![]() Is it based on the tests you have done? If yes, for how long did you do them? Have you tried alternating time tracking with periods of no-tracking? no tracking at all? You say, 40 hour week with time tracking equals 60+ hours without. Regarding the tracking, have you tried doing sort of A/B testing of time tracking vs. I came across your blog very recently, and I enjoy reading and learning from each of your posts. Once I stopped watching television, I had more time than I knew what to do with Reply No school work is done on Saturday, Friday after supper (more or less), or Sunday morning. Planning structure for the do-list is not that hard as math is always the two hours right after school and so on (I always do two readings: the first is straight through as pseudo enjoyment, the second is where I take notes.) The last thing I do before brain-quiet time is to go over my assignments calendar and flesh out tomorrow’s do list. If I don’t have a project to work on, I’ll work on a hobby or do some non-brain work such as making study flash-cards or do the first reading of a novel for school. Not being as smart as Cal, my own workday ends about 8ish. This means that when high school is out for the day you go right into homework mode instead of hanging with friends or playing video games, etc. Using your inbox to drive your daily schedule might be fine for the entry-level or those content with a career of cubicle-dwelling mediocrity, but the best knowledge workers view their time like the best investors view their capital, as a resource to wield for maximum returns.Ĭal’s workday seems to end about 6:30, which leaves the rest of the evening for individual pursuits & projects. If you’re serious about working deeply and producing high-end value, it should probably make you uncomfortable as well. In the context of work, uncontrolled time makes me uncomfortable. ![]() If you’re still worried, read Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals: very few of the world-famous creatives he profiled adopted a “I’ll work when I feel inspired” attitude - they instead controlled their day so they could control their art. If you control your schedule: (1) you can ensure that you consistently dedicate time to the deep efforts that matter for creative pursuits and (2) the stress relief that comes from this sense of organization allows you to go deeper in your creative blocks and produce more value. I understand this concern, but it’s fundamentally misguided. Sometimes people ask if controlling time will stifle creativity. (Another smart strategy in this context is to give open-ended reactive blocks secondary purposes: e.g., “process client requests if I have downtime during this block, work on project X.”) My answer is again simple: periods of open-ended reactivity can be blocked off like any other type of obligation. Even if you’re blocking most of your day for reactive work, for example, the fact that you are controlling your schedule will allow you to dedicate some small blocks (perhaps at the schedule periphery) to deeper pursuits. ![]() Sometimes people ask how time blocking can work for reactive work, where you cannot tell in advance what obligations will enter your life on a given day. A 40 hour time-blocked work week, I estimate, produces the same amount of output as a 60+ hour work week pursued without structure. My answer is simple: it generates a massive amount of productivity. Sometimes people ask why I bother with such a detailed level of planning. This type of planning, to me, is like a chess game, with blocks of work getting spread and sorted in such a way that projects big and small all seem to click into completion with (just enough) time to spare. My goal is to make sure progress is being made on the right things at the right pace for the relevant deadlines. During this planning process I consult my task lists and calendars, as well as my weekly and quarterly planning notes. I take time blocking seriously, dedicating ten to twenty minutes every evening to building my schedule for the next day. I call this planning method time blocking. This allows me to make corrections as needed if the day unfolds in an unexpected way: Notice that I leave some extra room next to my time blocks. In the right column, I add explanatory notes for these blocks where needed. In the left column, I dedicated two lines to each hour of the day and then divided that time into blocks labeled with specific assignments. My plan was captured on a single sheet of 24 pound paper in a Black n’ Red twin wire notebook. The image above shows my plan for a random Wednesday earlier this month.
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