Personal Productivity
Time-Blocking: The Art of Scheduling Your Time in Order to Be More Productive
AUTHOR: María Sáez
Time blocking is a time management technique that involves dividing your day into specific blocks of time dedicated to specific types of activities. Time blocking allows you to be proactive: you decide in advance when you’re going to do each thing and for how long.
Imagine your calendar as a puzzle where each piece represents an important activity. Time-blocking helps you fit all the pieces together strategically, ensuring that the most important tasks have a guaranteed place in your day.
What’s the purpose of time-blocking?
The fundamental purpose of time-blocking is to turn your time into a controlled and predictable resource. When you apply this technique, you are taking control of your schedule instead of letting external circumstances dictate how you spend your most valuable hours.
Specifically, time-blocking seeks to:
- Protect time for deep work: Important tasks that require sustained concentration need uninterrupted blocks of time (deep work).
- Make the reality of time visible: By assigning specific blocks, you realize how much time you really need for each activity.
- Create structure on chaotic days: Especially useful for people with flexible schedules or those who work from home.
- Reduce decision fatigue: By having scheduled time slots, you reduce the number of daily micro-decisions about what to do next.
What are the advantages?
- Better focus and concentration. When you know you have a two-hour block dedicated exclusively to a project, it’s easier to get into a state of flow. That means no more mental distractions wondering what you should be doing, because you’ve already decided.
- Protection against interruptions. With scheduled blocks, you can easily say no to unplanned meetings or distractions. Your calendar becomes a protective shield for your time.
- Clear vision of your priorities. When your generic activity (not specific tasks) is displayed on a calendar, you can see at a glance if you’re spending enough time on what really matters. It’s a visual snapshot of your actual priorities.
- Stress reduction. Knowing that everything has its scheduled time reduces the mental anxiety of “I won’t have time for everything.” If it’s on the calendar, it’s going to happen.
What are the alternatives?
Although time-blocking is very effective, it’s not the only way to manage your time. Here are the main alternatives:
- Time-boxing. Similar to time-blocking, but more flexible. You assign a maximum amount of time to a task but not necessarily a specific time of day.
- Pomodoro Technique. You work in 25-minute sprints followed by 5-minute breaks. It’s effective for maintaining concentration but it doesn’t address strategic planning for the day (The science behind the Pomodoro Technique).
- Energy management. Instead of managing time, you manage your energy, doing tasks that require more focus when you have more mental energy. If your energy levels follow clear patterns, you can combine this with time-blocking, setting aside blocks of time for the most demanding activities when your energy is at its highest.
- Natural flow. Some people prefer to work more organically, responding to their mood and energy at the moment without rigid planning.
- Context management. It is the system used in GTD. Group similar tasks or tasks that happen in the same place/at the same time, like all phone calls together or all emails at once. You can combine this with time-blocking for even more efficiency.
How should time-blocking be done in general?
- Audit your current time. Before you start time-blocking, spend a week or two tracking the way you actually spend your time. This will give you a realistic basis for planning.
- Identify your natural time blocks. Notice when you have the most energy, when interruptions tend to occur, and what patterns already exist in your day. Build on these natural patterns.
- Start with large blocks of time. Don’t try to micromanage every minute. Start with blocks of several hours for important activities and gradually refine them as you gain experience.
- Include different types of blocks.
- Deep work blocks: For important projects that require concentration.
- Communication blocks: For emails, calls, and meetings.
- Routine blocks: For administrative tasks and maintenance.
- Break blocks: Essential for maintaining energy. - Plan the night before or first thing in the morning. Spend 10-15 minutes reviewing your next day and making any necessary adjustments to your time blocking.
- Be flexible but disciplined. If something urgent comes up, adjust your time blocks, but don’t completely abandon the structure. Move the blocks, don’t remove them.
- Review and adjust regularly. At the end of each week, analyze what worked and what didn’t. Time blocking is a skill that is developed with practice.
- Protect your most important blocks of time. Treat your deep work blocks as unbreakable appointments with yourself. They are just as important as any external meeting.
How should it be done if the methodology used is GTD?
At first glance, time-blocking may seem incompatible with Getting Things Done, since GTD advocates intuitive selection of the next action based on context, available time, energy, and priority. David Allen, creator of GTD, is clear on this point: the calendar should be reserved only for specific commitments with a fixed date and time.
However, time-blocking can work perfectly as a higher level of planning that complements GTD without contradicting its fundamental principles.
The key: block activities, not specific tasks
Instead of scheduling “Write sales report from 9:00 to 11:00,” a GTD-compatible approach would be to block out “Deep work – Writing projects” during that same time slot. The difference is subtle but fundamental:
- Time block: Defines the type of activity and context.
- GTD within the block: Selects the specific action based on traditional criteria.
Types of blocks compatible with GTD
Blocks by context
- “Call time” (context @Phone)
- “Computer work” (context @Computer)
- “Administrative management” (context @Admin)
Blocks by type of thinking
- “Deep work” (for projects that require sustained concentration)
- “Processing” (for emptying inboxes)
- “Weekly review” (the sacred ritual of GTD)
Blocks by mental energy
- “High energy – Creative projects”
- “Medium energy – Communications”
- “Low energy – Routine tasks”
Implementation of GTD in practice
- During the Weekly Review, in addition to reviewing projects and contexts, evaluate your previous week and plan general blocks for the following week. This planning can be a simple sketch on a piece of paper. Over time, if your work and lifestyle are more or less stable, this planning will be practically the same every week.
- In your daily planning, check that your calendar of fixed commitments and your workload are aligned with the defined work blocks. Adjust or modify the blocks if necessary.
- At the beginning of each block, consult your relevant context lists and apply the usual GTD criteria: what can I do in this context with the time and energy available?
- During the block, maintain GTD flexibility. If something more urgent arises within the same context, switch tasks without any problems.
Specific benefits for GTD users
- Protecting deep work. GTD is excellent for managing commitments and next actions, but it doesn’t always protect the time needed to make progress on important projects. Blocks solve this limitation.
- Better use of contexts. By setting aside a specific time for each context, you avoid constantly switching between different types of work, improving your efficiency.
- Planning without rigidity. You keep the flexibility to choose what to do at any given moment, but within a time frame that ensures that everything important has its place.
- More effective weekly review. By having data on how you’ve actually used your time in blocks, your weekly review can be more accurate and useful.
Golden rules for combining time-blocking with GTD
- Never put specific actions on the calendar, only types of activities or contexts.
- Respect GTD principles within each block: continue choosing based on context, time, energy, and priority.
- Stay flexible: if you need to change a block for something urgent, do so without guilt.
- Include blocks for GTD maintenance tasks: set aside specific time to empty your inboxes every day and to do your weekly review.
Time-blocking then becomes the “meta-system” that organizes your time, while GTD remains the system that organizes your commitments and next actions. Both work in harmony to create a robust and flexible productivity system.
What should you do if you use FacileThings as a personal management tool?
FacileThings is an application designed specifically to implement GTD faithfully and effectively. Therefore, the incorporation of time-blocking maintains exactly the same philosophy: it works as an upper layer that doesn’t interfere at all with the daily use of the application.
The concept: weekly template + existing contexts
Implementation in FacileThings is simple. You only need two elements:
- An external weekly template (it can be a document, a note, or simply mental) that defines your typical time blocks.
- Clarity about the relationship between those blocks and the contexts you already have configured in FacileThings.
Creating your weekly template
Your template could look like this:
Monday to Friday:
- 9:00-11:00: Quick tasks.
- 11:00-12:00: Communications.
- 12:00-1:30: Exercise and sports.
- 3:00-7:00: Deep work.
Or like this:
This is an image of my current organization, in which I only use very generic blocks:
- SL is for Shallow Work, cognitively undemanding tasks that are often performed in a state of semi-distraction.
- DW is for Deep Work, tasks that push your cognitive abilities to their limits and must be performed without distractions.
- TW is for Team Work, meetings via video call or face to face.
- The rest of the blocks are for eating, doing things I enjoy, and resting.
Context mapping:
- Deep work →
#developing,#research - Team work →
#meeting,#videocall,#slack - Shallow work →
#email,#errands,#home,#support,#admin,#operations
Daily use in FacileThings
Day-to-day life with FacileThings remains practically the same:
- You continue to capture ideas and commitments in your inbox.
- You continue to process your inboxes as usual, although within the reserved time slots.
- You continue to organize the next actions in their appropriate contexts.
- You continue to choose what to do based on context, time, energy, and priority, although the contexts are defined according to the time block you are in.
- You continue to do your weekly review without fail, although within a specific time block and taking into account how you are going to define the time blocks for the coming week.
Example of a typical Monday morning
It’s 9:15 a.m. and you’re in your “Deep Work” block. You open FacileThings and:
- You don’t look at your #phone or #email contexts (even if you have pending items there).
- You focus solely on #developing, but only on actions that require concentration.
- You apply the normal GTD criteria within that filtered subset.
- You choose the next most appropriate action based on available time, energy, and priority.
At 11:00, you switch to the “Communications” block:
- Now you look at #phone, #email, etc.
- You temporarily ignore deep work, even if it’s important.
- You apply GTD within these communication contexts.
Fine tuning for advanced users
- Specific contexts for blocks. Some users create additional contexts such as
#focus-morningvs.#focus-afternoonto further optimize mapping. - Use of tags. Tags in FacileThings can help you quickly identify which actions are appropriate for each type of block.
- Calendar integration. Although FacileThings keeps your calendar clean according to GTD, you can use an external calendar to view your time blocks without polluting your commitment management system.
The beauty of simplicity
Time blocking with FacileThings proves that the best productivity systems are those that integrate seamlessly. You don’t need to change how you use FacileThings, and you don’t need new features or complex configurations.
You simply add a layer of time awareness that makes your GTD practice even more effective, especially for protecting the time dedicated to deep work and progress on important projects.
Your FacileThings + time-blocking system becomes more powerful than the sum of its parts, maintaining the flexibility of GTD while adding the temporary protection you need to be truly productive in your day-to-day life.
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