Stuck in a rut? Looking to find inspiration to boost your productivity?🚀
Well, I think that taking micro-steps to incorporate routines in our daily lives can actually make it easier for us if we wish to establish long-term goals. After trying out the time-blocking system for time management, here are some of the pros and cons I have discovered, and some tips to utilise it well. Let’s delve into it now!
Table of Contents:
My Experience With Time Wasting⏰
Very often, we may suffer the illusion of choice when idling at home, and having the preconception of an abundance/excess of time in our hands, and we end up doing something completely unproductive – scrolling through social media for no apparent reason at all. While our intention might have been to destress, it could feel unsettling or even result in the opposite effect of heightening our restlessness at times.
From my own experience, after finishing National Service, I had approximately half a year and more before matriculating into university, and I first started to enjoy this newfound freedom of not having urgent deadlines to meet. I spent many days lounging in my bed, doing everything I wanted to (bingeing a whole lot of Netflix shows on my lists and gaming) but nothing at the same time.
After a while, I did start to get sick of it because of the idea of relaxing for the sake of relaxing, and having nothing much to work towards. However, it also allowed me to gain insight into how I would like to spend my 9 months of my time at home in a meaningful way (which included penning down my thoughts in this blog)
During my time studying in Junior College/High School, I was able to stay afloat and get by decently, not just in my academics, but also in other aspects of life (spending quality time with family and friends, sports/fitness) by having to-do lists. It gave me a sense of structure and organisation on the tasks I wanted to fulfil on that day, but sometimes it made it more difficult to be overloaded with tasks piling up.
A few months ago, I chanced upon a video by Ali Abdaal, a popular content creator (ex-Medical Doctor) who shared about his methods to improve productivity, utilising a time blocking system. Inspired, I decided to give this a try, as a way to experiment with using my time wisely. After a few months of using it, here are some takeaways that I had.
Pros and Cons of Calendar Time Blocking System
What I liked about using a calendar system was that time-blocking allows you to set more realistic expectations on what to achieve than using to-do lists by having dedicated blocks of time for work, exercise, recreation, etc.
Most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a week, and most people also overestimate what they can do in a month and underestimate what they can do in a year. ~Matthew Kelly
Time Blocking Using Google Calendar🗓️
Here is how one of my days went:
Disclaimer: This is not my daily schedule
Here is how I scheduled one of my weeks using google calendar:
At the time of writing, I was waiting for university, so my schedule is much less packed – which means more flexibility than many others. I may update this again in the future to see how it goes!
Ideas You Can Adopt From This💡
- Setting recurring tasks such as when you consume your meals, scheduling your exercise routines to keep yourself accountable, etc.
- Give yourself some buffer but try as much as possible to inculcate a sleep routine
- Don’t forget to schedule in time for recreation! This could be in the form of meeting up with friends, hitting the gym, pursuing your own hobbies. Constantly overloading yourself with work will not increase your productivity, and more likely result in burn-out 🙁
How You May Benefit✅
Even more so for working adults & students, when you have many demands – work commitments to handle, assignments to complete, you might feel overstretched as the workload continues to pile up, seemingly never-ending. What time-blocking may do for you is help you to come to terms with your own priorities, and how you can schedule the remaining of the precious time you have for personal pursuits that enrich your live meaningfully. Sometimes, doing less is more, and that requires a concerted effort from ourselves to put it into action.
You may also find that having recurring tasks or routines in time blocking helps you to inculcate habits that you find desirable over time, to work towards long term goals, and scale greater heights over a long time horizon.
Self Discipline is doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done, even when you don’t feel like doing it
Problems You May Face❌
- Unmotivated to abide by the calendar’s schedule: Undoubtedly, if you set a schedule and your procrastination pangs kick in, you might observe a snowball effect in the rest of your days →this is where discipline plays an important role
Ultimately, we are all fallible and there are times where I disregard the timetable and just go into couch potato mode for a few extra minutes/hours. Sometimes we like to start our work on a “nice number/timing” – for example: at exactly 4pm, instead of 3.58pm. Instead of “accidentally” delaying your start time further and further, practise the discipline of starting immediately by putting down your phone/plugging in some music. Think of it as giving yourself a head start to your work and get to it!
- Abiding too strictly by the calendar’s schedule:
Personally, I think that by being too careful with your time and restricting your time in the flow state just to fulfil whatever task lined up for you in the calendar can sometimes be rather detrimental to your work rate and dampen your moments of creative expression. Being flexible with my schedules occasionally also served me meaningfully – When I zone in on a project/study session, and enter a flow state, I prefer to let myself immerse in my work without inhibitions, it does feel rather empowering.
Overall, what worked for me was to start off gradually by building an overall routinefor the week, leaving small gaps in my calendar to see if it was feasible to implement. When I started to get accustomed to having these self-made routines to follow, I restructured my timetable such that more time is spent productively, filling up the gaps but also leaving some buffer for unforeseen circumstances/delay.
Concluding Thoughts💭
All in all, I’m sure this advice does not apply to everyone, because not everyone likes to be controlled by a routine, or to be organised down to the last minute. However, I do believe having some semblance of routine and order in our daily lives can give us more headspace to prioritise the things we truly want to achieve instead of procrastinating & idling too much of our day away.
Here’s to achieving optimal use of the finite time we have in our productive pursuits, as well as planning our time well for meaningful leisure 🙂
Happy reading ~