Instead of looking for ways to increase the number of working hours in a day, what we should be doing is looking for ways to make better use of our time.
According to a small experiment conducted by Steve Glaveski, author and founder of Collective Campus, switching to a six-hour workday increased the productivity of his team. Not only did they prioritize their work more effectively, but they also began to operate at a much more deliberate level.
This is the logic behind the timeboxing method, a technique that promises to increase productivity and make you more effective. It’s based on the logic that time constraints and defined goals help us act with intent and complete work faster. In this blog article, we explain what timeboxing is, and give you a step-by-step guide on how to use it as a time management technique.
What Is Timeboxing?
Timeboxing is one of the simplest time management techniques. It involves setting a fixed period in your calendar to complete a task in its entirety. You can also think of it as an intentional task meeting. One that you book with yourself, where you give your undivided attention to a task that will result in an actual deliverable or output.
It’s a top-notch method that can help resolve three key productivity, and time management pain points for professionals:
- Perfectionism – If you’re one of those people who keeps dragging out a task to unrealistic levels of perfection, timeboxing helps you set boundaries and constraints with start, and finish times. Because you know you need to have a finished product by the time the timebox expires, you won’t keep at the task for days on end.
- Procrastination – On the other hand, if you’re the avoiding type, setting a timebox will not only help you get started on a task (the hardest part for a procrastinator), but it will also push you to finish it in a reasonable amount of time.
- Deadline management – For anyone whose work involves deadlines, timeboxing can help you organize your day, or week, in line with due dates so you are never late with deliverables.
One of the most important elements of this technique is blocking out the timebox in your calendar or diary. That way, you prevent yourself, and other people from hijacking precious productive hours in your workday with busy work and random tasks, which are not a priority in the big scheme of things.
Types of Timeboxing
There are two types of timeboxes. You can choose to use and alternate between the two as you please, based on the type of work you have to deliver, or your personal preference and working style.
1. Hard timeboxes – These are strict time slots you set for a particular task, where you start, and stop working, exactly when the time ends. When you apply hard timeboxing, chances are you’ll do your best to focus 100% on the task because you know it must be finished when the buzzer goes off. This kind of timeslot is great for tasks you find yourself doing to no end, like responding to emails.
2. Soft timeboxes – These are more flexible time slots. Even though you’ve set a start and finish time, if you find you’re almost finished when the timer goes off, you might stay on the task for another 15-30 minutes to finish it.
This kind of timebox works best for people who don’t do well under pressure. It still gives you a good work structure but doesn’t up your stress levels.
If you do decide to use this type, make sure you leave yourself an appropriate buffer in the calendar after each task that will let you keep working even after the timebox is up.
4 Steps For Timeboxing
To use timeboxing as a time management and productivity technique, you’ll need to take four steps. As we go through each step, we also share some tips on how ActiveCollab, our work and task management platform lets you organize and manage your timeboxed tasks.
1. Choose Your Timeboxing Tasks
The first step is to choose the tasks you want to timebox. Now, you might not want to use this method for all the tasks in your to-do list. There are about a dozen different time management techniques you could mix and match to different tasks, based on which you feel is the best fit for you. But for now, let’s go through some types of tasks that timeboxing can work wonders for:
- Endless tasks – These tend to be busy tasks like responding to emails, or social media management. You could spend all day on them if you don’t set some limits.
- Priority tasks – Most of us know what the top three priority tasks in our to-do list are, but many of us forgo and delay them because they feel too overwhelming or challenging. If you need help landing the order in which your tasks should be completed, check out our guide on how to prioritize tasks.
- Meeting & brainstorming sessions – If you find your team meetings and brainstorming sessions go way beyond booked times, timeboxing can help everyone stay focused, and finish on time so everyone leaves with concrete actions or takeaways.
ActiveCollab Tip: In ActiveCollab, you can create a separate project for your entire to-do list, or divide them across your client projects. Once you add a task, you can set due dates, and time durations, and use customizable labels to organize and prioritize your tasks in seconds.
This will let you visualize all the work that needs to be done, and make it easier to track tasks to completion. Here’s what a content marketer’s do-to list might look like:
2. Identify Exactly What You Want To Accomplish
The next step is to identify and define exactly what you want to accomplish in the timebox you’ll set for each task. Now this is a vital step in this method. If your task is responding to emails, you need to be concise about how many emails you will action. If it’s social media management, you need to state how many posts you’ll create and publish.
The amount of output needs to be matched to the time you allocate. Let’s take a look at how you might do this for a few examples:
- Responding to emails – Because emails can be a never-ending job, you might set a timebox goal of responding to 4-5 emails in 30 minutes.
- Social media posts – If you know one social media post will take 15-20 minutes to create, then it would be unreasonable to expect six posts in a one-hour timebox.
- Writing a 2000-word blog post – This is a large and challenging task that requires deep work and multiple timeboxes. If you estimate that it takes you 90 minutes to write approximately 400 words, you know you’ll need to divide this task into five, 90-minute timeboxes, which you might spread across a few days.
3. Assign & Schedule A Timebox For Each Task
Step three is to assign and schedule the task timebox in your calendar. Here, you have to consider the amount of time you have at your disposal. This means checking your calendar to see what your capacity is for the day or week.
Some best practices for scheduling your timebox tasks include:
- Find the best time slot – You know when you deliver your best work. Take advantage of your peak focus hours, and prioritize difficult tasks to be completed in these time slots. Similarly, if your focus drops in the late afternoon, use this part of the day to timebox tasks that don’t require too much brain power, like administrative tasks.
- Make room in your calendar – If you have lots of meetings, go through them either at the beginning of the week, or a day ahead, and see if you can remove yourself from the invite list if you don’t have to attend. This will help free up room in your diary to use for time-boxed tasks.
- Maximum 2-hour timebox – Keep in mind that you don’t want to push yourself too hard. One way to avoid task burnout is to limit each timebox to no longer than two hours, after which you take a break. This is the suggested maximum period for timeboxing. Anything above this might stretch your effectiveness, and may even cause you to stall productivity.
4. Do The Tasks With Zero Interruptions
The fourth step is the hardest part of the timeboxing method. Sticking to doing your task without interruptions for the entire period. But don’t worry, we got you covered. Here are a couple of tips and tricks you can try to give yourself the best chance of success:
1. Switch off & remove external distractions – Everything in the physical world that can interrupt your focus should be eliminated, switched off, or removed. This means putting your phone on silent and placing it out of your hand’s reach.
It could also mean grabbing your headphones and neutralizing external noise with music that helps you concentrate and get in the zone.
2. Manage internal distractions – But what about your wandering mind? That right there is an endless pit of distractions.
From what you’re going to have for lunch, to wondering where your next holiday should be. The secret to this problem lies in mindset. Before you start your task, try to get into the right mindset.
Tell yourself this is something you only have to focus on for this short period.
Practice discipline.
Every time your mind starts to drift, pull it back into line.
Pros & Cons Of The Timeboxing Method
Nobody and no method is perfect. That’s why, before you apply any time management technique like time boxing, you should be across the pros and cons.
Here are a few to keep in mind.
Perks of timeboxing:
- Works for any type of task – The beauty of this method is that you can use it for any type of task. If you wanted to, you could apply it to your entire to-do list and it promises to deliver results (if you respect the rules!).
- Gives your day structure – By scheduling your tasks into set calendar timeslots regularly, you can get into the habit of creating a structure in your workday, one that’s easy to follow, and doesn’t require too much preparation time.
- Individual customization – Unlike some other time management techniques (like Eat The Frog), timeboxing is flexible in the sense that you choose when, and how long you work on each task. You can also experiment with what timebox length works best for you.
- Helps to minimize distractions – If you practice using a timer, and respect the rules of step 4 where you give it your best to prevent distractions and interruptions, you can squeeze out all the focus power you have within you for the set timebox.
- Focus on time limits & deliverables – Because the method combines a time limit and a defined deliverable, you almost guarantee a deliverable of acceptable quality.
Drawbacks of timeboxing:
- Feeling pressured to finish – One of the biggest issues that can bother and frustrate people with this method is the feeling of pressure to finish on time. On the other hand, for some people, that might be its greatest advantage.
- 2-hour timebox cap – If you’re more of a day-theming (another time-blocking method) kind of person, where you like to get one big task, and do just that for the entire day, time-boxing may feel too restrictive with its 2-hour cap.
- Rigid setup kills creative flow – For creative tasks and professions, timeboxing can be too rigid. Therefore, the advice here is to choose wisely. Not every task should be a timebox task!
Another drawback would be the risk of low-quality work – The other thing you might find is you end up with low-quality work because you are so focused on finishing on time.
There is a workaround for this: if you allocate a reasonable amount of time to the task, or spread it across several timeboxes, it shouldn’t impact the quality of your final output.
But how do you know how much time a task will actually take?
ActiveCollab users who use the time tracker can access historical data on how long they spent on individual tasks so their time estimates become more accurate.
Use ActiveCollab & Timeboxing For Better Time Management
Timeboxing is one of many time management techniques people turn to in the hope of increasing productivity and work effectiveness. It might not suit every individual and task, but it’s a method worth trying out if procrastination and perfectionism are at the top of your list of personal blockers.
As a task and work management tool, ActiveCollab gives you, and your entire team a platform that not only lets you organize and schedule your to-do list, but also manages time better, and streamlines all your workflows.
The standout features you’ll love in ActiveCollab are our time tracking tool and historical data and reports you can generate, giving you valuable insights into how many hours are being used up on individual tasks and projects. That’s a wealth of information you can use to make better resourcing, scheduling, and time management decisions.
But who is ActiveCollab truly made for?
Gradually, we’ve evolved to become a client management productivity tool whose customer base spans marketing, digital and creative agencies, consultancies, and startups. We’ve constructed a platform that centralizes all the features and functions these types of businesses need, and depend on to run their day-to-day operations.
But don’t take our word for it. Test is out for yourself. Sign up for our 14-day free trial or book a demo with one of our people.
