Hey everyone!
Jason here, digital marketing consultant.
And in this time blocking video, we're going to be looking at how to use Google calendar,
to organize your days and of course, plan out your week.
Timestamp table of contents in the description, along with some other helpful videos to help
you get started with time blocking.
So before we dive into Google calendar and I walk you through how to use it to set up
your time blocks, let's talk about number one, the three keys to success of time blocking,
and then what the heck time blocking actually is.
So the first key to success when it comes to time blocking, is starting small.
When you're just getting started with the strategy, it's very easy to jump into Google
calendar and then try and plan out every minute of your day.
That's not what time blocking is about, and it's actually a recipe for disaster.
Because you're probably not quite sure how long things are going to take.
So start off by just doing one day a week, or just doing the first part of your day,
leaving plenty of room, which is the second key to success, you want to make sure, that
you don't actually time block every single minute of every single day, even if you've
been doing time blocking for a while.
And finally, the third key to success as we dive in here, is to focus on extending the
time of your time block.
So we want to reduce switching as much as possible to improve our productivity.
There's been a tremendous amount of research showing that the more you switch between tasks
or multitask, the less processing power you're actually able to tap into with your brain
because it's busy trying to catch up with all the different tasks.
So the longer your time blocks, the better.
Now all time blocking is, is just a simple time management strategy, for planning out
when you're going to do something.
That's pretty much, that's pretty much as complicated as it gets.
So let's go ahead, get practical and talk about the four steps to getting started with
time blocking and Google calendar.
So the very first step, is planning your day frame.
So what you want to do, is plan out when your workday is going to start, and then when your
workday is going to end.
Now, if you're really OCD, you can plan out when you're going to wake up and go to sleep,
but I'll leave all that health stuff for a different video.
Here, I'll just focus on work.
So for me personally, I'll go ahead and time block 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes
at the end of the day, to essentially plan the day, make sure that I can check emails
and check up on our project manager, to make sure that my time blocks for the day make
sense, and that I adjust the time blocks at the end of the day for the next day, based
upon how the day's gone.
So this is definitely not something that should be set in stone.
So, let's go ahead and jump into my screen here.
You're already looking at an example of what my next week might look like, and you'll see
there's a lot of room here.
Again, time blocking, using Google calendar is about giving yourself a frame.
So I'm going to go ahead and start from scratch.
So let's say I'm going to hit the desk at 7:00 a.m.
So I'll scroll here and I'll just type in day plan and then I'll go into the event and
I'll change it, so that it repeats.
Because I want it to repeat pretty much every weekday, Monday through Friday.
Something you can be to be overly OCD, is actually make an individual event for Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
I won't do that for time purposes in this tutorial, but if you have days that are very
different, I highly recommend doing that so it's very easy to essentially time block,
different ways on different days.
So here, I'm just going to say Monday through Friday.
And typically, I like to have my time blocks for a month to three months.
That way it forces me to take a look at whether or not these time blocks are actually working.
So I'll go ahead and click done.
So 7:00 to 7:30 and I'll go ahead and click save.
And you'll see.
Now I have a day plan, the first 30 minutes of the day, where I can check emails, check
in on the team and make sure that my time blocks make sense, for what I'm doing during
the day.
Then I'll have a ends day and I'll go ahead and end the day around 5:30.
So I'll click on here and I'll say that it repeats every weekday.
And then I'll go ahead and do custom.
And I'll say that it'll go for the rest of this quarter.
So I'll put it through the end of June and click done.
Okay, save.
Now speed up the process, when I do the other time blocks, but that's essentially how you
make sure that it repeats every day of the week or repeats a certain day of the week
and then do it for at least a month or three months max, because you do want to check in
and make sure that your time blocks are actually working.
If you do all time, it'll just keep going forever.
Right?
And you'll see when we get to the pro tip, why it's important to have end dates for these
things.
Now, the next question you want to ask yourself is, how much is your time worth?
And this is where the time value ladder comes in.
And this is going to be particularly important, if you're a freelancer, entrepreneur or business
owner.
So I'm going to walk through this diagram to show you, how the time value ladder works
and how you can use this to prioritize your tasks.
Because it's very important that we prioritize, before we start getting into how we're going
to use our most valuable resource, our time.
So here we have four levels, $10 an hour work, fifty hundred and, a thousand.
So pretty much 10 is anything that's administrative recurring.
Then we have working “in” your business, working “on” your business and then growing
your business.
So these are very three, very distinct ways that you can differentiate the types of tasks
that you're doing.
So here's some concrete examples of what those tasks might look like.
For administrative and reoccurring stuff, that's tasks that's required to just keep
the business going, like checking emails, or maybe checking in on some client accounts
or running routine tasks.
Then working in your business, is anything you're doing to service your clients or students
and make sure your products keep running.
Creating content and developing business processes, that's working in your business, that's making
sure things are more efficient.
So it doesn't take you as much time.
This is when you're working with a team, if you have one.
And you're delegating tasks to other people, so there's less on your plate.
So you have more time, to work on the growing your business tasks, which are the converting
new customers.
Bringing new business in the door, which is ultimately your job as a entrepreneur or freelancer.
So what you want to do is take about 10 to 15 minutes and take a look at this value ladder
and then assign all of your tasks to one of these levels.
And then once you have that, you'll have a clear picture of the kind of stuff you're
working on.
Now, if you're thinking about which project you could start on, you can add those two,
but typically you're going to be looking at what are the kind of monthly and weekly things,
that I'm doing over and over again.
We want to prioritize them.
And then here's the hardest part, choose one that is going to be your priority for the
day.
And this comes out of one of my favorite business books, one that I constantly read, which is
why it looks so dirty.
And that is “The one thing” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.
So Gary Keller built one of the largest real estate companies here in the US.
And so I really liked this book because it's based on someone who actually did build a
business.
They didn't just make a career out of making business books.
So highly recommended.
But essentially what you want to do, is take a look at everything you've listed out in
your value ladder and you want to identify what is the one thing that you could do each
day, that by doing it, is going to make everything else easier.
And so this may be trying to have more sales calls.
This may be creating more content.
This might actually be going out and hiring someone for, to take care of some of the other
tasks, whatever it might be.
There's most likely one thing.
Well, not most likely.
There's definitely one thing you can do.
That's going to give you a lot of leverage in everything else you need to get done.
So I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book.
Now, the example I have for you in this particular video, is going to be making YouTube content.
Because obviously for me, growing YouTube channel, it's very important that I keep producing
videos.
So Monday through Thursday, my priority, first thing when I wake up, will be creating YouTube
content.
Now, if your energy levels are higher in the afternoon or the evening or at night, then
that's probably where you want to put your most important task.
For me, I need to get it done first thing in the morning.
So we'll go back over to Google calendar.
And now I'm going to schedule from 8:00 to, let's say, 11:00, I am going to do my YouTube
videos.
And of course, I'm OCD.
So I have a very contrived way of keeping track of what I'm actually doing with my YouTube
videos.
So I'll put, go ahead and put in my job codes for the YouTube videos that I'm going to be
working on and then put in the code for the video.
So I would do this for Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
So each day I am working on YouTube videos, and I know that I have that time, time blocked
out.
And of course, I'd set it up as a reoccurring task.
So I know that I'm working on my YouTube videos.
The next part of this process is, scheduling your office hours.
So at this point, you've come up with your day plan.
So you've given yourself time at the beginning and the end of the day, you have a definite
start and end date to your day, which is extremely important as a freelancer, business owner
or entrepreneur, especially if you're working from home myself and then you've scheduled
your big one thing, and this is all you need to do when you're just starting with time
blocking.
In fact, this is probably overkill when you're just getting started with time blocking, I'd
actually recommend just time blocking on a Monday or Tuesday, and then letting the rest
of the week kind of flow free.
But with your office hours, what you want to do, is plan the time of the day, you're
actually going to open yourself up to the world.
So before we go back to Google calendar, let's take a look at our diagram again.
So we have the first part of the day already scheduled.
And then the next part you want to schedule is of course, when you're going to be checking
emails and when you're going to be open for calls, if you have clients.
So here I have emails and onboarding and ad management added.
And these are times during the day, where I know if a client has a question or we need
to schedule a phone call, I've already planned ahead of time that this is when I am available
to take those calls.
And this does two things.
Number one, it allows you to a hundred percent focus in the morning or the evening or the
afternoon whenever you scheduled for one thing, because you know, you already have time when
you're going to check your email, when you're going to check in with your team or when clients
can actually get ahold of you, right?
And if you find that your open office hours aren't working, or you need to reply to emails
faster, then that just tells you how you need to adjust your time blocks, so that you're
able to really focus on your one thing and still have time for all of the other questions
and concerns of the people in your life.
Now that's all it takes to time block with Google calendar.
So going back to my time blocks here, I'll go ahead and put on my real calendar.
So you can see what my actual live calendar looks like.
So you can see here that this goes on and on and on, because this is something just
my template today.
Now I have a quick pro tip for you before we wrap up this tutorial.
And that is, the power of Google calendar actually allows you to fill in what actually
happened.
So what's really great is using Google calendar, you have your ideal week, like you've seen
mine and obviously you are going to come up with yours, but obviously it's not going to
be exactly what you planned out.
So what happens when things change or things get different, something takes longer or shorter?
What you want to do, is take a look at your calendar as you go through the week and adjust
it.
So here's the current week's calendar right now.
And you can see that I am currently recording [unintelligible 00:11:22], this tutorial right
now.
But you can see there are a lot of extra time blocks on here, that aren't actually a part
of my template in week.
And that's just because you want to template and time the most important stuff, and then
leave room for everything else.
You start with what's most important, your planning, your one thing.
Then, you know, when you're approximately going to check your emails and have office
hours, and then you fill in the rest of your calendar with other tasks as they come up,
if you have to do that in real time or other projects as you see fit.
So that's all there is to it, to scheduling with Google calendar and using the power of
time, blocking to make sure that you can track how your time goes so you can make improvements
in the future.
So I'm curious if you would add anything to this tutorial and any tips you have, as you've
tried to use Google calendar for time blocking.
Comment below with those, because your experiences is going to help other people figure out,
how to time block with Google calendar.
So go ahead and hit that like button, subscribe for more productivity videos, just like this
one.
And until the next video, keep building the business you love.