Using time boxing to supercharge your productivity

How easy is it to get to the end of the day or week and find that you haven’t spent anywhere near as much time as you’d hoped to on those important projects?

When you’re a business owner, getting more time in your day is like the holy grail. If you have more time, you can move your business forward and set yourself up for even more business success – which is the dream! 

One of the best ways to give yourself more time in your day is to ensure you are maximising each hour, prioritising your most essential tasks, and scheduling those in your calendar effectively. 

So, how do you do that? We’re sharing our top tips for time boxing so you can battle away your to-do list and come out on top. 

What is time boxing?

There are a multitude of time management techniques out there. You might have heard of time blocking already… well, time boxing is another variation of this. It’s a method where you allocate a fixed maximum time (a box) to work on a specific task and then stop working on it when time is up, regardless of whether the task is complete.

Rather than following a to-do list from a notepad or a separate task management platform, time boxing simply means you put tasks directly into your calendar, allocating an appropriate and realistic period to completing or making a good chunk of progress for each of them.

We also like to think of it as boxing your way through your tasks and going all-in until the ringer goes off. 

Benefits of using the time boxing technique

Time boxing allows you to plan, prioritise, and focus on the right work. Instead of sitting at your desk every morning and wondering where to start, your day can be clearly laid out to address your priorities and ensure you complete not only routine, must-do tasks, but that you also work on projects critical to strategic growth.

This leads to: 

• Increased concentration 
• Enhanced productivity 
• Better time management 
• Enhanced quality of work 
• Reduced procrastination 
• Better workload balance 
• Improved prioritisation 
• More deep focus time 
• Well-planned breaks 
• Reduced stress 

Which ultimately leads to a more successful business and a more enjoyable, productive working day for you. It’s a win-win. 

“Show me your calendar, and you show me your priorities”

This quote by Kevin Kelly perfectly sums up why time boxing is such a useful tool to implement in your business. If your calendar doesn’t have growth tasks as a priority, they aren’t getting done. 

By using the time boxing technique, you will very clearly be able to see where you’ve spent your time and what your priorities are. Now, let’s go into how to start boxing your time…

How to implement time boxing into your calendar 

To start using this method quickly, we recommend you use a tool that’s easy to access anywhere, such as Google Calendar. But if you have a calendar tool you already use, even if it’s paper to start with, don’t let that stop you. 

Here are 7 top tips to get you started with time boxing:

1.    Get clear on your priorities 

You need to know where you should be spending most of your time to drive growth in your business, working out what will have the most impact. That might be splitting your week between high-level client work and business development. It could be passing on all client work to team members and focusing solely on brand-building activities. 

Whatever is important to your business, you can’t start time boxing without first identifying your priorities. This ensures you’re making progress in critical areas and splitting your week accordingly. Once you’re clear on your priorities, you can start building out your calendar and heading towards the business you desire. 

2.   Colour-code your time boxing system 

Before you start adding things to your calendar, decide on your personal colour-coding system and make note of each category – it will make the next steps easier. No, this isn’t just so it looks pretty… Colour-coding to your calendar is a great way to add a visual element to your schedule. By assigning different colours to different types of tasks, at a quick glance you can see what’s on your schedule for the day and week ahead. 

You can set business growth tasks to green, client work in yellow, personal commitments and breaks in blue, team meetings in red, and so on… This makes it clear to see where you’re spending most of your time, and where your priorities might need to shift. 

For example, if you have too much yellow in your diary where it should be green, you then know you need to identify tasks to pass over to others in your company or even start delegating to a VA.

3.    Add regular commitments to your calendar

In reality, your diary is already pretty full. But let’s imagine you’re starting with a blank canvas and laying the time boxing foundations. The first thing you should put into your schedule is your regular, non-negotiable commitments that must happen on a weekly or daily basis, such as:

• Family responsibilities 
• Personal appointments 
• Hobbies or exercise 
• Walking the dog 
• Lunch breaks 
• Travel time 

Set these tasks to automatically recur in your chosen calendar tool, so you don’t have to think about them each week. Don’t forget to add ‘buffer time’ to these things. For example, if you have a personal appointment at 10am, you need to allow some time afterwards in case of any delays.

As we’ve already addressed, you might have a jam-packed calendar already, so it might be best that you start with small steps and make adjustments over time. You could review your calendar for the next week or month and gradually try this new way of working.

4.    Add routine work into your calendar 

Next you need to add in anything work-related that needs to happen regularly. This could be team meetings, operational activities, or completing client work. Tracking your time is an effective way to understand how long these tasks usually take. 

Try to be realistic about the time you need for anything you add and remember the rule of Parkinson’s Law – work will always expand to fill the time allotted for its completion. So, be realistic but not too generous with the time box you allow for each activity. 

Another consideration is adding time boxes to your working day that suit your energy levels and work style. If you’re an early bird and want to feel like you’ve made a dent in your progress before the hustle of the day starts, you might want to schedule an hour each morning. 

For example, you might want all of your meetings in one day. Or you might like to dedicate time for your emails at the start of the day so you can handle any quick wins, delegate where appropriate, or schedule time for tasks that need to be dealt with. Work out what you prefer – you’re in control of your schedule. 

5.    Prioritise deep working time 

Now you have this outline schedule mapped out, you can easily spot where the gaps are. These gaps are your focused working time on your most important tasks. You should prioritise deep work into your schedule at times that you feel you’d be most productive, such as in the mornings if that’s when you feel more alert. 

If you get to this point and there aren’t any gaps in your schedule, you need to stop and revisit those regular commitments and start delegating more of your responsibilities to either a VA or by hiring new team members. 

If you don’t make time for deep work, you aren’t spending your time in the right way, and you won’t be able to drive real growth for your business. Start adding clear boxes of time into your calendar by starting with your top, most important priorities. Be specific about what you are going to achieve in each slot, so you aren’t deciding on the day and wasting precious time. 

6.    Allow for flexibility in your schedule 

Now, of course, this is a simplified version of what the week often looks like, and there needs to be a degree of flexibility because urgent things can – and do – crop up. But the good thing about this system is that you have room to move things around and adapt the schedule as needed.

For example, you can simply drag things around to accommodate your needs. You might look at the weather forecast and decide to go for a walk over lunch because it’s going to pour with rain later in the day. 

If you’re planning to take holiday leave, you might need to factor in creating more content so there’s not a gap in your marketing. Or there could be an event you want to attend, so your schedule will adapt to fit this in.

Whatever pops up, always be mindful that your business growth time isn’t constantly getting eaten up… that’s a surefire way to hold your business progress back. 

7.    Review and revise regularly 

So you can look back on and improve your schedule for the future, you should also update your calendar retrospectively. For example, if your time does get eaten up by something unexpected, adjust your diary so you can see what it was and how it impacted your productivity. That way, it will be a true reflection of what has actually happened during the day.

Remember, it’s your schedule and it should suit you… so figure out what works best and reflect that in your calendar. As you become accustomed to working in this way, you’ll get better at estimating how long tasks take and at what times of the day you produce your best work.

Start time boxing your way to maximum business productivity 

By integrating time boxing, you can create a balanced and highly productive schedule that helps you manage your time effectively and accomplish your goals faster. Time boxing has been a game-changer for our business so we hope it is for you, too.

Here’s a quick re-cap on getting started with time boxing and supercharging your productivity: 

• Get clear on your priorities and business goals 
• Create a colour-coded key for different task categories 
• Schedule routine commitments and tasks – both personal and work
• Protect your time for deep work and make it a priority in your calendar
• Keep things flexible and allow buffer time for unexpected situations   
• Regularly review and revise so it continues to work for you 

Above all, make sure your diary is working for you and you don’t become a slave to back-to-back meetings or operational tasks, ending the week frustrated at not dedicating enough time to high-value activities. 

If you need help managing your time and improving productivity, get in touch. We can help to organise your tasks and support you to make the most out of your working day so you can grow the business faster.