sure that it's going to be in there.

00:02:54.300 And in that 15 minutes, I'm planning out the subsequent 15 hours of my day.

00:03:00.180 And so I know that what I want to do, when I'm going to do it, and all the way through

00:03:04.660 the day, I can stick to that.

00:03:06.820 So that's what it is for me.

00:03:08.140 And I know that once I've planned it, I know that if I see that through, it's going to be

00:03:11.960 a good day.

00:03:13.080 I plan in leisure, work, break, slack.

00:03:15.260 And the main benefit is that any given moment, I know what I'm supposed to be doing.

00:03:20.220 That's really reassuring for me.

00:03:23.040 How is time boxing different from time blocking?

00:03:25.520 Because I've done that in the past, where I look at my calendar, and I block off time

00:03:29.280 to do things.

00:03:30.540 How would you say it's different from that?

00:03:32.100 In time boxing, you've got the notion of completing something within that time frame,

00:03:36.700 within the box.

00:03:37.380 So it's a little bit more proactive.

00:03:40.180 In my definition, which had the what, when, one, and enough, the what, when, one is absolutely

00:03:46.860 that's part of time blocking.

00:03:48.040 So time blocking is also deciding what to do, when to do it, and sticking to that one thing.

00:03:53.560 But time boxing adds a fourth dimension to that, which is, I'm going to do it.

00:03:57.760 I'm going to get something done, something done that I can ideally share with someone else.

00:04:03.520 So there's something complete.

00:04:05.080 So I'm moving the thing on, the baton of productivity moves on at the end of my time

00:04:10.420 book.

00:04:10.800 So in a nutshell, time boxing has a notion of completion to it.

00:04:16.300 Okay, so with time blocking, you might put something like, you know, work on essay on your

00:04:20.820 schedule.

00:04:21.420 With time boxing, it's going to be more like, finish first page of essay.

00:04:26.340 And we'll keep unpacking what time boxing involves throughout this conversation.

00:04:29.780 But when did you discover time boxing?

00:04:32.020 Well, I mean, it's a long story, but I'm 44 years old.

00:04:36.240 I started my career in 2001.

00:04:38.740 I was a disorganized mess back then.

00:04:40.920 And I was getting into trouble at work.

00:04:42.660 It just wasn't really working out.

00:04:44.660 There were mental health issues that came from that performance.

00:04:46.840 It just wasn't good.

00:04:48.540 After a couple of years of frankly suffering and not doing very well, I developed my own

00:04:52.880 system of personal productivity, which I called a daily work plan, DWP.

00:04:56.800 That was good.

00:04:57.720 That did some good.

00:04:58.320 It settled things, but it had some problems.

00:05:00.600 It didn't enable me to collaborate with others.

00:05:03.240 It didn't give me that answer to the question of any given moment, what should I be working

00:05:08.580 on?

00:05:09.960 So to answer your question, we get to 2013 when I just came across an article by a guy called

00:05:15.240 Daniel Markovitz in Harvard Business Review called Why To-Do Lists Don't Work.

00:05:19.540 And it was exactly as you just put it, right?

00:05:21.360 So it's coalescing the calendar and the to-do list in such a way that together they bring

00:05:27.760 a lot more value than either of them on their own.

00:05:30.400 So when I saw this, the logic of it really resonated and I started doing it straight away.

00:05:36.820 So that was 2013.

00:05:37.740 I'm doing it for the next five years.

00:05:39.600 I'm tweaking the system.

00:05:41.060 I'm bringing some of my own thoughts and applications to it.

00:05:45.660 And so in 2018, so five years later, having done it for five years, I wrote my own Harvard

00:05:51.520 Business Review article about timeboxing.

00:05:54.440 I was calling it timeboxing.

00:05:55.580 The original article actually didn't call it timeboxing.

00:05:58.240 And that was really popular.

00:06:00.640 It was on their most popular pages for some years, actually.

00:06:04.680 It was nowhere near as popular as a TikTok video that someone made in 2022.

00:06:08.540 And 10 million people watched that video.

00:06:13.020 And one of those watches, one of those views was from Penguin Random House, and they got

00:06:16.760 in touch about writing a book.

00:06:18.780 And that's how this has come about.

00:06:21.080 What problems do you think timeboxing solves in general when it comes to personal management

00:06:26.400 that other systems don't solve?

00:06:29.280 Okay.

00:06:29.820 So in terms of like what problem it solves, first of all, modern life is tricky.

00:06:35.960 There's so much going on and we feel like at any one time stressed and frazzled and overwhelmed.

00:06:45.180 You hear those words all the time.

00:06:46.700 And this is partly because of a constellation of megatrends.

00:06:49.280 So there's the internet, obviously, there's smartphones, there's knowledge work.

00:06:52.660 More recently, there's more and more work from home.

00:06:54.800 So that means that about a billion of us that are knowledge workers have a huge amount of

00:06:59.680 choice at any given moment of the day.

00:07:01.600 That obviously sounds great, but it leads to a feeling of it being a burden.

00:07:07.680 Three quarters of us report mental health issues.

00:07:10.420 And a big part of that is lacking clarity, intention, agency, or autonomy.

00:07:16.320 And that's kind of the price that we pay for technology.

00:07:19.560 We have everything at our fingertips.

00:07:20.840 It's always on.

00:07:22.360 And what this means is that we often don't use our time well.

00:07:25.580 So ultimately, that's really the problem that timeboxing is focused on.

00:07:30.400 It's using our time better.

00:07:31.600 We default to smartphones and feeds and streaming.

00:07:35.720 We don't decide.

00:07:36.580 We let these activities become decided for us.

00:07:40.660 So timeboxing is a simple system that addresses this by saying, well, spend 15 minutes or whatever

00:07:46.480 it is in the morning or the night before deciding what's most important for you to do and just

00:07:52.540 doing that.

00:07:54.600 But on your question of, well, how does it compare to other time management techniques?

00:08:02.160 Well, okay.

00:08:02.600 So I mean, there's a few things to say there, but one of them is that it's just consistent

00:08:05.960 with all of the other time management techniques.

00:08:08.560 I can't think of a single one where it doesn't fit with and doesn't facilitate and doesn't help

00:08:13.440 with.

00:08:14.240 Let me give you a couple of examples.

00:08:16.000 So take the Pomodoro technique.

00:08:18.240 I don't know if you know.

00:08:18.980 Do you know that technique, Brett?

00:08:19.840 Oh, yeah, of course.

00:08:20.480 I've used the Pomodoro lots of times.

00:08:22.080 I'd used a lot in law school, especially.

00:08:24.600 Okay, right.

00:08:25.340 So that's 25 minutes of hard work and then five minutes break, as you all know, since

00:08:29.540 you've used it.

00:08:30.160 Great.

00:08:30.680 But why be so arbitrary as that?

00:08:33.420 Why have 25 minutes exactly?

00:08:35.220 I mean, is that the right number for every single human being?

00:08:39.000 It can't be.

00:08:40.100 So what timeboxing is, is completely consistent with the Pomodoro technique.

00:08:43.940 You know, do 25-5 if that works for you, but if it's 30-10 instead or 45-15, do it that

00:08:50.100 way.

00:08:50.720 So it's consistent with, but supportive of, more flexible than the Pomodoro technique.

00:08:56.620 I'll give you another one.

00:08:57.880 Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy.

00:08:59.700 So this is the idea that it's better, it's more productive, it makes you feel better to

00:09:04.020 start with the hard stuff first.

00:09:06.200 Now, personally, I agree with this.

00:09:08.240 I actually much prefer to get the difficult stuff off my plate at the start of the day

00:09:12.340 so that my day, you know, gets easier.

00:09:14.400 But there are other people that like to build momentum by starting with some easier tasks.

00:09:20.640 Maybe they're not mourning people so much.

00:09:23.220 The point I'm making about timeboxing is that it accommodates either approach.

00:09:27.940 It's flexible to, you know, eating that frog or eating that frog later.

00:09:34.220 I'll give you just one more.

00:09:35.300 So Eisenhower, the important urgent matrix, you know, that two by two.

00:09:39.380 Well, with timeboxing, I mean, it absolutely is consistent with that.

00:09:42.200 That's a way of ordering your tasks or prioritizing them.

00:09:44.880 But at the end of the day, which are you going to do and when?

00:09:48.020 It gives you, I mean, literally gives you a timetable of slots, options to put those

00:09:54.260 important urgent tasks and the other ones into your calendar and get them done.

00:09:58.780 So that's the sense in which it's a very, very nice method because it's just,

00:10:03.460 you're already doing it.

00:10:05.040 There are all kinds of benefits and it really is consistent with all of the other time management

00:10:10.800 techniques that are already out there.

00:10:12.300 Yeah.

00:10:12.400 Another one that's consistent with is getting things done.

00:10:14.840 We've had David Allen on the podcast before to talk about that.

00:10:17.500 I had the podcast, yeah.

00:10:18.560 Yeah.

00:10:18.880 And so with getting things done, one of the big takeaways I took from that idea is that

00:10:23.000 when you list an action or to do that, you want to get done, you want to make sure it's

00:10:27.920 actionable.

00:10:28.560 You don't just want to be vague with it where it's like, oh, vacation planning, or I don't

00:10:33.260 know.

00:10:33.540 That's, I mean, I might, that's maybe that's not a good example, but like with, you want

00:10:37.820 to be very concrete and with timeboxing, same thing.

00:10:40.580 You want to make whatever you put on your calendar, you're boxing off time to do something.

00:10:44.520 You want to say, I'm actually doing this specific thing and not be vague.

00:10:49.760 Well, exactly.

00:10:50.320 I mean, just to pick your example, I think it is a pretty good one.

00:10:52.560 So, you know, vacation planning is, is vague.

00:10:56.160 Yes.

00:10:56.840 So you need to break that down and make it smaller, more actionable, more actionable,

00:11:02.740 partly because it is smaller, like break it down into a half hour task, you know, so which

00:11:06.880 vacation, what's the short list of countries?

00:11:09.300 Who am I going to go with?

00:11:10.800 Who's the decision-making group here?

00:11:12.540 Is it family?

00:11:13.160 Is it friends?

00:11:14.200 You know, make sure that that meeting happens or meet up with them to make that decision.

00:11:18.520 So, you know, breaking the task down.

00:11:19.980 I mean, this is really, really basic stuff, but the thing that timeboxing brings is that

00:11:23.840 once you've broken it down, it gives you a specific time in which you're going to do

00:11:28.180 it.

00:11:28.400 So you're not just saying, I want to do such and such, like go on a vacation.

00:11:31.220 You're saying at a certain time, I'm going to do this action, which is going to be a milestone,

00:11:37.380 a step towards getting that thing done that you want to get done.

00:11:40.460 Okay, so timeboxing, you're taking your to-do list, you're putting it on a calendar, you're

00:11:43.840 scheduling out the things you're going to do on your to-do list.

00:11:47.060 And I think a big benefit to that, it gives your day a concreteness.

00:11:51.100 I think a lot of times people in knowledge work, as you said, we have all this stuff coming

00:11:55.280 into our inboxes and just passing our screens and it's kind of just bleeds together.

00:12:01.080 And then you just kind of pick and choose what you're going to do and you leave things

00:12:06.660 half finished and then you have all these open loops going on because you're just pulling

00:12:10.740 from the stream.

00:12:12.080 With timeboxing, you just basically plan out your day.

00:12:14.580 It's like in 15-minute increments or 30-minute increments.

00:12:17.700 Here's what I'm going to get done.

00:12:18.740 And then when that time is up, you're done.

00:12:20.280 Like you move on to the next thing.

00:12:21.860 And there's something about adding that structure to your day that it alleviates a lot of the

00:12:28.140 stress that I think comes from having all those open loops in your head.

00:12:33.420 Yeah, definitely.

00:12:34.200 I mean, I think with open loops, you put it very well.

00:12:36.660 Structure is part of it.

00:12:38.460 I think it's also, it's just that protection from any other task.

00:12:42.340 Like, you know, for most people, Brett, they could be working on any number of the emails

00:12:47.880 that are in their inbox.

00:12:49.280 They'll probably have some Slack messages.

00:12:51.140 There'll be some stuff on WhatsApp.

00:12:53.040 There'll be several work streams that they've just got open.

00:12:56.240 And it's quite possible.

00:12:57.980 In fact, it's very likely that several of those are going to occur to you in any given moment.

00:13:03.420 What timeboxing is saying is whatever occurs to you, whatever distractions arise, there

00:13:09.780 is just one thing that you should be working on.

00:13:12.480 You, in a better, quieter moment that morning or the night before, said that that was the

00:13:17.300 thing that you should do.

00:13:18.180 So come back to your time box, even if you're feeling distracted and stressed and chasing

00:13:22.700 a couple of tasks, come back to the time box, do that one thing.

00:13:26.540 That is enormously reassuring.

00:13:28.800 I mean, the specific thing that I do is when I have that feeling of being distracted or sort

00:13:35.980 of chasing a rabbit down a rabbit hole, basically doing that second task or maybe thinking of

00:13:41.340 a third task, I feel slightly stressed.

00:13:45.600 I mean, maybe even mild panic.

00:13:47.700 It's an uncomfortable feeling.

00:13:49.180 And what I've trained myself to do is associate that feeling which is uncomfortable with the

00:13:55.340 action of literally uttering out loud.

00:13:57.540 I mean, I literally say this to myself, one thing at a time.

00:14:00.980 And that mantra, that utterance, the act of uttering that mantra, it calms me down.

00:14:07.820 I know where I am.

00:14:09.080 I know where I need to be.

00:14:10.340 And where I need to be is just to come back to my calendar because I probably lost track

00:14:13.520 of what the task was that I should be doing.

00:14:15.660 And I just feel so much better immediately.

00:14:18.460 Like that's actually the main, there's all kinds of benefits, right?

00:14:21.260 You're more productive.

00:14:22.160 You've got a log of what you've done and more intentional life, all of this stuff.

00:14:25.200 But every single day for me, I get the benefit of feeling calmer when I have those thoughts

00:14:31.780 that occur and I start to go down rabbit holes.

00:14:34.600 So that to me is the number one benefit.

00:14:37.520 And it's a mental health as well as a productivity benefit.

00:14:41.960 Yeah.

00:14:42.080 So time boxing also brings in another productivity idea, monotasking.

00:14:45.180 You mentioned that.

00:14:45.780 We've talked about that on the podcast before.

00:14:48.000 But I think this idea of structure is really underrated when it comes to your mental health.

00:14:53.640 I think that's why a lot of people have a lot of issues now and feeling anxiety and just

00:14:57.800 feeling the overwhelm.

00:14:58.980 There's no structure.

00:14:59.780 If I look back in my life, the periods where I felt the most on it, the most productive,

00:15:04.320 the most just flourishing, there was a structure to my day.

00:15:08.340 And I really enjoy that.

00:15:10.340 And when you're a young person, you might have the structure imposed on you because of school

00:15:14.280 and you have athletics.

00:15:15.840 When you're an adult, you have to impose that structure on yourself.

00:15:19.260 And time boxing is a tool that can help you do that.

00:15:21.280 If you do that and you're imposing the structure on yourself, that is freedom.

00:15:26.220 Yeah.

00:15:26.500 Because you're setting those intentions and then you're living them out.

00:15:29.880 It's no longer.

00:15:30.760 So some people look at my time box week and they say, well, that looks really restrictive.

00:15:35.980 You know, you've got all of these boxes everywhere.

00:15:38.060 There's color coding.

00:15:39.020 Maybe we'll come back to the color coding in a second.

00:15:41.660 Isn't that restrictive?

00:15:42.760 No, not at all.

00:15:43.560 It is literally it's a picture of freedom because every single one of those boxes I decided

00:15:50.060 on and then by and large, I mean, not absolutely every single one, but 90 something percent

00:15:54.980 I've then seen through.

00:15:56.720 That to me is close to the very definition of freedom.

00:16:00.020 It's doing the thing that you set out to do.

00:16:02.860 Over the last 10 years, I've probably done 50,000 time boxes.

00:16:06.240 That is a lot of freedom.

00:16:08.080 So another benefit that time boxing can provide to help you get more done is it harnesses the

00:16:14.480 power of implementation intentions.

00:16:16.740 What are implementation intentions and how do they help you get more done?

00:16:21.200 Well, the formal definition is it's a statement that you make of the form when situation X arises,

00:16:28.820 I will perform response Y.

00:16:31.660 So not just I want to lose weight or be kinder or go on vacation, but you're saying that when

00:16:37.640 a certain thing happens, then I will do such and such and such.

00:16:42.200 So time boxing is exactly that because it's saying with the situation arising, it's at a

00:16:46.480 certain time when the situation X arises.

00:16:48.980 So when it's a one o'clock, I will do such and such activity.

00:16:53.360 And what the science behind it says, and you can Google this, right?

00:16:57.040 Implementation intentions.

00:16:57.940 You'll see a bunch of journals that basically say, look, if you say that you're going to

00:17:04.000 do something at a certain time, you're very, very likely to do it about 90% chance of doing

00:17:09.880 it.

00:17:10.220 Whereas if you just have a vague notion of, well, I probably should do it.

00:17:14.760 And there's some light encouragement that there's, it's more like 30%.

00:17:18.520 So actually there was a study in which there were three groups.

00:17:22.360 The first group was a control group.

00:17:24.960 So they were just given the instruction.

00:17:26.840 It was about exercise.

00:17:28.220 So they're given the instruction to just record when they do exercise.

00:17:31.680 The second group was given some motivation and educational material, and also asked to

00:17:36.220 record the exercise.

00:17:37.380 And then the third group were instructed to time box it.

00:17:40.880 The first two groups are very similar.

00:17:43.100 About 30, 35% of them did the exercise or exercise weekly.

00:17:48.120 But the third group, the time boxes, they did it to, I think it was 91% of them exercised

00:17:53.460 weekly.

00:17:55.060 Now that's a study.

00:17:56.540 I think, first of all, it's just a study, right?

00:17:59.560 The real question is, does this work for you?

00:18:02.680 If a study is convincing, all it really means is, okay, there's a good chance that this might

00:18:07.360 work for me.

00:18:07.920 So maybe I'll try it out.

00:18:09.260 But it also makes sense, I think, in terms of, you know, I mean, take this meeting between

00:18:13.620 me and you, Brett.

00:18:14.380 Like it might have been that we couldn't go ahead because something on your end or something

00:18:19.120 on my end, actually, that very nearly did happen.

00:18:22.560 But how often is it that we actually need to cancel meetings?

00:18:25.980 You know, once we've made that commitment, I would say it's single digits, percentage-wise.

00:18:30.760 So basically, you know, and it just makes intuitive sense.

00:18:33.300 We're human beings with agency, right?

00:18:35.120 So if you say you're going to do something, probably you're going to do it.

00:18:37.720 Of course, there's exceptions.

00:18:39.100 But in general, you're going to do it.

00:18:40.440 If you put it into your calendar and there's no way that you're going to forget, you get prompts

00:18:44.680 from that calendar, there's a little bit of a public commitment as well, because with

00:18:48.400 shared calendars, other people can kind of see what you're saying that you're going to

00:18:51.420 do.

00:18:51.940 It's no wonder that you get to your 90-something percent.

00:18:55.600 So that's the sense in which implementation intentions are important to timeboxing, because

00:18:59.140 they're examples of it.

00:19:00.920 And they provide a lot of the science that backs it up.

00:19:03.540 I mean, that's the other difference between timeboxing and a lot of other time management

00:19:07.080 techniques is there's no science behind the other ones.

00:19:11.180 I'm not going to say that's the truth for absolutely every single one.

00:19:14.400 But there's just quite a lot behind timeboxing and implementation intentions in particular.

00:19:20.020 Yeah, we got an article about implementation intentions on our website.

00:19:22.820 We'll put a link to it in the show notes.

00:19:24.380 But yeah, timeboxing can be a tool, not only help you get through your to-do list and your

00:19:28.940 workday, but this can be a great tool for self-improvement.

00:19:31.580 If you always wanted to start exercising, well, you just put it on the calendar.

00:19:34.840 If it's three o'clock in the afternoon, I'm going to exercise for 30 minutes.

00:19:39.380 And you're more likely to do it if it's on the calendar.

00:19:43.100 Yeah, exactly.

00:19:43.600 Exercise is a great example, but obviously there are many others.

00:19:47.300 I've got a mnemonic which might be helpful to listeners, Brett, which is Mr. Elf.

00:19:52.520 So Mr. Elf stands for meditation, reading, exercise, learning, and friends or family.

00:19:59.880 So the idea here is that if you're at a loose end, so either because you're planning your

00:20:03.940 day at the start and you don't know, okay, what am I going to do 10 to 11?

00:20:07.940 What would be healthy for me?

00:20:09.100 What would be a good use of time that I won't regret later?

00:20:12.200 Think of that mnemonic, Mr. Elf, and it might help you out.

00:20:15.840 It's also very helpful, I find, when sometimes an expanse of time just opens up before you.

00:20:21.440 So I know someone, you're going to have dinner with someone, you had to get there, and then

00:20:25.140 you're going to come back.

00:20:25.820 So all in all, it was going to be three or four hours, but they cancel on you.

00:20:29.800 All of a sudden, you've got three or four hours.

00:20:31.600 Now, it's very easy to then get into, well, just stream from Netflix or go to social media.

00:20:38.000 And I'm not judgmental about that.

00:20:39.620 I do some of that myself.

00:20:41.120 But what I'm encouraging people to do more of is in that moment when you realize that,

00:20:44.980 okay, dinner's not going to happen.

00:20:47.300 Let's think about how I'm going to spend my time and choose the right thing.

00:20:52.380 So with Mr. Elf and these five activities, it's just very easy to remember.

00:20:57.020 And it's a good thing to keep in mind when this expanse of time just opens up before you,

00:21:01.720 like if you've, you know, dinner plans get canceled.

00:21:03.700 Rather than just defaulting to very easy, but not all that worthwhile activities,

00:21:08.520 keep that in mind.

00:21:09.440 And you probably use your time better and feel better about it after.

00:21:12.840 All right.

00:21:13.340 So not only can timeboxing help you get more done, can improve your life,

00:21:17.100 help you achieve those self-improvement goals you've had for a long time,

00:21:19.860 but you also talk about the record-keeping benefit it provides.

00:21:23.820 Walk us through that benefit.

00:21:25.720 I will in a second.

00:21:27.140 I just want to say that the other benefit and to do with getting more done,

00:21:30.880 it's not just getting more done.

00:21:33.400 The main reason that timeboxing helps you in terms of productivity is that it gets you

00:21:38.460 to the right things.

00:21:40.000 It helps you to get the right things done.

00:21:42.020 There's a quote from Drucker, which you may have heard of before, but he puts it really well.

00:21:46.940 There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not

00:21:50.920 be done at all.

00:21:52.240 So it's making sure that you do the right thing rather than just more of it.

00:21:57.060 But I'm glad that you brought up the point of, you know, the record of what you've done.

00:22:02.360 This for me is the least important benefit, but it's also the most underrated.

00:22:05.840 So I'm very pleased to be asked about it.

00:22:08.240 The benefit here is that it enables you to remember what you did on planet Earth in your

00:22:14.120 life.

00:22:14.660 So this could be work or could be pleasure.

00:22:17.160 Because it's in your calendar, you can go back and you can see how prepared you were

00:22:21.840 to present to all of those people last time you presented to them, or when the last time

00:22:25.520 you had a one-to-one with someone was, or how you celebrated your son's 10th birthday.

00:22:29.800 Actually, my son did turn 10 recently.

00:22:31.900 When you last had a date night, obviously photos capture some of that too, but they're

00:22:36.600 not quite so well structured and they're not quite so comprehensive.

00:22:40.280 They're also kind of self-selecting.

00:22:41.780 There's only certain kinds of events where people will take pictures.

00:22:44.960 And a time box calendar is more objective because it's just kind of everything.

00:22:49.660 That's just how your life was.

00:22:51.840 And if you use a Google calendar or Microsoft or whoever the provider is, the way that search

00:22:56.380 works, it's also just so instantly findable.

00:22:59.340 And if you've got some kind of log of what you've done, it's not like that's the end

00:23:04.140 of the information.

00:23:05.320 You go back to your calendar appointment.

00:23:07.760 So let's take the example of my son's 10th birthday.

00:23:10.220 So last December, he turned 10.

00:23:12.940 We went go-karting.

00:23:14.060 There'll be a time box on that Sunday when we did.

00:23:16.940 And if I just look at that time box and that date, memories will flood back.

00:23:21.540 Memories that just would probably have been inaccessible to me without that time box.

00:23:27.000 So it's really an extension of your memory.

00:23:29.420 And that can be useful in a kind of defensive mode if you need to sort of give an argument

00:23:33.800 as to why you were doing a certain thing at a certain time.

00:23:36.200 Or just emotive, positive reasons like remembering a date night or a 10th birthday.

00:23:42.640 Yeah.

00:23:42.820 And my grandfather, he kept a pocket diary his entire life.

00:23:47.060 And he did some time boxing in there, some rudimentary time boxing.

00:23:49.800 He put out a schedule that he did every day.

00:23:51.800 That's nice to hear.

00:23:52.320 But he's able to use his diaries throughout his life to write his memoirs.

00:23:56.080 And he's extremely detailed.

00:23:57.920 He'll tell you, like, I visited so-and-so to discuss this topic on this meeting.

00:24:02.740 And it's really interesting to get that view.

00:24:05.440 So I really appreciate that he time boxed and was able to write that memoir.

00:24:08.940 Absolutely.

00:24:09.860 I mean, it's very useful if you're going to write a memoir and a story of your life,

00:24:14.160 obviously.

00:24:14.700 In fact, I was out for seeing a friend for a drink last night.

00:24:17.640 And she was asking me, how long did it take to write the pitch for your book?

00:24:22.320 Because she was interested in writing a book.

00:24:24.280 I didn't know the answer to that question.

00:24:26.680 But I thought, well, I just have to go back through my calendar and see the time boxes.

00:24:31.780 And the answer was, I don't know, 15, 20 hours.

00:24:34.300 And I could see exactly when I did it.

00:24:35.820 So you can answer some questions that help some people, including yourself.

00:24:39.620 And mostly it would be for yourself if you've got it recorded somewhere.

00:24:44.260 And you can't otherwise.

00:24:46.240 Another benefit of time boxing, and you mentioned it earlier,

00:24:49.340 is it can help us collaborate more effectively.

00:24:51.680 What does that look like?

00:24:52.480 Well, this comes from the fact that for most people,

00:24:57.940 the calendar that they use is a shared digital calendar.

00:25:01.980 So that comes with a bunch of advantages.

00:25:04.060 But I'm going to focus on the shared aspect of it here.

00:25:08.720 So if you share it with some people that you trust,

00:25:12.620 they can see what you're up to.

00:25:15.060 They can accommodate that with their work demands or their life demands.

00:25:20.400 It can deepen relationships.

00:25:21.720 I mean, if they've seen that you're planning to see the new Dune movie, for example,

00:25:26.860 it might be a natural icebreaker next time you see them.

00:25:30.100 So there's superficial stuff like that.

00:25:33.080 But superficial that can go quite far.

00:25:35.560 And there's also just the efficiency of interpersonal commitments.

00:25:38.440 So, you know, if you ask me to do something, Brett, and I say, okay, yes, we'll do.

00:25:45.260 That is of some benefit, because I've told you that I'm going to do it.

00:25:49.880 But when is that going to happen?

00:25:52.040 If instead I say to you, I've time boxed it for such and such a time,

00:25:56.380 it's a lot more reassuring for you that it's going to get done.

00:25:59.440 You're going to know when it's going to get done.

00:26:01.400 And also, I mean, just to come back to the collaboration in the shared calendar,

00:26:06.740 you might not even ask me in the first place, if you look in my shared, you know,

00:26:11.240 look at my commitments and you see that, you know, I'm just having a really busy week.

00:26:14.920 So you might just hold that back until next week.

00:26:18.120 So one of the things it helps with is the efficiency of interpersonal commitments

00:26:21.980 and how we interact with each other, just to, you know, increase harmony and reduce friction

00:26:27.960 through just efficient knowledge, information exchange about what we're up to and when.

00:26:34.020 Now, that's a kind of very positive way of putting it.

00:26:37.360 It's not always that simple.

00:26:38.420 You do need to have that trust.

00:26:39.840 And, you know, if you work at a place where you don't have, you know,

00:26:42.420 have trust issues with some of your colleagues, then that's a tricky thing.

00:26:46.600 I mean, you can do some things like, you know, change the permissions

00:26:49.280 and what people can see on your calendar.

00:26:51.440 That's something you've got to keep in mind as well.

00:26:54.040 But in an ideal world where you can trust and you can be transparent,

00:26:58.200 it's a very, very efficient way of describing to people what you're up to and when.

00:27:03.120 Yeah, I interviewed Cal Newport a few weeks ago about his idea of a more sustainable,

00:27:08.360 slow productivity.

00:27:10.080 And one of the things he said is the problem with our current work system is that it's not transparent.

00:27:15.860 People can't see how much you have on your plate.

00:27:18.180 And so they don't think twice about adding to your load.

00:27:20.800 And this is one of his suggestions is to let people see your project list or your calendar

00:27:25.620 so they can see, you know, I was going to add another project to your plate,

00:27:30.320 but actually now that I see how much you've already got going on, I'm not going to.

00:27:34.080 So timeboxing fits in perfectly with that.

00:27:37.340 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:27:39.180 And now back to the show.

00:27:46.360 All right, let's dig into how we can start timeboxing,

00:27:48.780 get into some big high-level principles for people.

00:27:51.180 You recommend a digital calendar because the versatility of it is amazing.

00:27:55.080 You can have it on your smartphone, your desktop.

00:27:58.000 It's free.

00:27:58.520 Yeah, it's free.

00:27:59.320 You can collaborate with it.

00:28:01.040 Is there software that you prefer or is any one fine?

00:28:04.880 I mean, any of them are fine.

00:28:06.300 Like, frankly, the functionality between these different providers

00:28:08.920 is pretty minimal at this point.

00:28:10.560 So I think it's become a commodity, which is one of the reasons it's free.

00:28:14.460 So no, I don't particularly recommend anyone in, I mean, obviously there is one that I use,

00:28:19.540 but I don't think it's even worth mentioning which one it is

00:28:21.660 because it's not like I'm endorsing it specifically.

00:28:25.740 Well, I'll just be open.

00:28:26.540 I mean, it's a Google calendar,

00:28:27.820 but I don't think that's particularly pertinent to the practice of timeboxing.

00:28:31.200 Oh, okay.

00:28:32.080 So it could be anyone that you like.

00:28:33.760 Another part of this timeboxing element is capturing the things you're going to put on

00:28:36.900 your timebox, the to-do list.

00:28:38.900 Do you have any recommendations about that on how to capture all the stuff that you need

00:28:43.320 to put on your calendar?

00:28:44.920 Yeah.

00:28:45.160 So capture is very much part of the David Allen method,

00:28:47.740 and that's absolutely consistent with timeboxing.

00:28:50.660 So for me personally, I have one list.

00:28:53.420 It's a single Google Doc with all my meeting notes as well.

00:28:56.940 I update it every three months or so, otherwise it gets too big.

00:29:01.400 And it's really important to do that for exactly the reason that David Allen says in general,

00:29:06.740 and I think he said actually on your podcast, which is that you want to make sure you capture

00:29:12.380 it so that you don't forget it, but also so that it doesn't linger in your mind and distract you.

00:29:18.480 You know, you can kind of offload and free up your mind.

00:29:21.780 So yeah, I have one Google Doc.

00:29:24.140 That's where my to-do list goes.

00:29:25.900 All my meeting notes are in there as well.

00:29:28.460 And I don't think that that's the perfect method for everyone.

00:29:32.360 That's what I do.

00:29:33.760 But how it links to timeboxing is when you're in that 15-minute session at the start of the day,

00:29:38.680 planning out your day, that's when the to-do list comes in.

00:29:42.600 So, you know, whatever the version of the to-do list is for you,

00:29:45.180 that's when you bring it in.

00:29:46.380 It's the 15 minutes that the planning, and then you decide, you know,

00:29:49.240 what you're going to do and when over the course of your day.

00:29:51.800 Yeah, for me, I use Todoist.

00:29:53.720 That's my capture tool.

00:29:55.300 And I put everything in there.

00:29:56.340 So it's not only like I put in ideas that I have that I think I could take action on eventually.

00:30:01.880 Maybe they're not fully formed, but they could be fully formed.

00:30:05.180 I put in emails.

00:30:06.700 I even put emails in my to-do list because if I found if I don't,

00:30:09.920 then the emails don't get answered.

00:30:11.180 I don't think treating your inbox as a to-do list is very useful.

00:30:14.540 I put text messages in my to-do list.

00:30:17.120 So if I had an open text message I didn't respond to,

00:30:19.240 I put that in my to-do list and then I sort that out during my weekly planning.

00:30:25.060 Or you can sort that out during your daily planning or your timeboxing.

00:30:28.880 Well, the thing that, I mean, the pertinent point there, I think, Brett,

00:30:32.600 is that it's one place.

00:30:34.200 So you know that everything is going to be there.

00:30:37.380 You have a system presumably for, you know,

00:30:39.880 well, you're probably going into it daily, right?

00:30:42.060 Yeah.

00:30:42.420 So it can't be missed.

00:30:44.200 And it's the same is true of the calendar.

00:30:45.920 You know, when you move that along to when you're actually going to get something done,

00:30:48.560 because the calendar is just so central to so many of us.

00:30:52.060 You know, we have meetings every day.

00:30:53.480 We have to use the calendar.

00:30:55.440 We have to return to the calendar, whether we like it or not.

00:30:57.680 So things can't be missed.

00:30:59.320 The point with a to-do list and your timebox calendar is that you need to just make sure

00:31:04.800 that they are a destination that you go to frequently enough that you're going to not miss anything.

00:31:10.500 All right.

00:31:10.620 So we got our calendar.

00:31:11.560 We got our to-do list.

00:31:12.980 How do we get those things on the calendar?

00:31:15.260 The things that are on our to-do list onto the calendar, like how do you know you're going

00:31:19.680 through your list and you see a task and you're like, is this timeboxable?

00:31:24.520 Like, how do you know if the way it's phrased or set out or established, you can timebox that?

00:31:29.880 Is there any trick to that?

00:31:31.920 I mean, it's really just anything you want and need to do, right?

00:31:35.780 So let me give you some examples.

00:31:37.400 Some of these I did actually today.

00:31:39.540 So the timebox today, timebox, which is 15 minutes at the start of the day.

00:31:44.600 I've mentioned that a couple of times.

00:31:45.760 That was one of them.

00:31:46.600 I did some exercise.

00:31:47.920 That was 60 minutes.

00:31:48.860 So that's a timebox that goes in.

00:31:50.700 I mean, for me personally, I don't love doing exercise.

00:31:53.720 So having this extra commitment that is in my calendar, it makes the thing happen.

00:31:58.000 And then I feel, you know, I get the benefits later.

00:32:00.360 I have another one, which is meetings prep.

00:32:03.060 I do actually want to just explain this because I think this is really underestimated as a thing to do at work.

00:32:09.700 So this is a 30 minute timebox that I have not every day, but most days in which I will go through all the meetings that I've got later and just do a little bit of preparation for them.

00:32:21.080 That might just be two minutes of preparation, you know, checking last time I saw that person, what was the last email, who's going to be on the call, maybe check the meeting notes from last time or read a report.

00:32:31.460 But that means that every time I come to a meeting over the course of that day, I'm a little bit prepared.

00:32:37.040 I'm feeling a little bit more confident.

00:32:38.700 We're hitting the ground running in the meeting.

00:32:40.500 It's just a better experience.

00:32:42.160 So meetings prep is a timeboxable timebox.

00:32:45.640 Meetings themselves are obviously timeboxes.

00:32:48.680 They are in your calendar already.

00:32:50.060 And this is the sense in which we're all already timeboxing because we've got meetings.

00:32:54.480 So really timeboxing is easy because it's an extension of a habit that almost everyone listening to this is already engaged in.

00:33:04.220 I've also got timeboxes, you know, one-to-one time with the kids, with my wife.

00:33:08.060 There's one later for later on, which was writing an email to a potential client.

00:33:11.620 That's a 15 minute timebox.

00:33:13.380 So really just anything that you feel like you want to do, it is important to do that day.

00:33:18.180 I mean, with that example that I just gave of the potential client, I met this person a few nights ago.

00:33:24.180 There is an urgency because I didn't want to leave it too long before I got back in touch.

00:33:28.600 So it did make sense for it to go on to today's schedule.

00:33:31.900 So I think mostly, Brett, people have a good idea of what makes sense for a timebox.

00:33:37.240 You know, it's just a task.

00:33:38.720 And timeboxing, it just means that you've got to start time and end time.

00:33:41.780 And you bring a little bit of pressure to getting it done within that time.

00:33:46.060 Do you have a recommended increment of time you like to use for your timeboxing?

00:33:50.140 Is it 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour?

00:33:52.780 What's your ideal timebox?

00:33:54.840 You almost got it perfectly right.

00:33:56.420 So I have 15, 30, and 60.

00:33:59.120 Obviously, you can have any combination of numbers.

00:34:02.440 But what I recommend is not having too many.

00:34:04.960 So, you know, you're not sitting down to do a task.

00:34:07.480 And then part of your brain is lost in, well, should this be a 14-minute task or a 17-minute task or, you know, lots of different options.

00:34:14.760 I just got three options.

00:34:16.060 Small, medium, large.

00:34:17.420 Anything less than 15 minutes, for me, just doesn't make sense.

00:34:20.560 There's too much admin involved.

00:34:22.100 So I just said a minimum of 15 minutes.

00:34:25.000 Sometimes that 15 minutes will consist of, you know, three very small tasks or even five very small tasks.

00:34:32.200 But, yeah, 15, 30, and 60 are the three sizes I have.

00:34:37.080 And I don't have anything more than 60 because, I mean, obviously, sometimes a task will take more than 60 minutes.

00:34:42.640 I had to write a long blog, a longish form blog this week.

00:34:45.840 And that definitely took me more than 60 minutes.

00:34:48.180 But breaking it down into more manageable chunks was a big part of my method for getting it done in the, I don't know, two hours it took in total.

00:34:57.460 So I wouldn't have a two-hour time box for that.

00:34:59.240 And I did break it down into several smaller time boxes in those denominations, 15, 30, 60.

00:35:04.660 I like to break up my day in 15-minute increments.

00:35:07.400 I wonder if that's from my, I was an intern in a law office.

00:35:11.400 The billable hour is like based on 15-minute increments.

00:35:13.880 And so I like to think like that.

00:35:14.720 Just relate to the money.

00:35:15.720 Yeah.

00:35:16.480 How do you figure out, so you're looking at your task list and you're trying to decide how long this task will take to complete.

00:35:22.600 How do you figure out how long it's going to take?

00:35:24.900 How do you estimate that?

00:35:26.280 Because like there's this idea of the planning fallacy.

00:35:28.000 Sometimes we overestimate or underestimate how long something will take.

00:35:32.340 So how do we overcome that planning fallacy?

00:35:35.060 Okay.

00:35:35.620 So there's a lot of tasks where it's just really easy.

00:35:39.760 Like you're saying, well, I'm going to meditate for 30 minutes.

00:35:42.580 So there's no way you can get that wrong, right?

00:35:44.620 You just set a timer and the 30 minutes elapses and then that's the end of it.

00:35:48.800 So there's just no estimation that can really go wrong with that.

00:35:52.080 Or the meeting just is an hour.

00:35:53.400 Or you go for a 5K run and you know that it takes you 25 minutes or 30 minutes or whatever.

00:35:58.040 So I do want to say that although, yeah, I'll come on to the planning fallacy in a second.

00:36:01.840 But there are a lot of tasks that just are very easy to size almost by definition.

00:36:08.180 And then on the planning fallacy, which is basically that we are a little bit optimistic very often.

00:36:13.440 There's some wishful thinking going into how we think about a task.

00:36:16.460 We don't anticipate what might go wrong.

00:36:18.600 We just see it as if it all goes smoothly.

00:36:22.160 The way to get around this, and this is reasonably well understood I think now, is make sure you're not setting a time box unless you have some experience of it.

00:36:32.000 So if you've done this before, let's say the task is to write a 500 word blog.

00:36:37.580 Well, you could say, well, it's 500 words and it doesn't take me very long to write, say, 100 words, multiply that by five.

00:36:44.900 That's very likely to suffer from the planning fallacy because it wouldn't take into account the edits, your dissatisfaction.

00:36:51.860 Yeah, just some of the gnarly details of the real world.

00:36:54.200 But if instead you have written a 500 word blog before and you know that it took you 45 minutes or 90 minutes or whatever it was, that's a much better indicator.

00:37:03.560 And so the time box should reflect that.

00:37:05.640 You can obviously work on that and try and improve on your personal best in the future.

00:37:10.960 But really, the main solution to the planning fallacy is to base it on experience where you possibly can.

00:37:16.420 And if you've got a brand new task, it's harder to do.

00:37:19.080 And so you're going to have to be a little bit more experimental and keep some leeway in your schedule.

00:37:23.240 Oh, yeah.

00:37:23.960 So speaking of that, let's say you're planning this new task you've never done before.

00:37:27.180 You're not sure how long it's going to take.

00:37:28.500 And you time box that activity for 60 minutes.

00:37:32.500 And you're coming up on 60 minutes.

00:37:34.540 You're like, oh, I'm not going to get this thing done.

00:37:37.820 Do you extend your period you work on it?

00:37:41.500 Or do you like, OK, I got to stop this for now and move on to the next item and then schedule this for later?

00:37:47.500 How do you handle that situation?

00:37:49.520 OK, so obviously that does happen sometimes.

00:37:52.140 But I'd say a couple of things before we even get to that moment.

00:37:55.800 So first of all, in the planning in the first place, be really, really careful about how you're estimating as much as you can, how you estimate those time boxes.

00:38:05.120 Then secondly, don't just wait until you get to the 60th minute and then say, oh, I'm almost out of time.

00:38:11.500 Set a midway point.

00:38:12.940 So, you know, if you've got a task, let's use the blog again.

00:38:15.980 So 500 words you've got to write in 60 minutes.

00:38:18.540 Set a midway point of 30 minutes in.

00:38:20.900 How are you doing?

00:38:21.660 What's the word count?

00:38:22.460 What's the quality like?

00:38:23.880 But still, even if you set a midway checkpoint, you might get to that scenario that you just described, Brett, of, well, I'm kind of running out of time now.

00:38:32.420 What do I do?

00:38:33.020 And in that situation, you've got to use your judgment.

00:38:35.400 I mean, it depends kind of on how important is that blog?

00:38:38.520 What are you doing in the next time box?

00:38:40.720 Is that something that's flexible or is it a very hard stop?

00:38:43.680 And then you make a judgment call.

00:38:45.780 In my experience, though, if you time box carefully and you do the midway checkpoints, it's not very often that you need to change them.

00:38:54.420 You know, something like the 10% I was talking about earlier.

00:38:57.500 So, sure, you need to be flexible, but that's built into the system of time boxing.

00:39:01.800 It's not saying at the start of the day that when you, in those 15 minutes, everything's got to map out exactly that way.

00:39:07.640 And if it doesn't, there's a big problem.

00:39:08.940 So, another element of this time boxing isn't just, as you said earlier, it isn't just making sure you have every 15-minute increment of your day scheduled out and time boxed.

00:39:20.180 There is that.

00:39:20.920 But you also want to think about the order you do that in.

00:39:23.860 You're not just going through the list and just kind of haphazardly, okay, it's 9 o'clock to 9.30, I'm going to do this, 9.30 to 10, I'm going to do this.

00:39:31.040 You actually want to think about this like, okay, when during the day, when will I be most effective at getting this thing done?

00:39:37.520 Or when does this thing need to get done?

00:39:39.320 Does it need to get done earlier in the day or later in the day?

00:39:41.360 So, you also want to be thoughtful about the order you create your time box.

00:39:45.140 You do.

00:39:45.660 I mean, the order definitely matters.

00:39:47.420 The most obvious sense in which it matters is that there are certain dependencies that you might have, right?

00:39:52.760 So, let's say you've got a meeting on Thursday afternoon.

00:39:57.100 You definitely need to do some preparation for it.

00:39:59.800 Then your prep meeting for that will need to go at some point earlier in the week, right?

00:40:04.260 So, that's pretty obvious and people need to take that into account.

00:40:08.480 So, that's part of what I mean by order.

00:40:11.380 But then you've also got mood and energy, like you say.

00:40:14.820 So, for me personally, I'm pretty low energy mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

00:40:19.500 So, I tend to do a bit of exercise in the mid-morning because that just perks me up in the first half of the day.

00:40:25.640 And I'll tend to do easier tasks in the mid-afternoon.

00:40:29.260 So, that's what works for me.

00:40:31.320 But different people are going to work differently.

00:40:33.320 So, this is not me saying, well, you should do everything in the morning or you should do exercise in the morning.

00:40:38.620 You've just got to work out what is the way of curating your day and planning your day that's going to bring you the most fun,

00:40:45.260 work with the schedule that you have and how you're collaborating with others, and get stuff done on time.

00:40:50.880 Let's take an example, right?

00:40:51.900 So, let's say you've got two tasks to do.

00:40:53.960 One is to write a report and the other is just to do some exercise.

00:40:57.760 What's the order in which you should do them?

00:41:00.360 Is it exercise then report or report then exercise?

00:41:04.200 And that would just be different for different people.

00:41:06.660 For some people, if you do some exercise first, the blood's then flowing.

00:41:10.620 You've got endorphins running around.

00:41:12.400 You've got great energy.

00:41:13.660 That might be great for the creativity you might need to write that report.

00:41:18.100 But for others, it might be that, well, I want to write the report first, get some of those ideas in my head,

00:41:23.520 and then do some exercise like going for a run.

00:41:26.040 I'll be able to think about it, think of improvements.

00:41:28.360 I'll be able to come back and then update the report.

00:41:31.800 There's no right or wrong.

00:41:33.060 It's just what will be most productive and enjoyable for you.

00:41:37.280 Again, to come back to the word I keep using with timeboxing, intention,

00:41:41.620 the point is think ahead about your day, how things are going to go,

00:41:45.940 what's the order that's most likely to yield what you want to get from the day and do things in that order.

00:41:52.940 Let's say you've done your timeboxing, you got your day all nice and scheduled.

00:41:56.680 You can color code these things if you want.

00:41:58.200 You don't have to.

00:41:58.960 People have different systems of color code for work time, personal time, etc.

00:42:03.580 That can be useful if you like to do that.

00:42:05.620 But let's say you've scheduled out your day, your timebox perfectly, and you're like, this is amazing.

00:42:10.040 And then you start going throughout your day.

00:42:11.680 First couple of timeboxes, you pull off without a hitch, just things are running smoothly.

00:42:15.940 But then some unexpected, urgent, but important matter pops up during the day.

00:42:22.620 And it causes you to have to deviate from your plan.

00:42:25.300 So what do you do if that happens?

00:42:26.980 Well, I mean, I guess first of all, I just question, do you really need to deviate?

00:42:31.220 Is it really that urgent, the thing that's come up?

00:42:34.440 I mean, people often use this as an objection.

00:42:37.480 And of course, there are situations, like let's say your kid's sick or you have some sort of an accident

00:42:42.680 or there's a really pressing work thing that has come about.

00:42:46.300 So this does happen.

00:42:47.400 But how often does that happen?

00:42:49.240 It's a proportion of the, you know, it's not very often.

00:42:53.440 It's not most of the time.

00:42:55.180 So when it does, you just move your timeboxes around in the 5%, 10% of the times that it happens.

00:43:00.900 I don't think I've ever set out at the start of the day.

00:43:03.840 And this isn't probably quite true, but it's very rare that I would plan in those 15 minutes,

00:43:09.880 plan out the rest of the day, and not a single thing changes from there.

00:43:14.540 And occasionally, a lot changes because there's some big, you know, urgent thing that comes along.

00:43:19.840 But the point is that it's not that frequent.

00:43:22.780 I just say one other thing.

00:43:23.820 I mean, if you've got some unpredictable phase coming up, and for example,

00:43:28.420 you've got a bunch of deliveries that are coming that afternoon,

00:43:30.520 then it just doesn't make sense to set some timeboxes where you've got some deep work planned,

00:43:35.100 because you know you're going to be interrupted and distracted by those things.

00:43:39.020 So in that case, well, you know, probably don't set any timeboxes for that time.

00:43:43.300 Maybe go for a walk or do something that you can be interrupted from,

00:43:47.080 and it's just not going to cost you very much.

00:43:49.580 So I think that this actually is, Brett, this is the most common objection that I hear

00:43:54.380 to timeboxing is, but what about if plans change?

00:43:57.820 And so I just say, look, set realistic goals at the start.

00:44:02.200 Allow some slack in your schedule.

00:44:04.200 Know that it's not going to happen that often, really, probably less than 10%.

00:44:07.900 And in those 10% of cases, when it does, just move them about.

00:44:11.520 It's not a problem.

00:44:12.500 Yeah, I think that idea when something urgent and what might look important pops up,

00:44:17.860 ask yourself, does this really need to be taken care of right now?

00:44:20.700 And I would bet nine times out of 10, the answer is no.

00:44:23.160 I've noticed this with people who are in positions where they're in helper positions.

00:44:28.000 It could be a pastor, a caretaker, and they'll get this frantic text or call at 7 o'clock at night

00:44:35.080 and like, oh, I need to talk to you right now.

00:44:37.020 I've got this big problem.

00:44:39.040 And they're like, okay, well, I'm busy right now because I'm with my family.

00:44:44.260 I can't, can we schedule it for tomorrow at 6 o'clock?

00:44:48.520 And they're like, okay.

00:44:50.200 And they get to that time.

00:44:51.620 They're like, well, what's the problem?

00:44:53.740 Like, oh, it's not a problem anymore.

00:44:55.080 It resolved itself.

00:44:56.140 Everything's fine.

00:44:57.020 It's like, exactly.

00:44:57.920 In the moment, it feels urgent because it's happened just then.

00:45:01.560 I think actually for modern knowledge workers, for most of us,

00:45:04.380 the best example of this is just the inbox.

00:45:07.240 So some email comes in and it's from someone reasonably important,

00:45:11.140 like a client or a boss or, you know, a colleague or whatever.

00:45:13.940 And it feels like this is something, it's just been said to you.

00:45:17.820 So surely you need to react.

00:45:20.440 And there is this natural inclination to want to react straight away.

00:45:25.080 But in reality, like you just said with that example, you know,

00:45:28.200 it's probably not that urgent.

00:45:30.060 And actually the way to fix this and not be bothered by it is to just not see your inbox.

00:45:36.120 Don't see your inbox apart from in those time boxed occasions when you are supposed to be in an email.

00:45:44.240 Now that might be three times a day.

00:45:45.440 It might be once a day.

00:45:46.220 It might be a couple of times a week.

00:45:47.420 For me, it's actually only about three times a week.

00:45:49.360 So that for the rest of the time, I don't get bothered by the apparent urgency of some email that's come in from someone.

00:45:57.180 So I think you can protect yourself from apparently urgent requests on your time by not seeing certain things.

00:46:03.840 Let's say you've got your time box scheduled and you're working on something that requires you to be online doing research.

00:46:12.280 And then you find yourself down this rabbit hole and you've bled over into the next box.

00:46:18.100 How do you avoid getting distracted from your time box schedule?

00:46:21.400 Well, I think to some extent, it's not a bad thing when that happens.

00:46:27.500 I mean, in the example that you just gave, like you're down a rabbit hole, but it's kind of it's interesting and feels important and you're getting some stuff done.

00:46:34.460 So, and to some extent, I would say that's not necessarily awful.

00:46:39.000 But I think the thing to do is, look, you get these distractions and sometimes it is just something that's very, very interesting.

00:46:46.160 The trick, which I mentioned earlier in this conversation, is to try and notice, and this is, I would say, honestly, this is the only thing that's at all difficult about time boxing.

00:46:56.820 But really, this is about managing distractions because distractions are going to occur whether you're time boxing or not.

00:47:02.300 The trick is to notice that feeling that you're going down and you're doing this second thing, this thing that you're not really supposed to be doing, that you, not this thing that you said that you're going to do.

00:47:12.780 You're moving off, you're going off track, you're going down a rabbit hole.

00:47:16.900 Notice that feeling and associate it with a controlled and better response, which is to, I mean, in my case and what I'm advocating, coming back to your time box and coming back to that one thing.

00:47:28.540 And you can get better at that.

00:47:29.780 You can make the association stronger.

00:47:31.760 You know, now I, it's not like I don't get distracted.

00:47:34.460 I get distracted several times or many times, you know, over the course of the day.

00:47:38.240 The difference, I think, between me and a lot of people that, you know, have an issue with distraction is that I don't get distracted.

00:47:42.780 For very long because I'm associating that feeling with coming back to my calendar.

00:47:46.720 So yeah, it definitely happens, but try and associate it with a better behavior and coming back to, to what you're, what you're doing and you'll feel more in control and less likely to be down those rabbit holes.

00:47:58.780 So let's say someone's listening to this and they think, I want to give time boxing a try.

00:48:01.780 How can people get going with this?

00:48:03.380 Well, I would recommend this set a calendar appointment right now.

00:48:06.680 You're listening to this unless you're driving, you know, do that on your phone or on your computer in your digital calendar.

00:48:14.240 Set an appointment for tomorrow for 15 minutes at the start of the day, soon after you wake up, whenever it makes sense for you.

00:48:19.640 When that time comes tomorrow morning, take a look at your to-do list.

00:48:23.120 You'll also have a bunch of stuff in your head about what you might do and put two or three items in your calendar for later on.

00:48:28.700 I have this way of remembering, which is 15-15.

00:48:32.560 So I think of as 15 minutes at the start of the day to govern the remaining 15 hours of your waking life.

00:48:39.120 Obviously, you don't need to time box 15 hours.

00:48:41.380 So I'm suggesting to get started, just put in two or three items from your to-do list.

00:48:45.660 And then when they come up, obviously do them.

00:48:48.440 You probably will, like I was saying before, when we were discussing implementation intentions, there's a 90% chance you are going to get them done.

00:48:55.220 And that will feel good.

00:48:56.560 That will be good.

00:48:57.320 It will feel good.

00:48:58.180 And so you'll want to do some more.

00:49:00.140 So I'd strongly recommend set that 15-minute appointment right now.

00:49:03.740 You can forget about me.

00:49:04.840 You can forget my name.

00:49:05.760 You can even forget the term time boxing.

00:49:08.060 But then that calendar appointment will come up tomorrow and remind you to do something.

00:49:12.640 So yeah, so do it now.

00:49:14.000 Put it in your digital calendar and start time boxing tomorrow morning.

00:49:18.100 I love it.

00:49:18.480 Well, Mark, this has been a great conversation.

00:49:20.280 Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:49:22.620 I used to have this URL.

00:49:24.300 This was actually part of the pitch, which was timeboxing.com.

00:49:28.260 But Penguin, the publisher, said, no, don't do that.

00:49:30.320 You need to use your name.

00:49:31.640 So it's my name.

00:49:32.820 It's markzalsanders.com.

00:49:34.400 That's a tricky name, Mark with a C.

00:49:36.840 And zalsanders, no hyphen, Z-A-O-S-A-N-D-E-R-S.com. 0.82

00:49:40.820 And there's a newsletter and you can sign up and follow my thoughts on time and time management

00:49:46.200 and time boxing and intention agency and what have you there.

00:49:50.780 Well, Mark Zalsanders, thanks for your time.

00:49:52.040 It's been a pleasure.

00:49:53.320 Thank you, Brett.

00:49:53.960 For me as well.

00:49:55.720 My guest today is Mark Zalsanders.

00:49:57.240 He's the author of the book, Time Boxing.

00:49:58.880 It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:50:01.420 You can find more information about his work at his website, markzalsanders.com.

00:50:05.060 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash timeboxing, where you can find links to resources

00:50:09.060 and we delve deeper into this topic.

00:50:10.820 We'll see you next time.

00:50:40.820 Thank you for the continued support.

00:50:41.880 Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

00:50:43.520 Remind you to not listen to the AMO podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - March 20, 2024

Get More Done With the Power of Timeboxing

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