Estimated reading time for blocking your time: 3 minutes, 23 seconds:
TODAY’S IDEA: Blocking your time
— From The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington
“If you are not in control of your time, you are not in control of your results,” say Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, productivity and execution gurus and authors of The 12 Week Year. Yet sometimes things come up throughout the day, mainly unplanned interruptions that “will eat up your valuable minutes” here and there.
What to do?
“Trying to reduce these interruptions usually doesn’t work well and it can be more difficult that just dealing with them… The key to successful time use—intentional time use—is not trying to eliminate those unplanned interruptions, but instead to block out regular time each week dedicated to your strategically important tasks.”
The authors call these blocks of time Performance Time, and they say, “It is the best approach to effectively allocating time that we have ever encountered.”
Performance Time uses a time-blocking system so that you can be in control of your time and maximize your effectiveness, thus, controlling your results.
The time blocking system is simple; there are three different kinds of blocks. Let’s look at each:
Strategic Blocks: A strategic block is a three-hour block of uninterrupted time that is scheduled into each week. During this block you accept no phone calls, no faxes, no emails, no visitors, no anything. Instead, you focus all your energy on preplanned tasks—your strategic and money-making activities.
Strategic blocks concentrate your intellect and creativity to produce breakthrough results. You will likely be astounded by the quantity and quality of the work you produce. For most people, one strategic block per week is sufficient.
Buffer Blocks: Buffer blocks are designed to deal with all the unplanned and low-value activities—like most email and voice mail—that arise through a typical day. Almost nothing is more unproductive and frustrating that dealing with constant interruptions, yet we’ve all had days when unplanned items dominated our time.
For some, one 30-minute buffer block a day is sufficient, while for others, two separate one-hour blocks may be necessary. The power of buffer blocks comes from grouping together activities that tend to be unproductive so that you can increase your efficiency in dealing with them and take greater control over the rest of your day.
Breakout Blocks: One of the key factors contributing to performance plateaus is the absence of free time. Very often entrepreneurs and professionals get caught up in working longer and harder, but this approach kills your energy and enthusiasm. To achieve greater results, what’s often necessary is not actually working more hours, but rather taking some time away from work.
[…] An effective breakout block is at least three-hours long and spent on things other than work. It is time scheduled away from your business during normal business hours that you will use to refresh and reinvigorate your mind, so that when you return to work, you can engage with more focus and energy.
For Performance Time to work better, the authors suggest going beyond merely scheduling these three blocks in your weekly calendar. “The more you can create a routine in your days and weeks, the more effective your execution will be.”
Moran and Lennington say it’s ideal—if you can—to schedule routine tasks at the same time on the same day each week. However, more important is to know when you are at your best (Morning? Afternoon? Evening?) and schedule your most important activities for that peak time when you’ll be super effective.
ACTION
TODAY: Take a look at your calendar and figure out when you can clear up some time to add Performance Time. If not today, schedule it between now and next week and stick to it.
FUTURE: Give Performance Time a shot and try it out for a week or two, or three… Tweak to where it works out best for you and stay with it for a while to start reaping its benefits.
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