# Time blocking

> Planning the day by reserving named blocks of calendar time for specific kinds of work.

## What it means

Practical definition — give every part of the day a job on your calendar — and how it differs from a to-do list and from timeboxing. HBR, 12 Dec 2018 (verified): “In a recent survey of 100 productivity hacks, timeboxing — migrating to-do lists into calendars — was ranked the most useful.” (quote it as HBR’s report). A worked example day with focus, meetings, admin and buffer blocks, labelled as an example; what to do when a block is missed (rebook, don’t stack).

## A practical example

A day reserves 09:00–10:30 for a draft, 10:30–11:00 for email and 11:00–11:30 as buffer before a meeting.

## Put it into practice

- Name the concrete situation before applying the label. Time blocking is useful only when it changes a choice, boundary or next action.
- Make the state visible: write the owner, time, source or stopping condition down instead of relying on memory.
- Review what happened. Keep the part that reduced ambiguity and change the part that added ceremony without helping the work.

## How it relates to Plexii

book focus time on the calendar and start it from Today’s agenda with Start it now (/help/home-widget-todays-agenda); the Calendar widget shows booked time (in beta) (/help/widget-calendar). Link /tools/time-blocking-planner.

## Sources

- [Harvard Business Review: How timeboxing works](https://hbr.org/2018/12/how-timeboxing-works-and-why-it-will-make-you-more-productive)