My Accidental Journey into Timeboxing

Two years ago, I left my in-person teaching job for a remote one. I loved the freedom of remote work – working from a couch, or cafe, or library. Snack breaks whenever I wanted. It was great. But…

The one thing that felt daunting to figure out was how to arrange my schedule. As a teacher, my schedule had revolved around school blocks. A bell rang when each block was done, and classes emptied out and filled in. At home I didn’t have this external structure. 

I was faced with questions: What does work-life balance mean to me? What are effective ways to approach my schedule? Why was I procrastinating on certain projects, and spending so much time on others?

As much as I loved the loosey goosey freedom of working from home, I soon realized that structure provides a different type of freedom. Working productively frees up your mental and physical energy for your personal time.

This was the freedom I wanted. Freedom from stressing about work projects outside of work. Freedom from feeling like I hadn’t gotten enough work done that day.

“Writing up a task list without scheduling your tasks is like estimating the amount of spare change you have by looking at your bank account. In reality you can’t buy as much as you think you can after the mortgage, car payment etc. If you assign your tasks to a time you’ll be more realistic, more focused, and you won’t hate yourself for not being able to complete the impossibly large list by the end of the day. “

Stephen Nelson, Backend Developer, Pixite Apps

Let’s face it:

Modern life = So. Much. To. Do.

Chores, socializing, fitness, hobbies, cooking, learning – and those don’t include work tasks. I needed to structure my life in a way that felt balanced.

I started with an alarm. I planned a short movement break for every hour on the hour, and I set my alarm so that I couldn’t “accidentally” work through it.

It worked. When my alarm went off, I paused whatever I was doing and got up for a 5 or 10 minute walk. 

I didn’t have a name for it, but I was dabbling with timeboxing. 

What is the timebox technique?

Timeboxing is a visual way of planning out your day. It’s like To-Do lists, but much, much better. To-Do lists are great (love me a list!) but because they aren’t assigned to a certain amount of time, or a slot in your schedule, they are often cherrypicked.

For example, if I have a to-do list with tasks that are really difficult and tasks that are really easy, I’ll do the easy ones first, and possibly never get to the hard ones. Timeboxing adds a time element to a to-do list that makes it impossible to ignore tasks.

With timeboxing, each item on your to-do list is assigned an amount of time and a slot in your calendar. Larger, months-long projects are broken into smaller goals and deadlines, with the same end result: a dedicated time frame for tasks.

Timebox Your Calendar
Step 1: Make a list of your tasks for the day/week/month

Have a months-long project? Break it down into weeks, and then break those into days. Have specific deadlines? Assign your projects with enough buffer to both complete and then review before deadline.

Your tasks can be anything – work, personal, fitness – anything you want to make sure you’re doing.

If you’re having trouble with a constantly full phone, schedule 15 min/day to sort, upload and remove old photos. 

If you’re not getting enough steps, make sure you get 30 min in the morning and at night.

Want to read more? That can go into your timeblock management system as well.

Work backwards: Look at everything you want to do for the week, and make a list.

Step 2: Assign a timebox to each task

**Include breaks! You are human. You need breaks. If you don’t schedule them, you will still take them (or you will burn out) and the system will be screwed up.

Your timebox block includes the amount of time a task will take, and the time of day you will tackle it. So if you have a project due at the end of the week that you estimate will take 6 hours, think about how you want to split it up.

6 hours is a LONG time to devote to a task. Breaking it into 1 or 2 hour blocks might be a good option. If it’s a task that builds on itself or has a certain flow to it, you can put these slots back to back with a break. 

If it’s a 6 hour task but not so flow-y, you can break it up throughout your week. 

As you continue with timeboxing, you’ll start to get a sense of what your time estimates should be. 

Step 3: SET A TIMER

Set it! Set a timer or an alarm – do not skip this step. In order for timeboxing to work, you need to stay within your pre-set structure.

Your alarm keeps you from going overtime. This gives you a sense of pressure (it’s amazing how fast we can work in a short amount of time), and it also keeps you from taking away time from your next timebox – even if a break is next. There’s a reason you’ve scheduled a break.

Step 4: How’d it go? Adjust as necessary

Don’t forget to check in with yourself. Estimating task times and setting up a break schedule can be tricky. 

At the end of your task – or day, or week – take a look at how much you accomplished and make adjustments as necessary. 

Did you end up with a lot of free time? Cool, figure out what you want to do with that. (Life hack: You can just … leave it as free time!).

Did you end up not finishing your tasks? Cool – add more time to them or rethink your approach.

Step 5: Breathe

It’s okay if you aren’t perfect at timeboxing. And you don’t need to timebox your *entire* life – you can timebox any chunk of your day. 8 hours might be a good place to start, but you can start with any amount.

Timeboxing Tips:

Stick to your timeboxes! 

If you skip one, you’ll have to take time from somewhere else.

Remember: you should create timeboxes that account for extra co-worker communication, breaks, medical visits, etc. These shouldn’t surprise and derail your day.

Have fun! Really – timeboxing will free up your time and allow you to enjoy your down time more without nagging thoughts about all the stuff you need to do.

Digital Timeboxing Planning with the Zinnia App

Timeboxing with a digital planner is essentially the same as timeboxing with a paper one – except it’s a little more forgiving if you have to make changes. (Hello instant undo!)

The Zinnia Planner and Journal App has:
  • An artist toolkit that makes it easy to highlight, underline, and color code your timeboxes. 
  • Calendar templates that are easy to manipulate
  • Tools for cropping, flipping and editing your Timebox spread
  • A Studio full of digital content to decorate and personalize your Timebox Calendar