In this post in the “Working through the Productivity Field Guide” series, we will discuss hyper-scheduling, or time blocking, as it’s commonly known. You use hyper-scheduling to make progress on your Arete statements, which state your intentions to do work that is important to you.
This is where we really get tactical. It’s great to have your roles identified and your Arete statements written, but if you never do the work, it’s all just an intellectual exercise. Hyper-scheduling is the way you move from theory to practice.
More Time, But Not Getting Projects Done
McSparky (David Sparks) tells why he quit his full-time law firm job and started a part-time firm. He did it so he’d have more time for his McSparky work.
When he quit, he was working on an iPhone field guide but was frustrated because it seemed like it was taking forever to make progress. He assumed the problem was that he didn’t have enough time to work on it. Freeing up more time was one of his primary motivations for quitting his full-time law job.
However, as time passed after he left his job, he realized that he still wasn’t making much progress on the iPhone field guide, and he tried to figure out why. Eventually, he realized that the problem was that tasks are infinite and time is finite. He also realized that the calendar is the primary unit of daily planning, not the task list.
So, as an experiment, he started hyper-scheduling two hours every morning on his calendar to work on the iPhone field guide. When he scheduled the time to work on it, he completed it over a relatively short period of time.
Tasks Are Infinite, Time is Finite
We need to think about how we use a task manager versus a calendar. We all realize that a task manager can hold infinite tasks.
We think of something we want to do, put it in our task manager, and forget about it. Over time, the number of tasks in our task manager increases. We’ll never be able to do everything we have in our task manager; there are too many tasks.
A calendar, on the other hand, shows what we’ve decided is important to do today. For example, our calendar will say we have a doctor’s appointment at 2 o’clock on Monday. The calendar shows us what we’ve decided is important to do that day. We need to make that distinction between the task manager and the calendar.
How to Do Hyper-Scheduling
Normally, we make appointments with other people. For instance, we make an appointment with the doctor or a staff meeting. McSparky suggests that we expand our use of the calendar to include appointments with not only other people but also ourselves to pursue our Arete statements.
For example, I’ve been participating in all the Productivity Field Guide webinars. One of the things I want to do is prep for that webinar. I will schedule an appointment on my calendar for the webinar itself, which is pretty standard.
But I will also hyper-schedule a block of time on my calendar before the webinar to prepare for that productivity field guide webinar. During that time, I will read the section in the Productivity Field Guide PDF dealing with this webinar topic and watch all of the videos related to this topic.
1. The Four Levels of Hyper-Scheduling
There are four levels of time blocking: quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily.
At the quarterly level, we decide what projects we will work on during the quarter. It might be tempting at that time to start blocking out everything we’ve decided to work on and fill our calendars with hyper-scheduling. But that’s a mistake. We need to leave some time for flexibility. Priorities can change, and unexpected necessary tasks can arise.
So David Sparks urges that we not time block or hyper-schedule too much at the quarterly or even monthly level, but more so at the weekly and then finally at the daily level. At the weekly and daily levels, we ought to be listing everything in our calendars that we want to do that week and particularly that day.
In other words, you don’t want to hyper-schedule them all too early, but you want to progressively add more blocks as time passes. That way, you maintain flexibility in scheduling as time approaches.
I don’t have a super busy schedule. I usually work on several projects in a quarter, but I don’t typically schedule time for them until the weekly review or daily planning session. I prefer to have more flexible time, so I often wait until I make my daily plan in the morning to fill up my schedule for the day.
2. What Role Does This Block of Time Serve?
Another thing that you can do as you add events to your calendar is to ask, “What role does this task serve?”
If it serves one of your roles and fits with one of your Arete statements, then you know it’s something you intend to do because it’s important to you. But if it doesn’t fit under your role or fit an ROT statement, you might want to question why you’re doing it. You might decide it’s unimportant and doesn’t belong on your calendar.
3. The Four Different Kinds of Blocks of Time
We hyper-schedule different types of blocks of time. First, there are appointments. Examples would be appointments with doctors, appointments for webinars, and appointments for staff meetings.
Secondly, we have project blocks. Project blocks are when we say we will work on this project during this block of time. So for instance, I write a blog post every week, and I dedicate a block of time to write that post. Every Monday morning is when I write my blog post. So, I will have a block of about three to four hours every Monday morning as a project block to write my blog post.
The third thing that you can block time for is routine tasks. I do several household chores on Saturdays as part of my household manager role. I do my laundry, clean my bathroom, etc. I typically block a period of time on Saturday mornings and say that’s when I’m going to do my routine tasks.
Number four: You can block catch-all times. That’s when you do many tasks that need to be done but don’t necessarily take up that much time individually. Maybe you can do three or four of them in an hour. It’s also okay to block a period of time to do catch-alls.
4. Overestimate How Long Projects Will Take
Usually, we want to do a one-hour minimum block when we do time blocks. That’s because we’re so poor at estimating how long a task will take.
David Sparks suggests that, especially at the beginning, you overestimate the time it will take you to do something by multiplying by two. So, if you think doing a project will take you one hour, schedule two hours instead. Most of the time, when you’re starting, you’ll find that you’ll need those two hours and maybe even more to get that project done.
But if you finish it within one hour or an hour and a half, it’s okay if you finish early. Take a break or move on to the next task. When there’s not enough time to finish a project in the allotted time, you will want to move it around or block time for the next week or the next few days.
We need to be patient with ourselves. The number of mistakes we make in estimating time blocking will decrease the more we do it.
5. You Don’t Have to Hyper-schedule Everything
You don’t need to time-block every single thing you do. Doing so is counterproductive. For instance, it’s ridiculous to time-block bathroom breaks.
Another point to keep in mind is you don’t have to block all of your time. It’s okay to leave blocks of time open. That way, when a target of opportunity comes up, you’ll have blocks of time available to schedule things.
6. Dealing With Repeating Events
David Sparks suggests keeping calendar repeating events to a bare minimum because they lock you into certain times. If you want to move the time block, you get a dialogue box asking if it is for this event or future events, and it just adds a level of hassle. So sometimes, it’s better not to do that for repeating events.
On the other hand, I do use repeating events for select core projects, like Monday mornings when I write my blogs. I have a block of time of about four hours every Monday morning, which is writing blog posts. That rarely changes because I plan for it and try to schedule around that if possible. That’s a primary event, one of the main things that I do, so I don’t have a problem with putting that in as a repeating event.
Making it a repeating event saves me the time of remembering to block that in on Monday morning and actually doing it. With a repeating event, it just shows up every single Monday morning. So it’s okay to use repeating events, but you will have to use your discretion as to how often you do that.
7. Moving Blocks of Time When Necessary
It’s okay to move time blocks around for a good reason.
Your time blocks on your calendar are not written in stone or intended to be unchangeable. If something else comes up that’s a priority, it’s OK to move the time block to another time.
8. Schedule Time for Joy
It’s also important to schedule time for joy. Sometimes we work too much. We can hyper-schedule joy and put time blocks in to do the things we enjoy.
You can also have non-scheduled time. You can have a block of time that’s discretionary. I do that sometimes.
I also schedule time for things I like to do, like hikes, day trips, overnights, lunches out with my wife, shopping trips, and whatever. That’s fine. It’s good and healthy to schedule time for joy.
9. Should You Use a Digital or Analog Tool for Hyper-Scheduling?
Should you use an analog or a digital system for hyper-scheduling?
Most people today find it easier to use a digital system. They’re probably already using a digital calendar for all their appointments, and it’s easier to start adding appointments with yourself to the same calendar.
It’s also easier to change things if you need to change blocks of time. Instead of having to erase and rewrite things, you can click and drag on blocks of time, put them somewhere else, and reorder them.
I also find it easier to review my digital calendar at the end of the week or any other time because it is already open on one of the spaces on my Mac desktop. I don’t have to reach for a journal to check my calendar.
It’s easy for me to shift over to the calendar and look at what I’ve done that week when I answer the question, how did I do this past week? For all of those reasons, I use digital calendaring, and I find it the easiest way to do it.
On the other hand, if you’re interested in using an analog approach, David Sparks includes a video on using analog tools for hyper-scheduling in his Productivity Field Guide. I suggest you watch the video.
10. Following Through and Working Your Plan
Next week, we will discuss the problem of sticking to your scheduled intentions. You make your plan for the day to do the things that are important to you, and you schedule blocks of time on your calendar. But when the appointed time comes, you resist doing the work.
What strategies can we use to help ourselves do the things we’ve decided are important? We’ll discuss those in next week’s blog post.
Harnessing the Power of Hyper-Scheduling: A Path to Achieving Your Arete Statements
Hyper-scheduling is a powerful tool for moving from theory to practice and making meaningful progress on your Arete statements. By strategically blocking out time on your calendar to work on important projects, you can prioritize what truly matters to you and avoid getting caught up in the endless list of tasks on your to-do list.
As you implement hyper-scheduling into your daily routine, remember to be patient with yourself, overestimate how long projects will take, and schedule time for joy.
Stay tuned for next week’s post on strategies to help you follow through and work your plan.
Take action today by starting to hyper-schedule and see the positive impact it can have on your productivity and overall well-being. You don’t have to start by hyper-scheduling your entire day; it’s OK to start small by scheduling a couple of hours daily to do your important work.