You don’t have to investigate the whole issue of time management for long to come across the idea of calendar blocking. Or even just the idea that your calendar is actually the most important tool in your productivity arsenal. Recently, I have been looking into this whole issue in more depth and it has left me with some calendar blocking conundrums! What I mean is that some of the key advice I have picked up about how to use your calendar well to drive productivity, actually conflicts with other key nuggets of wisdom on this issue. It’s not just different, it is completely the opposite. Hence calendar blocking conundrums!
So, I thought I would outline this conflicting advice and then let you know what my approach is, at least for now, as a bit of a n00b in this whole area. Here is how I am navigating these choppy waters.
Give every minute a job OR leave blank space
Cal Newport is one of the biggest voices in calendar blocking or time blocking right now. His position is clear – you need to have a time block plan that covers your whole day. In fact, his very definition of this is “give every minute a job to do”. So, from Cal’s point of view, when it comes to time block planning, every slot on your calendar needs to be blocked off for something.
I’ve seen a few other proponents of time blocking that are equally clear that the key to success here is to leave blank space on your calendar and have some slots each day that are not planned. Most recently, in this video by Mariana Viera. Exactly the opposite of what Cal Newport would say.
Honestly, I think this one comes down a little to personality type. I would find it quite stressful to have no unplanned time in my day. Others need to have a clear plan to follow minute by minute. I’ll mention this again, but I tend follow a practice of having a rough plan for key things and then I will list out an agenda of what to work on, in order, to keep me moving through the day. You can do this in a ToDo list but a lot of my tasks are smaller, quicker ones so it’s too onerous to plan them out individually.
Use you calendar to manage your time & tasks OR use one specific tool for each
A lot of apps are moving towards being all-in-one for this purpose. Time Blocking works well when you can drag your tasks onto your calendar and so plan your day. Therefore, your calendar becomes your task manager. The list of apps that now allow you to do this is growing. To name a few – TickTick, ToDoist, ClickUp, Notion (with Notion Calendar), Morgen and many more. The advice I have watched that first introduced me to this idea was from Scott Friesen at Simpletivity. He uses Google Tasks and Google Calendar to map his tasks to specific time slots and is quite vocal that your calendar is the best task manager.
Enter Carl Pullein. One app for one job. Hard lines between them. Carl is very clear that you should not put tasks on your calendar. Your calendar is for managing time and events, not tasks. That is what a task manager is for.
An app that solved this but then vanished!
In terms of navigating this with an app, there used to be an app called Friday that was perfect. You could block out a time block on your calendar and then allocate several tasks to that time block. The tasks weren’t directly on your calendar and they weren’t given individual slots. Instead, you could allocate a longer time slot and call it whatever your wanted (Focus Time, Writing Time, Quick Wins – whatever) and then inside that would be a list of tasks to tackle. Sadly, this app no longer exists. Annoying!
I have a threshold. I will not put most tasks on my calendar. But, if I have a task that I know is going to take me a longer time (1 hour plus) to complete, and I know I need to protect time to complete it, these tasks might get a specific slot allocated on my calendar.
Plan general time slots on calendar (with specific tasks elsewhere) OR Use specific tasks in your calendar blocks
i.e. Use fewer longer blocks OR many shorter blocks
This kind of follows on from the above. In Carl Pullein’s videos on time blocking, or his version of it, he will allocate time slots to types of work that he has. So, in the videos you will see time blocks called ‘Writing’ or ‘Admin’. In his task manager then he has labels for ‘Writing’ and ‘Admin’. The calendar tells him the area or type of work and the task manager then gives him the specifics.
In the video linked above (specific timestamp is here), Mariana Viera says the exact opposite. You should not use abstract or vague ‘catch all’ terms for your time blocks but actually get specific, setting your time block to detail the actual task you intend to work on. The exact opposite.
Generally speaking, I agree with Carl here. As above, some bigger tasks will get a specific time slot on my calendar but most will not. I will elaborate further in the next point as it overlaps in how I have done things.
Use your calendar as the main planner for your day OR only put on your calendar the things that must/will happen
This again pits most time block planners against Carl Pullein. Though, I suspect time block planners would not like me saying that and I have noticed Carl seems to be using a slightly different approach now. On the one hand, you only use the your calendar for things that absolutely must happen. These would be meetings, events or scheduled focus work. The rule is, what goes on your calendar gets done. Therefore, you never put something on your calendar that you might need to deviate from (understanding that a crisis might change even your most definite plans). Others, use their calendar as their main planner for the day, allocating tasks, time blocks and all manner of things. The calendar sets your hoped for plan and is not necessarily a definite thing.
I created a separate calendar, just called ‘Plan’. It is light grey. This is where I plan out how I will use my time but it is not one of my definite, actual calendars. I know that things on this calendar are hopes and intentions but they are not 100% definite commitments. It allows me to use the power of a calendar to plan my time, without cluttering up my calendars that show my fixed commitments. I can hide this plan for most of the day and only reference it when I need it. More recently, I have, as I said, just been writing out an agenda for the day rather than putting it on a calendar.
Use AI to find the best plan for the day OR avoid using AI for planning your day at all costs
What is most interesting about this one – I haven’t actually come across anyone who actually advocates using AI to plan your day. All I have seen are adverts for Motion, which is an app that uses AI to plan your day. It won’t surprise therefore that these adverts showcase the power of AI in planning the perfect day and the devastation that happens when you try to do it yourself.
On the flip side, I have watched and read content from people saying exactly the opposite. All AI is really doing is using an algorithm to map tasks to time slots using the information provided. That information will be task deadlines, fixed meetings on your calendar and the length of time you estimate something will take. It’s really then just a computer run game of Tetris with your time.
But, the critics cry, AI is basing its decision on a very limited set of factors. And, at present, a whole load of other, more important factors are totally beyond its grasp. Things like mood, energy, how well you slept, if you are fully well or unwell, if the meeting you had is one you can subtly play Galaga through or if it is the most taxing thing to happen this month. AI does not know this so trusting our planning to AI is foolhardy.
How do I navigate this. I do not and will not use AI to plan my time.
Navigating Calendar Blocking Conundrums
So, all of that conflicting advice leaves some calendar blocking conundrums! I navigate them by listening to the advice that seems to work for me and not listening to things that will not. And that is what you should do as well dear reader.
The aim is that you are more productive and more effective with the resources available, especially your time. It is not that you follow one system or another perfectly. Maybe you find it hard to take a different approach as that would mean you are not a time blocking purist anymore. No one is going to give you any awards or prizes for the way in which you manage your tasks and time (unless perhaps you are a productivity content creator!).
All that matters for most of us, is that the way we do it enables us to get our work done. That’s how you navigate you the calendar blocking conundrums. You consider the actual aim of any productivity system and make sure whatever your do, it serves that aim.
