How Do You Manage Time?

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Alex Shalman. Alex Shalman said: How Do You Manage Time? http://bit.ly/eERdp5 [...]

Hi Chris, Thank you so much for this post/ video. This is exactly the way I want to approach my time in 2011, both my ‘at work’ time and my after hours where I focus on building my blog and my new site.

I was thinking about how to break up my day to achieve what I need to get done. I like how you block up the day to focus on certain activities. I work in a public relations role in a healthcare not-for-profit: my time isn’t always my own (I ‘consult’ to people in house) but I like the idea of blocking out periods where I know I will be productive.

Thanks again for even more useful content.

Not a bad idea, at all. I’ve been sticking pretty strictly to a To Do list and it’s been helping me get a lot more done, but I do think that blocking out certain amounts of time for certain activities would help me better assign weight to the items on my To Do list. At the moment, everything on the list appears (at least at first glance) to have similar weight. And that’s a problem.

Brillant again. Thanks for sharing.

Time managment is so important, I think if you use it in combination with Christopher Clark ‘s [comment] method whereby you use a weighted/priortised list then you can become super effective.

This is my Philosophy on Time:

“If you don’t fill your time with good stuff, bad stuff will get sucked in to this vacum”

What i like most about this is the grid structure, which to me, implies that the segments can be moved around. What often doesnt work for me is setting specific times in the day to do things. Throw in one important meeting or an unexpected errand and bingo! The schedule is shot.

I will probably try to break up my day into chunks similar to this, but I’m definitely going to make those chunks shiftable.

Agree with you on the To Do List not being open to weighting tasks. I’m going to give Chris’ method a go…

I like your system simply because it’s specific to you. Everyone has different learning and work styles, and it’s important to create a process that you can reasonably stick to.

I also agree that when you decide to produce, you can’t have any distractions. Whether your production time is 15 minutes or 1 hour long, you’ve got to turn off the e-mail pings and look away from the bright and shiny stuff on Twitter.

Thanks, Chris. I heard about this approach recently from a friend (without the visuals) and told him, “I’m not that regimented.” But time management has been a big issue for me since starting my business, and I do like the idea of time blocks, especially if they can be shuffled around as needed.

I’m going to try a twist on this idea, with “puzzle pieces” for typical tasks. If I arrange them each day to fit my commitments and goals, I’ll have the flexibility I need, and hopefully finish what needs to be done.

Chris,

Interesting breakdown… but where do you fit biz dev efforts, calls with clients, meetings and most importantly, what are your strategies for interruptions — how to handle and minimize negative effect on your well planned day?

Love the whiteboard approach… great idea to post a big white sheet up next to desk to keep you on point.

Thanks for sharing.
@TomMartin

Super useful as always Chris. I had recently started blocking my time like this, particularly for the consumption and commenting time slots. Whenever my production time got sidetracked because I had stumbled upon a great post, and then even more delayed because I was cooking up a good comment, I would feel like I was being less productive.

By blocking my time, I could consume content, react/reply to content, and produce, all without feeling interrupted or less productive. The challenge, as always, is to stick to it.

Time blocking is something I was turned onto by a former employer, and it is something I use everyday still, in work and play. If I know I have time set apart for ‘production’ or spending time with loved ones, I turn off my phone, email, and tweetdeck and focus on the task at hand.

Multitasking, for me at least, is often a bigger detriment to my work then it is worth. Time blocking is a way of addressing that.

Yes! Chris I advise my clients to do this! Love the video explanation – you really clarified this concept in a visual way, which will help many!

I do quite a bit of reading on my industry as well as related industries. The challenge is working from home with family, because it never “looks” like work and therefore others are more prone to interrupt or dismiss your sitting on your ass on the computer as anything other than work.

I think that’s a pretty good thing, as you mentioned, for a flexible schedule. At dental school, my schedule is flexible in some instances, and not in others. I do after all have mandatory pre-clinical labs, but most of my lectures are video recorded and thus not mandatory to attend. What usually ends up happening is I ignore everything except study study study, neglect my health and everything else. So far it’s been a semi-viable solution until this crazy year is over.

I think for people that have inflexible day jobs, a block such as the one you used above would be very useful for prime-time after-work hours. When you’re working on your own projects. Weekends as well.

Would love to hear how this continues to pan out for you after about 3 months.

I like this approach, I think it may be different for others as to how to apply the time slots and activities but just the idea of blocking interruptions helps a lot. I’ve tried a combination of GTD and the 10+2*5 which means work 10 minutes straight, take a 2 minute break to search the web, do fun stuff, etc. then another 10 minutes of work all this 5 times and that’s an hour.

Another thing I’ve tried is what Merin Mann suggests with Inbox Zero and I feel I am more in control of my email. At the end it all has to do with how you process “stuff” that comes your way and be in control.

I also like the 6 hour approach, I’ve always thought that why if we are so advances with technology and computers we are still working (in general) 8 hours and still getting the same pay.

This looks good on paper, very good, that’s why everybody agrees. How do you make sure to be uninterrupted during production?

Oh how I wish I could break down my day like that. Being a content producer and editor, it becomes really tough!

I think it’s a great system and I already use something quite similar. I’m sure you know as well as I do about the ‘ME time’ being ever so important. I like how, and completely understand why, you leave the 2 hours open for ‘other stuff’.

I don’t know about others, but I find the ringer off, music on ,email closed and pushing myself to stay focused works really well.

Handling interruptions is key, especially for those who’s office is at home. Turning off email and not answeringt the phone for an hour is simple (autoresponders, etc…) but the tough part is the family crisis that always seems to come up right when you get “in the groove” producing. Sharing the importance of the time blocks and setting firm boundaries are mandatory.

hi chris – your grid beats the to do list any day. I call my prime time focus hours. btw, how do you stick within the times you’ve set, use a stopwatch? also, do you send all your calls to vm? thanks.
jinan

You mean there is a better way then getting up- doing what you have to do- then going to bed?

Do it – Plan it – Delegate it – Bin it….then for Do it and Plan it

Red time – important and urgent stuff – moving me towards my vision – closed to to all but me
Orange time – reactionary time – reading and publishing – open to diversion for important stuff

Then for all areas
Green time – open to all on first come first served basis – and for deciding Do/Plan/Del/Bin

First thing everyday is a schedule for the above with at least 1 core/set hour every day for Red, Orange and Green

Works great for me – hope it gives others another way of thinking.

Steve

I think that bringing it down to 6 hours is great. Because if you try to add more time you end up not getting even 2 good hours of work completed.

I have to work on my prep before the day and after. I am sure that will help out a lot in accomplishing everything else in the other 5 hours and 20 minutes left.

I will give it a try and it seems a better approach than laying out my 10 hour day which sometimes i end up having only 1 hour of production and 9 of other things.

Thanks for the helpful video, Chris. I think setting up time blocks in this very visual way is a great tool and I will definitely try it. My system now is a to do list, but I do organize this by grouping similar tasks together, as I find it more efficient to perform similar tasks together, ie. call everyone I need to call, write everything I need to write. Before setting up this grid, though, I would probably spend a few days really logging in where my time is going according to these categories, and what I want to increase or decrease, so I have more of a sense of where I’m coming from and can adjust for future goals, or even eliminate entire categories that may have been helpful once, but are no longer.

Wow, I love the way that grid looks. Maybe it’s my visual design nature, but I really hate To-Do lists. I don’t like the linear up-to-down format at all. I can’t think like that. I have 3D bubbles of ideas swirling around in my head and a To-Do list is 1D.

Your 2D grid is closer to my internal 3D idea matrix. I will most definitely try it out and see if it helps my time management! Thanks Chris.

I think Chris is on to something, but it must be said that before you can layout how your day should go, you need to determine WHAT to put into those hours. An hour of reading? Or an hour of email? Find out where your priorities are. Next, do you need a break? Seems trivial, but a 10-minute break could train-wreck the rest of your time. So schedule for it.

I have read that what you don’t measure you cannot improve upon. I don’t know if that applies in everything but I know it does when it comes to money, time and calories. Good system I think and only thing I might add would be to block the most productive things first in your day and go down through your priorities blocking them in until you run out of blocks. Then block the rest later or not at all. I like to plan priorities more than time.

Chris

I think if I had 6 hours straight of uninterrupted work where things did not overlap into one another I would be a super hero. However I really like the way that you break things down and allot time to each. While my day time time blocks are challenging, I find that putting it into x time to do this, x time to do that does really make things much more productive and allows for shifting things around easier. It starts with the set-up as having a clear understanding of what needs to be done paves the way as to how you will get it done.

Man! This is great! again here you are showing fantastic and simple ways to think visually and actually to think differently. I have been time blocking for a long time, but I never saw it as you have shown in your video. And I love it … As soon as I watched the video I created my “time-blocking box” and I can see right away that is simpler (and better ) than what I was doing before. Thanks!
Cheers,
Ivan

I think you also need to block in an hour for an afternoon walk or some physical activity. Complex problems work themselves to simplicity during those walks. Pushing away and getting away physically for a bit in the middle of the day works wonders for a productive afternoon.

To sit and concentrate, especially with deadlines, I use a technique called Pomodoro. 25 minute blocks of time to focus and work on ONE task. Sounds like it would be silly, but it works for me.

This is my biggest challenge, too!

That seems like a great plan. I use 33 minute increments to be productive with about 15 minutes in between to usually read and comment on one blog. A little trick I learned from Eugene Schwartz and it seems to work well. By the time 33 minutes is up, I am about out of juice. I have to give myself a little time to refuel and then can hit it for another 33 minutes. Besides, anyone can do something for 33 minutes.

Paul, I usually schedule a 15 minute break, which is the perfect amount of time to read a blog and do some commenting. Then, it is back to work. Buy you are right. Small breaks in between the productivity will keep you from getting burned out on having to produce and be creative.

Nice way of presenting, Chris! I’ve been using blocks of time to schedule my work for a while now (I’m self-employed). What exactly needs to go in the blocks is determined my monthly goals, which in turn is derived by my ONE goal (half-yearly). A monthly goal guides my decision-making on what to do with my days. I work on no more than three projects at the same time and make sure that at least one of them (preferably all three of course) contributes to my goal.

My guess is that Chris fills his blocks like this as well, since in many of his posts he stresses that things should start with a goal. Am I right, Chris?

Allocating blocks of time also works pretty well for me when I’m working on projects that don’t really contribute to my goal. Because I set limits on the time spent on those projects, I can usually find ways to simplify the task I need to execute for that project.

I also know from experience that meetings hardly ever contribute to my goals. So, if I really have to meet, I schedule them at less productive times (that’s the afternoon for me). I also cluster tasks like processing email and phone calls. I plan blocks for that after my creative and productive work.

I like the idea of time chunking, and in fact, teach it to my clients and students, however, I’m not sure your schedule wouldn’t work for me — I guess that’s why it’s YOUR schedule, eh? — because it moves around to different activities too often throughout the day. But, I would be willing to try it and see if I can be more productive. I’m always willing to be surprised.

I prefer batching my time by the day…Mondays are for content creation/writing, Tuesdays are for production and live engagement, etc. I find the longer I’m able to focus on one activity, the more I’m able to get done.

Your illustration and breakdown of time into blocks is interesting Chris and may lend to measuring overall productivity. Further it may limit getting caught up in the minutiae. I confess its something I struggle with. Perhaps mapping my time out in such a matter may help improve my time management. Thanks

I think I will probably try some sort of combination. The to-do list is still very useful for me, but I would like to have a more visual representation of what’s most important.

Nice work, Chris. Wonder how this will change shape as your business matures?

I have been trying to work out blocks for sometime. I’m gonna give it a go!

Excellent! Glad you’ll try it. Let us know what you find out.

We’ll see. I’m trying to work it out that my team can work in their own version of time blocking, but we’ll see. I haven’t formally mentioned ANY particular way that I want them to work. Hmmm. Cuulture stuff.

That’s the biggest trick of it, Drew. I get caught up in little things easily. I’m trying to see if I can change that.

Right. That’s just my schedule. You can certainly do it by days. My world doesn’t allow for that as every week is different. But I’m glad you see that. : )

[...] isn’t an all-day thing. (see my time blocking post to get more on [...]

You’re right, Roland. Great question and great job figuring it out.

I like that you point out that meetings rarely contribute to your goals. Same with me. They’re the worst.

Oh I like that idea, Sal. 33 minutes is an interesting time. Why 33? Just to be interesting?

I’ve heard of it before, but never knew what the technique was about.

That’s kind of hidden in my drawing, but yes, I have a commitment to more fitness and mental relaxation. Doctor’s orders. : )

That’s kind of hidden in my drawing, but yes, I have a commitment to more fitness and mental relaxation. Doctor’s orders. : )

Glad to hear it, Ivan. Thanks for the kind words. : )

Glad to hear it, Ivan. Thanks for the kind words. : )

Glad to hear it, Ivan. Thanks for the kind words. : )

But you schedule your time, for the most part. Barring client meetings and the like, it’s up to you to figure out where the hours come from, right?

But you schedule your time, for the most part. Barring client meetings and the like, it’s up to you to figure out where the hours come from, right?

But you schedule your time, for the most part. Barring client meetings and the like, it’s up to you to figure out where the hours come from, right?

Agreed, Kory. Great perspective. : )

Agreed, Kory. Great perspective. : )

Agreed, Kory. Great perspective. : )

Agreed, Kory. Great perspective. : )

Breaks definitely help the world out, don’t they? I don’t account for them, but they’re in there. The way I see it, breaks always schedule itself out.

Breaks definitely help the world out, don’t they? I don’t account for them, but they’re in there. The way I see it, breaks always schedule itself out.

Breaks definitely help the world out, don’t they? I don’t account for them, but they’re in there. The way I see it, breaks always schedule itself out.

Breaks definitely help the world out, don’t they? I don’t account for them, but they’re in there. The way I see it, breaks always schedule itself out.

You’re right, Jared. Linear to-do lists rarely work well for me.

You’re right, Jared. Linear to-do lists rarely work well for me.

You’re right, Jared. Linear to-do lists rarely work well for me.

You’re right, Jared. Linear to-do lists rarely work well for me.

I love the concept and I think there is a way for folks to craft time blocks to best serve their schedules. My fear is (especially in my industry- PR) that with the rate of twitter, blogs and other social media posts… how to keep to the time blocking, without abandoning client needs. Whether it would be cultivating client relationships to anticipate switching off for blocks of time, hiring someone to keep an eye on things when you are focused on production etc… that is up to the person mapping out this time blocking.

I, for one, am going to give this a shot and see how much fine tuning and tweaking it will take. Would be great to make 2011 the ‘Year of the Rhythm,” for my work days.

Being in Business Development and Sales for a company starting up a new office here in Massachusetts time is certainly not my ally at all. I also have a quota of sales calls to make weekly and that I guess would be my production time. I like the breakup, I may need to tweak it more perhaps.

Thanks for the advice Chris. We ge so caught up in the minutia that we forget that we actually get paid to work.

For those that are more “in control” of their schedules, I think it is fantastic. In my previous life as a Project Manager/Engineer. I did a lot of that type of “time blocking” … of course each day was still managed a bit differently.

If you have to manage “disruptions” it is a little more difficult to do that; such as, retail. The customer comes 1st … and sometimes I struggle with getting any of the supporting work done, which is a good thing!

Cheers!

Hi Chris!

This was great – made something that has seemed so overwhelming for me into something visual that I can actually implement. I’m definitely going to try this time blocking thing out and see how it goes!

Hi Chris,

Thats an interesting take, I’m looking forward to chopping my day up tomorrow and seeing what I end up with.

Thanks!

Matt

Chris,

I think you have really come across something here. I think by mapping out our day ahead of time, you can really have some real control over your day. It will really cut down on some of the mismanagement that we all experience.

thanks for the insight!

I have used time blocking in my job as an executive assistant in real estate, and even with the sometimes intense customer service interruptions, it is nice to know what “should” be going on when. It allows me to reschedule an essential task to later in the day, if need be, so that crisis don’t destroy the regular work of running the business. When I am working on a project, I put a note on my office door and ignore the email for an hour.
In the time blocking you show here, I like that “production” and “publishing” are two seperate tasks. I have found that the time I set aside for my personal writing at home is often filled with “publishing” or packaging it rather than acutally creating new content. Your comments really opened my eyes and I will add in a block for publishing in my at home work time so that I stop stealing time from production/writing.

Nice job Chris. I like the targeted time blocks and agree to the adjusting for personal work objectives. I would add, for sales people, pare it to face time with clients during peak periods of the day/week, and do the email and commenting/publishing in the early am-tail-end of the day.–kudos.

You do a really good job at separating family and business. Nice to see that your business time doesn’t interfere with family.

The absolute best piece of advice in your video? When you are in one particular time block, shut off all the other things! I am working hard on this one by shutting off twitter, email & facebook during production times. I have this constant feeling of needing to be available all the time.

If I don’t soon change that strategy I won’t be around to do anything from exhaustion!

yes. It is quite a rigid schedule. I have to be sure that I stay on schedule or else I am making up time late into the evening/early morning which cuts into sleep time.

Client meetings or the like do move things around but then it make the schedule all the more important. For me and what you have detailed in the article, the allotment of time is where I find success. If not I wander aimlessly around the interwebs.

In real estate, some of us have been trained in the Floyd Wickman method of time blocking (hope I’m not reiterating what others may have posted) – meaning, we do similar to what you’re doing there, but our time is also color coded – one color is money-making activities, another is “personal or family time” (such as workouts, worship, or dinner), others are education, open houses, showing properties, networking, social media etc. Part of the reason for color coding is that we often have 12 hour days when we need to carve out specific areas of time for specific activities and if we don’t, those things don’t get done.

Am I good at this? Honestly, no. Real estate is a very fluid biz where it’s a bit difficult to say “hey, I’m going to devote from X to X time frame to marketing” only to find that we have a potential client ready to see a property that we’ve been heavily marketing – whee! Let’s go!! It’s a lot harder to say “no” or “oh I only show properties from X to X time frame on X day” – instead, we give potential clients a choice for “now” like they requested or “how about X time or X time so I can get some info together for you” – thereby giving US time to consider all the variables inherent in the client relationship.

At any rate, this is a good thing, this time blocking idea. Kudos to all who do well at it and I’ll continue to try my hand too.

I like the concept. One of my worse habits in the past was leaving the Outlook “pop-up” box running while working on other things. What a distraction! Jumping on every email that popped up in the corner. I had to have gained an additional hour of productivity by shutting that down.
Another element I think that needs considered is mood and motivation like David Allen points out in GTD. Are you in the mood and do you have the right mindset to tackle next steps in that big project or should you wipe out a bunch of the little tasks you have been avoiding? I find this invaluable when negotiating my day with myself.

I like this, one question, are these 6 consecutive hours?

Great advice, thanks Chris. The biggest interference I find for this sort of process is people booking meetings, lasting an hour, that are almost just for the sake of having a meeting and covering their backs…I’ll definitely try this approach though.

Great video Chris, I think I’m going to give it a go with a modified version for myself. Lets see how this gos!

Hi Chris,

Thanks for all the hard work, and great information.

I so enjoy your blogs.

This is a comment to your “Distractions are yours to manage,” blog, which, by the way, I loved reading.

I agreed with many things you said.

But I noticed that at the BOTTOM, of your long to-do list, you mentioned your family?

However, because I regularly read your blogs, I already know how much your family means to you; how much you love them.

But here’s the thing, Chris:

Though I understand, that working hard IS how (in a big way) a man gives to his family; just as, say, a stay-at-home mom’s way of giving, may be to cook a nutritious meal for her family: her time spent driving to and from the grocery store, prepping, and cooking the meal.

But what IF, we put our loved ones at the TOP of our to-do list, rather than at the bottom, or somewhere in between?

What IF we gave our time to our family, first thing in the morning, and again, at night?

And if for no other reason, and there are many, than the fact that, our kids need us/our TIME more than things, and make us laugh, and laughter is love, and giving and sharing love with our families, is THE most important thing of all. And never mind that laughing/sharing/loving, is healing, rejuvenating, relaxing and uplifting: a great immune builder, for the entire family, and a great way to start our day.

By putting family first, first thing in the morning, and last at night, combined with breaking our deeply-entrenched, old mental habit, like a worn-out shoe, of using our ‘willpower’ to try to ‘do’ the many things we feel we must do each day, which takes so much time, or else, everything will fall apart, we think, instead, just let go, of our need to control things, by micro-managing every last detail in our day and lives, which sets us up for every bad thing, and blocks the flow of creative energy, and sucks the life-force from us.

As spiritual beings living in a spiritual world, we can at any moment, in fact, we must at every opportunity, first, remind ourselves of that fact, and, second, then, immediately tap into the invisible, and infinite source and supply, where the miracles occur, and sit back, kids in lap, arm around our wives and husbands, and watch in sheer amazement, over time, which most folks say they don’t have, as the right people, places and things, and at the right time, and sometimes, slowly, manifest in our lives; and not by our willing it or making it happen either, but effortlessly…

Louise

Chris, thats a great outline but, i noticed phone called were not included? Can add some though on this?

I have been in the process of thinking how to get the most out of my day and I like the way you have broken this down. For me blocking out product time – lead generation – is crucial. My shortcoming is that I tried to plan my whole day not just the work day and that became overwhelming.
Thanks

great way of taking it down to specifics of how to get things done. Chris’ blog today about distractions is a great fit with this. And I had to look over my shoulder and under my desk to see if he was there – he mentioned pretty much all my favorite distractions!

I am not generally a fan of New Years resolutions, but it’s become painfully clear that distractions are eating up way too much time that ought to be more productive, so I’ve resolved to set aside a block of time every day for each of my major projects. Your layout has helped me to focus more on identifying sensible components within the major blocks. Thanks for the timely advice!

I understand that in theory I should be able to manage distractions without tricking myself, but am planning some extra help anyway by creating a physical separation (setting up office space around the laptop in another room, away from the PC and possibly even out of wireless range – not too sure about that yet). Hope it works!

I need to do a better job turning off e-mail. I become a slave to the things that pop up and next thing I know, I’ve done little that I wanted to get accomplished. I found this from your post, Distractions Are Yours To Manage. For some reason, I act like it’s everyone else’s fault that I’m not getting things done, when it’s really up to me to focus and stay on task. Thanks for the visual on planning a work day!

Yes, this is very helpful. I know I get too reactionary in my day that when free time does appear, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve been experimenting with some of David Allen’s work but I like the simplicity of your idea. Chunks of time for focused efforts. That’s so much of what I need. And LynnetteRadio and Doctordaigle, thanks for sharing the info on Pomodoro. I’m definitely going to check that out.

[...] to help manage time, I’m going to use Chris Brogan’s Time Blocking Technique as well for the next 60 days. I want to commit the next 60 days to utilizing this tool and [...]

Fantastic points of course. …I can’t help but appreciate the irony of spending time on your site learning this…goes to your oft made point that we must execute..not train forever!

I notice a big difference in focus when I am using Pomodoro, though I confess I use it for planning, not so much for reviewing where my time goes and improving estimates. There is something about having short deadlines that gives me greater focus and sense of urgency.

I plan my day in 3o minute chunks. Each task has a multiple of half hour time blocks, or pomodoros. I first calculate my available capacity (i.e. unscheduled time) then write out some tasks on stickies with those estimates. Tasks are ordered by priority. I fill my day about 80%, leaving room to add in a new task or extend an existing one. The calendar takes care of the appointments. Works well for me.

Given that information is growing at a monumental pace, how do you keep up?…

It can certainly be challenging to keep up with the firehose of information but remember that you control how information comes inbound to you, depending on who and what topics you decide to follow; what tools you use to manage your consumption of info…

Turn off your phone and shut down your browser The voice mail and inboxes will take care of the rest.

Thanks, I get that part But not everybody is self-employed. Not everybody can just say, I’ll be in lockdown mode from 11-12 and from 1-2.

Last week I was up late working on my time blocking and decided to use Google Calendars and have it as an overlay calendar that I can easily turn on and off. I did this so that when I’m booking meetings, both personal and work, I can check to see if I’m keeping to my time blocking.

I like the visual way you depict it. I actually booked the full day, including sleep. But, I understand the simplicity of your approach. I’m just trying it out now. I hope it will lend to more focused time, thus accomplishing more within less time.

I most like that you start the day with set-up and end with prep.

Very wise, and helpful, though I’d have liked a bit more definition/examples of “production” as distinguished from some of the other headings you used.

[...] de la oameni intelepti si cu mai multa experienta decat mine: Distractions are yours to manage Time blocking The first rule of doing work that [...]

[...] My mornings have been more productive lately not only because of the push-ups that Lifehacker encourages, but also because I’m using time blocks to schedule my day. Beth Kanter introduced me to this idea in her post Time Management for Nonprofit Social Media Professionals. She shares a video that Chris Brogan made explaining how he uses time blocking. [...]

Hi Chris, WOW! This was really interesting One of my clients sent me your link post with the following note “Check this out, your teachings are so similar!”. He refers to a call I did back in November, where I taught my planning and organisation techniques and having watched your video, this is really funny as it is so similar, yet, across the pond and taught with a different accent – LOL! I believe in the effectiveness of time block to organise ourselves and be at our most productive. And, I also believe that some activities need to be seen as distractions and I use the word purposely, such as email, phoning, twitter, facebook… If you are up for it, to add some more control to your day and power, I’d suggest to sandwich your 6h by adding 5min at the beginning of your day and 5min at the end of the day to manage your state, the first 5min to listen to a couple of your favorite songs while reading your past day wins, and the last 5mins, to write down 5 wins for the day; my Mindset 2cents

This is a good idea. I’m experimenting with using a mind map type of schedule to manage my time better.