The IEP Learning Academy Podcast

The Value of Timeboxing

Brought to you by Assemble You.

It's time to work on YOU. So sit back and listen to practical,
actionable advice to accelerate your progress.

In this track, we’ll cover:
● The definition of timeboxing
● The main advantages of timeboxing
● Practical guidance for how to implement timeboxing

To paraphrase Francesco Cirillo, founder of the Pomodoro Technique, for those of us
trying to be more productive in our daily lives, time is the enemy F1G. When faced with
an overwhelming number of projects, deadlines, and ideas, it can often seem
impossible to find enough hours in the day to complete everything. Today we will be
looking at the timeboxing method of time management and the ways it could help you
to become a more productive and creative person.

To those of you who already use to-do lists, this idea might sound familiar. Timeboxing
is, simply put, a calendar-based to-do list in which each project you are working on at
a given moment is allocated a specific time slot[ 2G. Rather than spreading a task
throughout the day and letting your productivity be interrupted by meetings, social
media, dog walking, and tasks – timeboxing involves condensing all the time you'd
spend on the task into one "box". This allows you to focus solely on one problem at a
time. Unlike techniques such as time blocking, where you're trying to find time for
everything on your agenda, timeboxing is designed to constrain the amount of time
you can dedicate to a specific task. This prevents you from getting distracted by
irrelevant details or competing tasks. Frequent interruptions have been proven to
impact our productivity and happiness levels F3G, so finding a method that resolves
these issues is really meaningful.

Let’s look at an example of timeboxing. If you want to spend your afternoon tidying
your desk but also have an assignment due in a few days, you can split the time you
have between the two tasks based on their priorities: spend three hours on the
assignment and the second that allotted time is up, move onto the tidying for thirty
minutes. When those thirty minutes are over, move on to the next task, and so on. That
way, you'll be less likely to get bogged down by over-researching for your assignment
or spending too much time finding the right furniture polish for your desk. Committing
an infinite amount of time to something may mean our work expands to fill the space
and projects never truly feel complete. Or they simply feel slow, stagnant, and
uninspiring. Plus, we may fall into the trap of boasting about how hard we’ve worked
when in reality, we’ve just inexplicably dragged out a task and worked inefficiently.

The two main advantages of the timeboxing technique are prioritisation and urgency.
Timeboxing allows you to look over all of the tasks in your agenda in context – you
know that tidying your desk is important, but you also know you've got a deadline
coming up that both takes priority and is a more complex task. Therefore, you can put
adequate time into the assignment while also getting the little things done. Compare
this to the most common form of time management, the to-do list. The contrasts
between timeboxing and to-do lists are clear and act as a solid case for the former.
Marc Zao-Sanders, a proponent of using timeboxing to increase productivity levels,
says of to-do lists F3G

First, they overwhelm us with too many choices. Second, we are naturally drawn to
simpler tasks which are more easily accomplished. Third, we are rarely drawn to
important-but-not-urgent tasks, like setting aside time for learning F4G. Fourth, to-do
lists on their own lack the essential context of what time you have available. Fifth, they
lack a commitment device, to keep us honest.

When your list consists of tasks with different levels of priority and complexity, you're
more likely to prioritise the difficult tasks and forget about the easy or low-priority
tasks. Do that often, and you're just making more problems for yourself further down
the line F5G.

Furthermore, because each timebox has a set time limit, you'll be more likely to find
yourself wanting to get more done in your allotted time. If you have thirty minutes to
tidy your desk, for instance, you won't waste twenty of those minutes making sure
your pens are arranged by colour. According to Gina Trapani and Adam Pash in their
book Lifehacker: The Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, and Better:
Lots of people work better under pressure because the limitation puts their brains into
overdrive and forces them to think quickly and creatively about the best way to spend
that little time they have. It makes you race to an imaginary finish line and gets you
there more efficiently than if you had all the time in the world.

This has practical applications as well as creative ones. Because each project has a
fixed time limit, you're more likely to keep a project as streamlined as possible. As with
the desk tidying example earlier, if you know you only have one week to work on a
project, you won't want to complicate it with unnecessary add-ons. This is an
absolutely vital skill when ensuring that your project is delivered both on time and to
scope. In a professional context, this could even save you money. Most work projects
involve a trade-off between time, cost, and scope. A smaller scope means less wasted
time, and as the adage goes: time is money.

Another advantage of timeboxing compared to other time management techniques is
how visual it is. To-do lists can quickly become intimidating and unreadable when
there's a lot on our plates. Timeboxes are much more visually appealing, breaking your
day into neat chunks that can be intuitively read and understood on the go. It becomes
less about knowing what to do first and more about where to put something in your
schedule. In this way, timeboxing is perfect for fans of the video game Tetris.

This leads nicely to the main benefit of timeboxing: the sense of control it offers. As
mentioned earlier, to-do lists and overstuffed calendars can be overwhelming, and
when we're overwhelmed, we can become paralysed. We might begin to procrastinate
F6G, ignoring our responsibilities rather than dealing with them. Organising your day
into timeboxes provides a simple, easily accessible schedule to work from, so you feel
much more in control of the work you have left to do. A glance at a timeboxed calendar
tells you everything you need to know to get your work done and exactly how long it
takes to do it. Not only does timeboxing act as a visual guide to the week ahead, “it
gives you a comprehensive record of what you’ve done”F3G previously. As Marc
Zao-Sanders examines, a timeboxing calendar can be a great resource for seeing what
you’ve achieved over the past weeks and months. It displays your biggest victories
and the time and dedication you’ve put into them.

Timeboxing also synchronises well with other time management systems. If the
timeboxing system sounds familiar, it might be because of its resemblance to the
Pomodoro Method, which we mentioned earlier. The Pomodoro Method is a sort of
early version of timeboxing: simply pick a task, set a 25-minute timer and spend that
full time working on your one chosen task without distractions. Once the timer goes
off, you take a five-minute break before setting another timer and continuing the
process again F7G. The advantage of the timeboxing system over the Pomodoro
Method is that it's much more flexible: Whereas the Pomodoro Method breaks your
day down into rigid 30-minute chunks, timeboxing allows you to customise your time
management to the task at hand. You will need more than 25 minutes to complete a
complex programming job, so setting such a narrow timeframe is unfeasible. However,
by applying the same mindset (work for a set amount of time, break for a set amount
of time), you will be able to manage every facet of your day easily.

Of course, timeboxing isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. There are some instances
where setting a fixed period to accomplish something may cause you to cut corners,
reducing the overall quality of your work. If you see that you only have twenty minutes
left to complete a task that is 90% complete, the temptation will be to rush to get
everything finished, leading to the last 10% of the project coming out sloppy and
mismanaged. This can obviously be avoided through a degree of self-discipline, but if
you're planning on using the timeboxing method with another person, it might be worth
letting them know up front that if they want something done within a narrow time
frame, they may have to compromise on certain features.

Similarly, timeboxing might not work for you if you find yourself easily demoralised or
stressed by unfinished tasks. It is always possible that you come to the end of your
allotted task with some work outstanding: this is natural, especially if this is your first
time trying to timebox your schedule. If this does become a problem, it might be worth
taking some time at the end of the work day to go over any unfinished tasks, working
out how much time it would take to wrap up any loose ends the following day.
Timeboxing is far from rigid, and it might take a few weeks of consistent change and
adjustment to get the balance right.

So to recap, the timeboxing method works by streamlining your work into set
timeframes that you then plan your day around. Unlike to-do lists and time blocking,
timeboxing allows you to plan your workload in the context of the other work you have
to do, letting you properly prioritise tasks while ensuring that everything – big and
small – gets done.

If this sounds like the method for you, we've provided some further reading that you
can use to make your timeboxing technique fit your specific workload. Why not try to
timebox the rest of your day today? What tasks do you have left to do? How long will it
take to complete each task without any distractions or unnecessary work?
That's all for today. Thanks for listening, and keep striving to be your best self.