- Welcome to, "The Journey".
Today, we're gonna talk about how
to time block your calendar, so you can get more stuff done.
Remember when multitasking was all the rage?
Yeah?
And you know, you thought,
hey, I'll multitask, do a little bit of this,
- Get so much done. - Do a little bit of that.
And we get so much done,
(laughs) and, it's not the case.
- Not at all.
And actually, multitasking has the opposite effect.
You take away the momentum of actually getting things done
when you switch task,
and it's not going to be as efficient as just sticking
to one thing.
- So one way I combat this is through
blocking off time in my calendar.
This is really gonna reveal the nerd in me,
but I also color code it.
- Fancy.
- So, you do wanna know about it?
- Sure.
- Okay.
So, I think about my day from like 8:30 AM to 5:30,
and I think about what's urgent.
If it's urgent, I color code it red,
if it's a meeting, I color code it green,
and if it's like, this should happen today,
but like, if it doesn't get accomplished today, NBD, blue.
And then from there,
I do little time blocks at certain times of day,
because in the morning my brain works differently
than the afternoon.
So maybe writing a webinar script,
block off two hours for the afternoon,
whereas in the morning I would do something else
like create social media slides,
like a little bit more vibrant.
Cup of coffee, creativity.
- Interesting.
And I like how you mentioned certain times of day,
because I know some people work better at night,
others work better in the morning.
Myself, I am a morning person.
Give me the hardest things I need to do,
get that done first, early in the morning.
Because after lunch, like now,
(laughs) I'm not feeling too enthused
to keep up, but I do the same thing.
I do block off some things on my calendar.
I am all about technology.
So I use Google, Google calendar on my phone.
Some people may find it easier to just use
a actual tangible calendar,
where you just write it down,
and you have to remember to look at it,
that works for you, sure.
- Another great thing about time blocking your calendar,
is it helps you from overbooking yourself.
You can really stay structured with your time.
I even include,
a lot of people don't do this, I feel like,
but in my work calendar,
where I just told you about the color coding
and the time of the day,
I also have for the color orange, my social life.
Because you gotta stay balanced,
whether that is the work that you're doing
or the social life that you're leading,
or your exercise schedule,
so I literally block off time for all of those categories.
- And I do the same thing.
Like when you say exercise in the morning,
I'll have a little block where it says,
hey, you got to get up 6:30 AM or so, get your exercise in-
- Whoo! I'd be working out with my eyes closed.
- I'm getting back to it.
If my wife is watching,
- I am getting back to it. - He's getting back to it.
But, things that you actually schedule so that, you know,
Hey, I'm going to take this time for me, self care.
My wife is big on telling me about that. It's important.
Just like Emma said, good balance.
You can't just about work, work, work, work, work.
Then you have not so much left in the tank
to keep giving out.
- And it's a commitment too, I feel like,
if I say I'm committed to getting this work task done today
at this time, it helps, it's that extra step of commitment.
Same with, I am going to go to yoga at 6:00 AM tomorrow.
- Another cool thing about time blocking is,
it makes tasks harder to ignore.
Say you write things down and you have all your tasks
in a list,
it's easy to jump around in that list and say,
oh, I'll do this one, then I'll jump to this.
But if you have that specific time blocked off
for that one task, you know you're going to be dedicated
and focused to it and you'll be so much more efficient
getting things done.
- Yeah. Treat the task like you would a meeting, right?
This is the time, don't be late, and wrap by the end
of that hour.
- And it's funny,
because you wouldn't be in one meeting and say,
hey, by the way, halfway through,
I'm going to take this other meeting, y'all just hold on,
I'll be right back.
You wouldn't do that.
- All right, so we're gonna tell you how to get started.
First, evaluate your task list.
I think this is really important
because it can help prioritize what you do.
Also think about how much time does this task take
versus this task as well,
and then also, what's more important?
Like in a week, I know, I'm like,
I have got to get these tasks done by Tuesday,
or by Wednesday, and that really helps me to prioritize.
And then also, like we talked about a little bit ago,
how do I perform in the morning with certain tasks versus
the afternoon versus the evening?
- And also, sometimes it's better to get those harder tasks,
the ones that you may not enjoy,
- out of the way first. - Out of the way.
And like Emma was saying,
if you work better in the morning like myself,
get that hard task right there, AM, knock it out,
so that at the end of the day, you can take that momentum
of actually accomplishing that,
and go into your other tasks.
- I had this friend who brought up recently, she's like,
do you ever just put tasks in your calendar that you know
you can get done that day just so you can delete it
and feel really good?
I was like, maybe I do do that.
And then I noticed that I do!
I add things in there that are just like,
get me started in the morning where I'm like,
oh, that's done, I'm on a roll.
Start thinking about the time of day
when you're actually blocking off the time for the task,
because that's really important with, you know,
what makes sense?
Does it make sense to maybe start your day with Pilates
and then go into your workday?
Depends. Where do you need to be?
Do you need to be across town for a meeting-
- Logistics matter.
- Or, are you gonna have a Zoom call,
that's a big one for me, like if I have to be on video,
I'm not gonna go do work at the coffee shop today.
That's just annoying.
And no one likes that person,
that's doing a video call at the coffee shop,
you're just shaking their head, like really, here?
- Random people walking behind.
- Yeah. So think about what that is you need to be done
where you need to be for it,
and then what comes before and after.
- So all of this is good, at the same time,
you want to be able to be flexible.
So it's good to have some checkpoints,
some review time to see how things went during your day,
or during the week, and see how you may adjust it
as you go along.
Because, you don't want to be so rigid and set in stone,
to where you can't be flexible.
- And the last point, share with your team.
We do this a lot, I know on the marketing team,
over at GoDaddy,
just to know whether you're gonna be out of the office,
PTO, on a flight, you know,
I get where meetings are planned,
and if I didn't block off that time, like,
hey, I'll be flying at this time, they're like,
well, but, you were available in your calendar,
and then there's that miscommunication.
And you also, thinking about it,
you don't want to be contacting your team
or they're contacting you,
and they just get sent to voicemail.
It's like, you just feel like you're barging in on them.
So have that communication with your team
and the transparency, whether it's,
hey, I'm leaving work early today,
so I'll be unavailable from 4:45 to 5:45,
'cause I'm going to spin class,
but I'll be back online at 6:00.
- And it's also good to have that kind of communication
with your customers.
It's okay to say no.
In my role in customer success,
dealing with client facing interactions,
I have to tell customers at times,
I don't have time right now, but I do respect your time
and what you have to get done is important to me,
so let's do this.
I have this day and this time, or this time available,
which one is good for you?
That just shows that you do respect their time
and you do want to make that effort to take care
of whatever their concern is.
- And that you respect your own time.
- Exactly.
- And that was a big thing,
I know when I was on sales for GoDaddy,
they were like, you know,
don't just say you're available any time,
that comes off to a prospective customer, like,
well what do you do?
- You don't have anything else to do?
- You don't have nothing else to do? Yeah.
But if you show, hey, I got, 1:00 or 3:00 today,
what works best for you?
You just learned how to time block your calendar
so you can get more stuff done.
Comment below, like this video.
- And make sure you subscribe to our channel
and ring the bell,
so you're first being notified
when we have new content coming out.
This is, "The Journey". See you next time.