Chunking your time takes a true commitment from you and will take time to create as a new habit, but it’s well worth doing. Working in blocks of time can add value and will increase your productivity. Here are a few quick tips on chunking your time:
- Set a specific time for every day task like email and phone calls. Choose a particular time of day to read and reply to email and to make phone calls. When it comes to email,don’t check it as soon as you hit the door. Instead work on a top priority task and then check your email 1.5-2 hours into your day. You might want to set two different times during the day to check email. No matter what we do, there has to be time for phone calls, so set a specific time to make and return calls. A good time to do this is after you’ve devoted a good amount of time to your priority tasks.
- When you plan your day, allocate specific blocks of time (from 1-3 hours) to work on specific tasks. For instance, I set a block of time each week to create upcoming blog posts.
- Once you have the blocks of time in your calendar, see those blocks of time as appointments to complete the particular tasks that you’ve scheduled in those slots. At the end of each segment, move on to the next task.
Organizing your day in blocks of time can help you accomplish your top priority items each day and over time will increase your productivity. You could easily be getting twice as much done in no time if you schedule your chunks of time and then stick to it!